How do analysts perceive what carriers are doing to help independent agents thrive from a technology perspective?

Whether it's ease of doing business, integration of mobile technologies, or seizing social networking opportunities, there are lots of things that carriers can do to support agents and give them the technology tools they need to not only survive, but thrive.

We asked several tech consultants and experts about the things carriers can do to help independent agents succeed while also noting the friction points that exist between carriers and independent agents. We also share a how-to success story from Grange Insurance on the the things they are doing to make themselves attractive to agents.

Check out the stories below.

Pricing Remains Tops for Producers

Independent insurance agents want what every consumer wants these days—one stop shopping. When agents have issues, they don’t want to call 10 different people in the carrier’s organization to get the issue resolved, explains Mike Fitzgerald, senior analyst in the insurance practice for Celent.

“Carriers need to make sure the people in their organization answer questions quickly, effectively, and efficiently,” Fitzgerald says. “A lot of carriers are still working in the dark ages on producer management side.”

Just Trying to Get Along

Frank Petersmark, CIO advocate for X by 2, a software architecture consultancy, believes there is a natural friction there between agents and carriers when it comes to keying in data.

“Process and administration usually relates to expense,” says Petersmark. “Carriers tried to push that process down the food chain if they could to agencies. There has been a tug-of-war for the past few years particularly as the recession hit. You had sort of a mad scramble of carriers and agencies to find ways to reduce expenses so they could stay profitable. I don’t think that world has come together just yet.”

Commercial Lines Are the Next Step

Have we reached a turning point in carrier/agent technology? Deb Smallwood, founder of Strategy Meets Action (SMA) believes so.

“For the past several years the focus—especially for the large carriers—was to automate personal lines,” says Smallwood. “It was straight-through processing and adding predictive analytics in the pricing. If [commercial lines carriers] could get automation, they felt they could go after market share. Some were able to leverage a lot of the platforms they had developed for personal lines.”

Dedicated to the Agency Channel

Grange Insurance has been in full development of its agency automation program for almost two decades, according to Sherri Rarey, assistant vice president, agency interface for the carrier.

"We encouraged agents to purchase a management system and we dedicated ourselves to providing the functionality that would make that investment worthwhile for them,” Rarey says. “That was building the foundation. Today we support over 41 different agency management systems, all the comparative raters our agents use, and we provide real-time transaction servicing. We’ve kept our promise as far as continuing to develop the tech that makes it easy for agents to work with us."

“If you are price competitive and your moniker is ease-of-doing-business, you hopefully have built something that the agents are excited about and will take advantage of,” says Michael Fergang, CIO for Grange Insurance.

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