Insurtech: The Current Landscape and Where It Can Help Your Insurance Agency Thrive

Learn How To Optimize Your Insurance Agency With a Strong Insurtech Ecosystem

As an insurance agency, it’s important to be organized, market your business, stay top of mind with clients, and continue moving leads through your sales process. 

In addition to your long list of daily responsibilities, you must also know about industry regulations, trends, changes, and compliance requirements. All of this can take up valuable time and energy that could be put toward growing your business. Thankfully, today’s technology can help you focus more on what matters most.  

Let’s explore some common technologies that health insurance agencies, benefits brokers, and senior insurance advisors are using and how to determine which ones are worthwhile for your business. 

What Is Insurtech? 

Insurtech is a combination of the words “insurance” and “technology.” This term refers to the technological innovations in the insurance industry, which are designed to help agencies and other industry professionals work more efficiently and effectively. 

Zion Market Research found that the global insurtech market size was valued at 5.48 billion USD in 2023—a value that’s predicted to reach 146.43 billion by the end of 2030. This goes to show that technology in the insurance industry is powerful and a large part of insurance organizations’ success. When you use insurtech to its full potential, you can expand your business growth. 

Insurtech aims to provide many benefits to insurance agencies, such as optimizing or eliminating manual processes, increasing profits by growing your margins, avoiding fraud, reducing risk, and creating a simplified, personalized customer experience. 

What Technologies Are Insurance Agencies Using? 

There are many technology platforms available to help you optimize your daily operations. The right mix in your insurtech ecosystem can generate amazing results. Here are some common insurtech examples that insurance agencies are using today: 

• Agency Management System (AMS). An AMS is arguably one of the most important technologies agencies can leverage in their business. Life and health insurance agencies use a variety of different tools for agency management, but a true AMS encompasses a powerful insurance customer relationship management (CRM) system—enabling you to store, manage, and retain your book of business in one place—coupled with many more agency-specific functionalities like sales enablement, automation, policy management, and more. Many agencies have already made the switch from generic CRMs or homegrown systems to a digitally-based agency management system. 
• Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Automation. There are many different ways that this technology can help your agency—from conversational chatbots and dynamic forms to predictive workflows and automation-focused AI/ML programming, and more. AI technology has gained great momentum in recent years. It’s likely that, as it gets more refined, insurance agencies will use variations of AI technology regularly, if they aren’t already.
• Digital Devices (Wearables), Internet of Things (IoT), and Data Analysis. IoT refers to physical objects that are connected to the internet, like a smartwatch or phone. From keeping tabs on driving behaviors via telematics devices to tracking healthy habits through fitness wearables, digital devices can help insurers get coverage based on their unique needs and behaviors. By following certain terms laid out by the insurers, clients may even be able to get coverage at a discounted rate. While only 21% of insurers are utilizing IoT-generated data, this use will likely continue growing over the next few years due to its powerful benefits for clients, carriers, and brokers alike. 

All of the tools above enable you and your organization to work more efficiently and effectively. 

Determine What Technology to Add to Your Insurtech Ecosystem

There are many different offerings available to enhance your insurance agency, all of which can come with financial and resource costs. Because of this, it’s important to carefully select which technologies will be a worthwhile investment for your agency. Here are some key considerations as you decide. 

Review Your Overall Goals

What would you like to see improve in your agency? This could look like streamlining growth through sales enablement, better efficiency and organization, improved customer service processes, and beyond. Knowing what problems you’re trying to solve and what goals you’re trying to achieve will better inform your decisions about your agency’s technology needs. 

Consider an Industry-Specific Versus Generic Platform

Before choosing a technology platform, you will want to consider the return on investment (ROI) you’ll be getting out of it. This is where industry-specific versus generic platforms should be considered. Many generic technology platforms come with basic functionality, which may work for some processes. However, you may quickly find you need to customize the platform to meet your specific needs.

Take an agency management system (AMS), for example. Some agencies choose a generic platform that they customize into their own AMS or they choose a generic, basic CRM that requires heavy customization—either option can have a steep price tag. Some agencies choose to use multiple vendors to support the many different operations of their agency; however, this can quickly become disorganized and inefficient. 

An alternative that can help you surpass these hurdles is an industry-specific AMS. This software is designed with industry-specific functionality that caters to the unique needs of a specific niche industry, like life and health insurance agencies. AgencyBloc, for example, is an agency management platform that has a suite of solutions designed for the needs of the life and health insurance industry. Our platform provides agencies with the tools they need to succeed but allows for customization to tailor the system to your team’s specific needs. Plus, with a suite of solutions, you’re able to manage the many different aspects of your agency in one organized place. 

Consolidate Where You Can 

A robust insurtech ecosystem can generate great results; however, too many tools or vendors can cause friction. It’s important to weigh your options and look for ways to consolidate your technology stack. A great way to do this is by looking for platforms that have a suite of solutions meant to work cohesively together. 

AgencyBloc offers a suite of software solutions to streamline your agency’s operations by keeping everything in one place and eliminating data silos. From sales enablement to quoting and proposal tools to customer and policy management to commissions management, our suite of solutions is the top choice for many life and health agencies. 

Posted by Allison Babberl on Thursday, October 26, 2023 in Insurance Agency Management System

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