21st Century Brokerage

The proliferation of digital technology into society and the global economy has begun to blur the physical and digital worlds, triggering every industry to redefine its technology strategy to maintain and grow business profitability.

Technology is improving and streamlining internal operations, driving efficiency and accuracy of information. It is evolving customer engagement, thereby creating expectations for constant communication and customer servicing through multiple channels.

With the insurance industry’s high rate of both organic growth and consolidation, it is essential for brokerages to develop differentiated offerings to remain competitive in today’s consolidating marketplace. Simultaneously, new, non-traditional entrants are disrupting the insurance industry, forcing brokers to further elevate their individualized business proposition and reiterate their value as trusted advisors to avoid commoditization in the marketplace.

To deliver this differentiated level of client service and maintain effective and efficient internal operations, the 21st-century brokerage must continue to evolve into a digital workspace.

Paper files will be replaced by digital archives; mobile devices will deliver access to client information while away from the office; the cloud will provide increased security and flexibility for growth; and the adoption of business intelligence solutions will tap into the abundance of building data to enable more informed decision-making.

SCALABILITY, FLEXIBILITY, PRODUCTIVITY

To support growth goals, while continuing to attract and retain new clients and employees, brokerages require a brokerage management system (BMS) that delivers consistent workflows, standardized data and a modern architecture that is scalable for growth. Consistent workflows provide universal procedures across locations and office branches, as well as simplify employee on-boarding and training. Standardized data offers a single view into a brokerage’s book of business, enabling the business to better service its clients and identify opportunities to cross/upsell.

By leveraging modern BMSs, brokerages can quickly scale business operations across multiple locations and more easily integrate acquired entities. Additionally, through digitally driven interactions and seamless workflows, leading brokerages have gone paperless – cutting costs associated with paper filing and creating additional physical space to expand their employee bases.

From a systems standpoint, technology like the cloud can provide brokerages flexible access to information while protecting important data in a secure online environment not located within the physical office. Cloud solutions provide hardware, networks, storage, services, applications and interfaces across the Internet, centralizing critical business intelligence and offering on-demand, remote access to information.

By leveraging cloud technologies, insurance brokerages capitalize on their benefits, including better user experiences, lower IT costs, increased business operations flexibility and stronger IT security.

To improve broker productivity, mobile technologies are breaking down the traditional workspace dynamics and enabling brokers to deliver personalized client service away from the office while maintaining access to the latest client information. By removing the need to make multiple phone calls back to the office to verify information, brokerages increase employee productivity and reduce time spent on duplicative administrative tasks.

Additionally, the next wave of insurance professionals are statistically more mobile-connected than any other generation, enabling brokerages that leverage mobile capabilities as part of their daily operations to attract and retain top talent to help drive business growth and profitability.

CONNECTING WITH THE DIGITAL CONSUMER

As 21st-century brokerages automate internal business operations and digitalize their workplaces, their clients will expect the same amount of online and mobile access to quote, renew and document their policies and file claims.

Survey results released in June 2014 by Bain & Company show that more than 40% of polled Canadian property and casualty consumers will move purchasing behaviour online in the next three to five years. To deliver superior online client servicing, leading Canadian insurance brokerages have built out their company website and amplified their social presence to provide multi-channel servicing.

A recent Accenture study also reflected this online movement when it found that 72% of surveyed consumers would prefer to research products and pricing online. The 21st-century brokerage provides online self-service quoting and pricing for its clients, which is seamlessly linked to a BMS for automated exchange of information.

To ensure brokers continue to act as the insured’s trusted advisor, insurance technology is available to document new quoting activities, triggering personal outreach from the broker to the insured for follow-up advice and product guidance. While operating a digital workplace, brokerages need to maintain the personal element of their multi-channel services, differentiating their business propositions from that of direct writers.

LEVERAGING DIGITAL DATA

For 2014, Gartner predicted that business intelligence and analytics would remain the top technology priority of chief information officers.

With the exponential growth of data, leading brokerages are now evaluating ways to extract and analyze pre-existing data in an intuitive visual format to make more informed business decisions. Brokerages can evaluate their books of business, enabling them to better understand retention rates, growth markets and leading lines of business.

Business intelligence solutions also provide information about business metrics, such as how efficiently the business is operating, how quickly tasks are being completed, workflow bottlenecks and which employees are hitting sales goals.

Business intelligence builds upon the capabilities of the traditional reporting that brokerages have relied on to date.

Whereas traditional reporting allows brokerages to examine “what happened” using data based on a defined set of criteria at a specific moment in time, advanced business intelligence solutions allow brokerages to study “why something happened” by using visual representations of data that are interactive and dynamic.

Business intelligence solutions enable brokerages to change criteria on the fly and drill deeper into a segment of the business or a subject matter to obtain greater business insights, as well as offer predictive statistical models to estimate likely future outcomes.

BROKERAGE GONE DIGITAL

Insurance Portfolio Inc., a third-generation independent insurance brokerage located in Toronto, relies on advanced technology to provide the capabilities it needs to build strong client relationships, the cornerstone of its business. The brokerage has moved from a paper-based, manually driven business to an automated, streamlined operation with advanced technology.

Key focal areas to modernize daily business operations through digital technology include the following:

•keep pace with changing customer expectations;

•provide the sales team with instant quote capabilities; and

•stay competitive by providing self-service access to customers.

Increasingly, clients expect sophisticated technology and capabilities. “We’re operating in a time and industry where people demand inform
ation 24/7,” says Jennifer Tyrwhitt-Gory, president of Insurance Portfolio Inc.

“It’s no longer acceptable to get back to them the next day with information about their policy. They want answers right away, and that can mean the difference between winning and losing new business,” Tyrwhitt-Gory points out.

To meet changing demands, Insurance Portfolio is also providing self-service capabilities and broker access to policy quotes and customer information. By using an online self-service portal as part of its client management program, the brokerage reports that the 24/7 access has helped it win major new business. As the company continues to grow, it has increased customer retention to approximately 90%, and has improved overall staff productivity with its digitized business environment.

LOWERING COSTS ESSENTIAL TO PLAY

Today, the brokerage channel needs to harness the benefits of advanced technology to manage its business. Insurance consumers expect greater access to information and more control over their decisions, while insurers continually seek new and better ways to market and sell insurance products.

The future of insurance will be shaped by the ability of independent brokerages to lower the cost required to sustain revenue growth and properly service their clients. By implementing technology innovations, independent brokerages can enhance the growth, profitability and agility of their organizations now and in the future.