As they race to drive substantive top-line, organic growth, many insurance brokers and agents are making substantial investments in data warehouses, analytics and related technology.

Today, the pressure for making these investments is coming from multiple directions, including:

• Clients: Insurance buyers want greater depth of insights from their brokers; it's become the new normal in the value brokers are expected to deliver.

• Insurance companies: Brokers are trying to level the playing field with insurers, which historically have had and leveraged superior loss and exposure data in their dealings with brokers and agents.

• Larger competitors: Many global and national brokers have invested millions of dollars to create proprietary data platforms and train front-line producers and account executives to leverage intelligence, analytics and benchmarking tools to better serve clients. Competing in a marketplace where buyers place greater emphasis on insights gleaned from robust analytics puts brokers lacking such capabilities at a disadvantage.  

• Prolonged soft market conditions: In this environment, it's imperative for brokers and agents to find new ways to differentiate their service offerings when it's hard to demonstrate the ability to deliver truly unique value to clients.

Even though brokers and agents recognize their needs and potential opportunities related to technology, when investing in data integration and management, analytics, and related technology applications, many struggle to align these investments to drive top-line organic growth.

Related: What's driving tech investment decisions for agents & brokers?