Last March when unveiling the iPad 2, Steve Jobs said, "Technology alone is not enough. That it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing."
He was talking about hardware, but it's true of software as well.
Email and the ability to post information to a company site was a boon to all our basic communication needs 15 years ago. But to continue using it today as the cornerstone of the insurance placement process, which at its core involves negotiation and collaboration with insurance experts, is a mismatch.
I travel to and speak with many brokers across the country and it's apparent to me that it's nearly impossible for one agency marketer to understand all carrier risk appetites in the mid- to large-scale commercial insurance space. That would mean understanding not only hundreds of carriers, wholesalers and MGAs, but their varying, nuanced and ever-changing desire of risks.
These appetites exist on carrier websites and in email updates to brokers, so technically they can be found. But in the fast-paced world of analyzing and marketing complex commercial risk, carrier appetites are identified based random information. The traditional understanding of business the carrier is known to write, the last conversation with an underwriter, emails saved from various carriers in an "appetites" mail folder, or the iconic "sticky note" on the marketer's monitor rule their activities for the day.
Some of this is simply the nature of the beast: Midsized to large commercial insurance is inherently more complex and nuanced compared with small commercial or personal lines. It requires collaboration between expert brokers who understand coverage needs based on the specifics of the business's operations and the detailed and ever-changing appetite of each carrier. It is far different than the online buying experience available to consumers for personal lines, in which the available markets and profile of desired risk is instantly available across insurance carriers at the time of the buying decision.
Online platforms, however, can bring the sticky note to life. If carriers and brokers communicate through a common channel or platform, the possibility of aggregating and disseminating information is made real. Carriers update their appetites in real time, adjusting to ever-changing market conditions—not through a disconnected website, but in an online submission marketplace where the carrier can place its offerings in front of brokers as they make their market selection.
Brokers replace the time-consuming, hit-or-miss task of market research with automated matching the characteristics of their client against carrier-entered appetites. Brokers target their submissions to carriers that were actually seeking that profile of risk—eliminating for carriers the risks they ultimately don't want to see, but today receive and have to spend time reviewing.
Today's society is "connected" most of the time. We use Facebook to manage social communication, LinkedIn to manage networking and financial sites to manage our investments. It's logical that insurance communication is following the same route.
Not coincidentally, the idea of centralized communication of carrier appetite on an online platform yields other information exchange benefits. Just as I'd rather check out cousin Billy's vacation photos by getting an alert and viewing them (or not) on his Facebook page rather than by clogging my email inbox, agency marketers and their underwriter counterparts can streamline their workflows by receiving updates to their submission work.
With collaborative platforms, status updates (e.g., notification that something was received, a task completed, a document updated, picture posted, etc.) or quick chats around these topics are not only possible without human touch, they are held in a single spot, always accessible within the context of the subject to which they apply.
Technology in the form of a common industry platform—open to all participants—can help match appetite to specific risk, secure client data, manage the beast that is email communication and yield a range of other benefits. It can bring brokers and underwriters closer to leverage their expertise rather than spending time poring through websites or managing an avalanche of email. And, in the process, it can make "hearts sing."
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