The independent agency system used by most insurance carriers has been a successful means for insurers to distribute policies, but agents and their representatives indicate things could be better if carriers would recognize agents typically work with multiple insurance companies. Agents believe the key to maintaining those multiple relationships lies with the carriers' willingness to allow agents real-time access to every carrier's Web site.

Jeff Yates, executive director of the Agents Council on Technology (ACT, part of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America), claims the dominant message he hears from agents is their frustration with having to rate a policy on multiple carrier Web sites. "It's not efficient," says Yates. "It reminds [agents] of the old days when they had separate PC terminals for every one of the companies they represented. A lot of agents are saying we're going back to those days."

Yates doesn't want to paint a bleak picture, though. "There is a lot of activity happening, and I think the efforts of companies to have real-time rating available through comparative raters and agency management systems are accelerating rapidly," he says. "Agents have reached the point where they're going to understand the need to jump on board themselves."

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