Delay In Real-Time Threatens Agent Survival

Being able to operate in real time should be a focus of the independent agent and broker channel, and might be a matter of survival, according to tech experts at the recent ACORD/LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Las Vegas.

"Without a doubt, the number-one issue in our industry is real time"--the ability to perform functions over the Web on demand--said Bob Slocum, a principal of the Warwick, R.I.-based Slocum Agency Inc., as well as chairman and president of the Agents Council for Technology, based in Alexandria, Va.

Although he noted that progress is being made in promoting real-time processing technology, Mr. Slocum said "more work needs to be done."

The top priority for the industry, he said, should be educating independent agents and brokers about the benefits of real-time technology in terms that they can't ignore.

"This is a tool to help them make money in less time and with less effort," he said, adding that real-time technology should already be compatible with an agency that is up-to-date in other areas of automation, and would require only 15 minutes of training for agents.

Among the efforts being made to promote real-time technology, according to Donna Abramson, president of the Applied Systems Client Network, is a calculator that shows agents how much time and money they could have saved by processing transactions in real time.

However, Jeff Yates, the executive director of ACT, echoed the sentiment that more can be done. "We just have to redouble our efforts as a total industry to sell agents on the benefits of real time," he said. He promised that those efforts would be undertaken in the next 12 months, predicting "an explosion of activity in this area."

Carolyn Durland, AUGIE facilitator and manager for ACORD, said that the recent ACORD-User Groups Information Exchange survey (see NU, May 29), which took agents as much as 45 minutes to complete, would provide a valuable resource in showing what issues in technology are important as well as most frustrating for agents. "We're going to take action on all of these in the next few years," she said.

Mr. Slocum said agents interested in real-time technology could help their own cause by bringing the issue to their carriers, while Mr. Yates argued that business groups, including ACORD, should also be doing more to make real-time technology a priority for the industry.

The Web sites for those groups, he added, "should have real time on the front page, and it's not there yet."

The real-time issue, Mr. Yates added, needs to be viewed by agents not as one of efficiency or even profitability, but as one of survival. "Either we do it," he said of real-time implementation, "or in five years we're not going to be around."

Direct writers such as GEICO, he noted, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to provide real-time personal lines quoting capabilities, and Mr. Yates said it is "ridiculous" that it could take an independent agent as long as an hour to do the same thing.

Likewise, he said, it's up to groups such as ACORD and ACT to ensure that agents see just how important these issues are to their business, asserting, "Our whole reason for being is to get these issues on the table."