Mobile apps from indie agents. Real-time processing—not only of personal-lines business, but also of midsize commercial accounts. Social media as a marketing essential. Cloud computing. The past 12 months saw a number of game-changing tech trends that are rapidly altering how agents and brokers do business.

Though these latest tools have hardly achieved 100-percent penetration, they have become the norm for a growing roster of producers. Real-time technology use, for example, is definitely on the rise—and for agents competing for personal business against direct carriers, such instant quoting capability is a do-or-die issue.

A recent survey released by the Real Time/Download Campaign said that of the 3,100 insurance agents and brokers surveyed, the number of agents using real-time tech is up six points to 63 percent of agency-management-system users for personal lines. Stu Durland, the Real Time/Download campaign’s co-chair, calls this an encouraging sign­—and one “critical to the future viability of the independent agency system.”

On the commercial side of the real-time issue, the LexisNexis Insurance Exchange, which aims to simplify submissions of midmarket commercial-lines risks to multiple carriers, gained some real traction in 2011. The Exchange, backed by the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers and Marketcore, saw the number of weekly submissions increase to an average of 1,000 per week and more than 2,000 individual users.

And while the large carriers and their captive agents have had mobile apps for a few years now, 2011 saw Main Street producers starting to create their own to offer better customer service to their clients—who now expect to be able to execute routine financial transactions on their smartphones.

Additionally, in a largely overcast year—where revenue reductions had agencies looking for ways to cut costs and boost productivity—many began counting on cloud-computing solutions as a means to both eliminate some IT expenses and increase access to data by employees.

On the social-media front, personal-lines agents using Facebook and Twitter have begun to realize some tangible, if small, benefits as they establish a presence where a growing number of their clients and prospects are spending more time.