Talkin’ ‘Bout The New Generation

Demonstrating youth, business acumen and technological savvy, Bryan Yetman, 33, is a poster child for a new generation of insurance brokers.

Yetman’s meteoric rise to president-elect of the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (IBAO) comes at a time when the insurance industry is looking to recruit new blood into the industry. The IBAO is also urging brokers to find ways to use technological know-how in an effort to engage young consumers using social network technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and the like.

The trajectory of Yetman’s career path suggests an uncanny sense of good timing. He is taking up a leadership position at the IBAO precisely when his strengths are needed most.

Yetman is now vice president of operations at First Durham Insurance & Financial Brokers in Pickering, Ontario. In addition to his day job, he has worked hard, both as an IBAO Young Broker and as a member of The Insurance Institute of Canada’s Ambassador program, to recruit youth into the insurance industry. In doing so, he emphasizes the opportunities for youth in the insurance industry.

One thing that makes it tough, he said, is that students are being asked to decide what they want to do earlier than ever — often between the ages of 16 and 18. In addition, they are making a momentous decision at a time when many of them have had little exposure to the insurance industry.

As a result, many young people are unaware of the enormous growth potential the insurance industry offers. Yetman’s career thus far is an embodiment of the potential to fly through its ranks in short order.

Yetman expresses the dilemma using the example of choosing between entering the insurance industry — what he calls a “necessary industry” that has a sizeable number of people on the cusp of leaving — and becoming a programmer at Google or Microsoft. Certainly the programmer position is popular, he says, but “there’s a million other kids in Canada that want to do the Microsoft stuff.”

The choice illustrates the opportunities available in the insurance industry. “I’ve got a number of friends that went to university in school for computers,” Yetman says. “Of them, one works in the computer business….

“With the insurance business, once you’re there, very few people leave. And once you start to familiarize yourself with the industry, the people in the business are fantastic. I argue that it’s the greatest career that anyone could ever want.

“There’s so much opportunity. Not only is there an opportunity from an ownership standpoint, there’s a chance to move through that cycle quickly to get to a satisfying lifestyle, both from a financial standpoint and a contribution to your community.

“It’s the best-kept secret — and that’s not good for us.”

In terms of his own rise through the ranks of the industry, Yetman had perhaps a clearer sense of purpose as a teenager than many of his peers.

“Unlike most, at a relatively early age, probably 16 or 17, I made a conscious decision that this was a business that I wanted to be in,” said Yetman, noting that his father had bought an insurance brokerage in 1986 (when Yetman was 11 years old).

“The idea of taking something, setting a plan or a course, and leading that something to Point X [appealed to me],” he said. “And when I was that age, to me it didn’t matter whether it was a pencil manufacturer or a popcorn stand. Just because there was a family [insurance] business there, it seemed like the most logical place to focus. Obviously having a bias — seeing what the industry involves, and seeing the commitment that my father had — that seemed like something I could live with.”

But the route to his goal of getting into insurance hardly progressed in a straight line. It involved a tough decision to buck expectations, by switching from university to college.

A few years after entering Carleton University’s commerce program in 1993, Yetman’s roommate’s friend, ‘Big Mike,’ informed Yetman of an opportunity to take a business insurance program at Algonquin College. Yetman struggled with the decision, but eventually decided to make the transfer, with Carleton’s help.

Yetman said he “felt better about myself” and was “happier” after deciding to go to college.

Nearing the end of school, Yetman found himself back working for his father’s brokerage, which had just finished a new acquisition.

“I did the last school of term commuting back and forth from Ottawa,” he said. “My father had just made a purchase of a brokerage, and I was needed from a technology standpoint because they were going to have two locations.

“So there was a need for some technological support. I wasn’t a technology guy, but being the only guy in the entire office who had that kind of understanding and knew how to plug a mouse in, I was the de facto technology expert.”

Certainly Yetman has given a great deal of consideration to the best use of technology in promoting the broker proposition.

“We need to do a better job to embrace and advance technology,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that we’ve resisted it in the past, but we haven’t done a hell of a lot to get out and actually try to jump on the back of it and ride it.”

There are two issues related to the best use of technology, he said.

The first is the most efficient way for brokers to communicate with carriers. This raises the current dilemma with using various different insurer portals, which has resulted in an inefficient transfer of data between brokers and their various carriers, he says.

The second is using technology to better communicate with consumers — particularly those who live in the online community more often than they live in the “bricks and mortar community.”

If the medium is the message, the medium is changing.

“There’s a potential of using technology to advertise where people actually are,” he said. “You used to advertise on the radio, because that’s where people were. Then you advertised on TV, because that’s where people were.

“It’s now migrating away from [TV], because people who were actually watching TV aren’t watching commercials. Product placement is big, but we can’t really place a product. It’s tough to put an insurance policy on ‘Desperate Housewives.’ Maybe we could put some BIPPER blankets in there. But we need to get in there, into that [Internet] space.”

Yetman notes brokers are working in that direction. IBAO’s use of Google analytics and the promotion of myinsuranceshopper.com are two examples. There are naysayers who claim online social networking sites technology are eroding the personal relationships that underpin brokers’ relationships with their clients.

But Yetman sees potential in the Internet, not doom and gloom. “I’ve always felt that the younger people of today, and I’m on the leading edge of that, are a little bit more cynical when you see an ad for a large corporation on TV,” he said. “On the Internet these days, when you get into the social networking aspects of life, it puts [brokers] at an advantage, because there’s so much misinformation on the Internet. It’s up to us [as brokers] to take that information, translate it, and put it out to people in that space…If you’re doing it right, [people in the online community] actually become the bearers of your message.

“The advisor has become so much more important in that space. People are looking for a trusted source of information. I think we need to take a long hard look at really getting in there.”

Yetman got into the IBAO community at the ripe old age of 25. After a number of years of hard work, he remembers a situation that demonstrates the power of good mentors.

“I’ll never forget I was lost one day,” he recalls. “I was at an industry function, and I saw Ken Orr. [Orr is a past president of the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC), and his professional background includes work as the chairman of the IBAO.] At that point, I had met him
one time and said maybe three words to him.

“I don’t know if he could sense I was lost, or if that’s the kind of guy he is, but he said ‘How are you doing?’ He took me over and brought me into the circle, introduced me to everybody. Talk about an empowering experience for a young broker. That one really meant a lot to me. Those are the kinds of people I relate myself to.”

And, apparently, emulate.