NU Online News Service, May 10, 12:37 p.m. EDT

Insurance company executives and independent agents disagree over just how easy insurers are making it to do business with them--an area of opportunity for carriers to expand their business, a survey suggests.

The "2010 Making Business Easier, Executive Report"--sponsored jointly by the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies and Deep Customer Connections--surveyed 168 property and casualty insurance carrier executives about their perception of how their business and the industry are making business easier (MBE) for agents.

"Since 2003, we've surveyed over 40,000 independent agents and brokers," said Nort Salz, president of Deep Customer Connections, in a statement. "And from all these data points, we've learned the following: 99 percent of research participants agree that ease of writing with a carrier is critical to their choice of which carrier they place business with." He noted that the challenge is identifying "what specifically makes it easier and implementing actionable next steps, and we offer recommendations for carriers in this report on how to do just that."

The survey found that while 98 percent of carrier executives say that making business easier (MBE) is "a critical part of their corporate strategy," except for information technology, there appears to be little need for change in their corporations.

However, this stands in stark contrast to the data compiled from independent agents indicating that carriers need to make improvements in a host of areas.

In a rating index of six different business factors, executives gave themselves much higher marks than agents for their company's underwriting response, underwriting flexibility, agency needs, claims handling promptness and fairness.

Only in the area of technology did agents and executives place the same importance on the need for improvement in the industry.

The report indicates that many executives are satisfied that their businesses do not need to make significant improvements in the area of MBE, opening up competitive opportunities for those that take a more critical view and seek improvement.

The report recommends carriers set goals for MBE improvement "in a clear and detailed way" to determine what they want to accomplish. Those goals can include staff spending more time with agents to understand their underwriting needs or granting agents greater authority to field personnel or agents.

Companies also need to establish metrics in order to understand progress and success, which could include time spent meeting agents or discussion of successful business arrangements, the report said.

The full report is available through Deep Customer Connections for $199 from the Acton, Mass.-based consulting firm at http://tinyurl.com/29fdk3z.

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