Each year, Vertafore brings together the industry’s leading connectivity experts and innovators to focus on improving insurance through purpose-built technology solutions. At the Vertafore Connectivity Forum, which takes place alongside Accelerate, powered by NetVU, much of the discussion centered on strategies for shifting expectations among consumers and agents.
Here are three key takeaways from this year’s forum:
1. Evolving consumer technology expectations are impacting agencies and carriers.
Accelerated by the pandemic, consumers have been conditioned to hold increasingly high expectations—Amazon-influenced expectations—of the technology they interact with. Efficient, easy, and delightful experiences with technology are the norm, and people expect constant innovations that can accomplish more, better and faster.
Among agencies, not only do customers want the same type of fast, reliable service they get from their favorite online retailers, but they still want an interpersonal relationship with their insurance brokers. Agencies need to deliver accessibility on the technology front while still providing a personal touch. Among carriers, the quality of service they provide to their agency partners tends to trickle down to the end-insured, so it’s just as important for insurers to provide simple, connective service in their agent digital experiences.
Read also: Four Data-Proven Approaches to Prioritizing Agent Experience
2. Strict security practices must be paired with operational efficiency.
As device and account security measures become increasingly critical across all technologies, there’s a growing push for carriers to adopt stronger identity federation practices in their individual portals, particularly with the rise of universal multi-factor authentication. Identity federation is the process of entrusting authentication responsibility to an external entity, such as using email or social media information to verify a user’s identity for access to third-party websites.
In insurance, authentication is especially important due to the quantity of personally identifiable information (PII) shared, and identity federation saves agents time and frustration when accessing critical carrier information. For an agent who may be working with 16 or more carriers to secure a quote, completing multi-factor authentication steps multiple times daily for each portal quickly erodes their efficiency. Partnering with an industry coalition such as ID Federation allows carriers to deliver simplified access for their agency partners without sacrificing security or speed.
3. Being easier to do business with means outperforming the competition
64% of agents say ease of doing business matters most when it comes to placing business with carrier partners. By streamlining, standardizing, and automating the way agents work with them, carriers can make it easier for agents to focus on bringing in business.
Agencies want a secure system that connects to their management system, extracts data, and integrates with trusted technology solutions to effortlessly transfer data to carriers and generate rates or transactions. For carriers that are best positioned to meet these technology expectations, optimized integrations can help them generate more new business, as much as a 20% uplift. Learn more
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