NU Online News Service, May 2, 2:16 p.m.EDT

ORLANDO, Fla.—Independent agents are losing ageneration of business to direct writers because they lack thepersonal-lines applications to compete, says the CEO of a leadingInternet service site.

Richard H. Roy Jr., president of Artizan Internet Services,says, “It is frustrating to see so little attention paid topersonal lines. I do not see a lot of focus on it. We are trying tocome up with something simpler, but there is a lot involved indeveloping that process. We can get the solution, but that[younger] generation has not come to you in the first place.”

His observation came Friday during the second day of educationalsessions held in Orlando, Fla., at the NetVu Conference, theVertafore users group.

Roy adds that agents need to take some initiative and beginworking to regain a generation of buyers who prefer doing businessonline with a few clicks of the mouse that can secure a policy andproduce an insurance card within 30 minutes. The challenge, hepoints out, is to develop a simplified technology system thatagents and carriers want and that attracts the younger generationto buying insurance through independent agents.

He says one problem is that the industry is trying to drive asolution “to a generation you have not gotten yet.”

The advantage independent agents have on the commercial side ofthe business is that clients have bought into the value independentagents bring to the transaction as risk managers and trustedadvisors.

The same can't be said on the personal-lines side, whereindividuals can easily go online and manage their account frompurchase, to payment, to changing information 24 hours a day, sevendays a week.

Jeff Yates, CEO of the Agents Council for Technology andmoderator of the session titled “Online Service Not Just ForCustomers: How Agents Put It To Use,” says that the only way agentswill be able to overcome this challenge is by understanding thetechnology advantages of their competition and demanding insurersoffer the same.

Besides offering an application online to secure an insurancepolicy, the technology needs to include bill paying, claimsreporting and the ability to update information, Yates says, addingthat agents need to go to their carriers and say, “We want you todo this.”