NU Online News Service, April 27, 11:33 a.m.EST

WASHINGTON—The aging ranks of producers dealing withperpetuation and reengineering their sales tools in the face oftechnology's progress remains a top concern among the agent andbroker community, says the chairman of the Independent InsuranceAgents & Brokers of America.

Meanwhile, younger agents are demanding a voice in theprofession's future and are reaching out to one another ingreater numbers to share ideas and coax an older generation intothinking anew about how business gets done, say officials of theNational Young Agents Committee of the Independent Insurance Agents& Brokers of America.

Interviewed yesterday, Mike Donohoe, chairman of IIABA and owner of James R. WeirInsurance Agency in Mankato, Minn., gave a peek into some of theconcerns he plans to address today in his state of the associationaddress before the IIABA's Convention General Session.

He told the story of his son who, after one of Donohoe's stumpspeeches, said his “shtick was too old” and all the business modelsDonohoe and his peers are using are antiquated.

Technology, Donohoe says, is making those business modelsobsolete.

“Agents are being made, for the first time, to lead in areaswhere they are not comfortable, and that is scary to most agents,”Donohoe says. “Technology is coming fast and we have young peoplecoming to us in our agencies saying, 'What are we going to do andhow are we going to do it?' And we're not so sure.”

The challenge, he says, is agencies need to transition fromrelying on referrals and the Yellow Pages to doing business the wayconsumers want to do business, which is over the Internet.

Another concern is the aging population of agents and the lackof young people to follow in their footsteps.

Donohoe compares the future of independent agents to whathappened to travel agents. After a stormy transition from thetraditional way of doing business, people are returning to travelagents seeking advice in navigating the myriad of selections theyface. Independent agents, he says, will face a similar fate becausepeople need and want a trusted advisor to help make decisions.

To that end, Project CAP (ConsumerAgent Portal) is getting closer to launch and has receivedenthusiastic support from over 1,000 agents, says Donohoe.

The search-optimization program that will connect agents withcustomers researching personal-lines coverage over the Internetunderscores the fact that agents know they need help withtechnology. CAP, along with Trusted Choice and the launch of anapp, will push agents toward doing business the way customers want,says Donohoe.

“This is not a threat, but an opportunity for us to learn tomarket digitally,” he says.

Young agents are already thinking about and addressing theseissues, and they're starting to communicate with each other on howthey can make their ideas a reality. “There's a revolutiongoing on in the way that we communicate, in the way we raise ouragencies and basically in the way we market and brand our agenciesand use our agencies for the future,” says Jason D. Cass, chairmanof the National Young Agents Committee.

The owner of JDC Insurance Group in Centralia, Ill., says asrecently as six years ago, young agents were being ignored by theolder generation, but Cass credits a few visionary, experiencedagents with realizing the younger generation needed an organizationto turn to aimed at helping them share ideas to grow theirbusiness.

Today, there is growing involvement in the IIABA's Young AgentAssociations throughout the country, Cass said at the annual IIABALegislative Conference and Convention being held in Washington,D.C.

During this year's Young Agents and InsurPac State ChairpersonsLegislative Luncheon on Wednesday, an event that has drawn up to 60attendees in the past, drew well over 100 people.

Cass credits the technology revolution for the growth inparticipation. He says social media has played a large part ininforming young agents that there are other people out there likethemselves who want to take an innovative approach to marketingtheir businesses, but have met resistance from their olderprincipals.

“We don't want to go around the principals; we want theprincipals to succeed,” Cass says. “These VIPS have left us one ofthe best industries we can have and we want to help them move itforward. But they don't want to give us the tools to succeed. Theirtools are from the 70s and 80s and they don't work anymore.”

The Young Agents association is giving members the tools thatwill help their businesses prosper. “And what do we do?” asks Cass.“We give them results.”