ANNUAL BROKERAGE-INSURER CONNECTIVITY REPORT
2020 Digital Connectivity Adoption Survey: 5 Key Insights
Insurers can capture more business from brokerage partners by doing this.
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Insurers can capture more business from brokerage partners by doing this.
On a scale of 1 to 10, 71% of brokers ranked the importance of automated interface with insurer partners either a 9 or 10, reaching the highest ranking for paperless commitment. Insurers expressed close to the same level of importance. Of note is the fact that 84% of brokers said they place more business with insurers that provide automation. Among the key benefits brokerages experience from working with insurers that offer automation are time savings (90%); ability to serve clients faster (88%); increased productivity (83%); and ease of doing business (79%). Insurers offering full-service connectivity are seeing results. 78% of insurers believe they are maximizing written premium when they digitally collaborate across all capabilities: marketing commercial risks, quoting, processing submissions, and servicing.
Complete connectivity between brokers and insurers pays off
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When it comes to personal lines quoting, this is the name
of the game.
3
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The way this is being done versus how it should be done leaves a lot to be desired.
4
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There is too much overhead associated with this process.
5
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This is one area brokerages and insurers are starting to align on better.
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Brokers clearly prefer working with insurers that offer automated connectivity. Given the events of 2020, this fact is probably truer than ever before. Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 hastened the shift by companies toward interacting with customers through digital channels.* Affirming this point is that this year, brokers cited ability to serve clients faster rather than productivity as one of the top benefits of working with insurers that offer automation. Taking into account the operational impact of the pandemic, the preference brokers have for insurers that offer digital connectivity, and the reality that insurers get more business when they automate interface, it’s the perfect time for brokers and insurers to align their connectivity strategies.
No time like the present to build and execute a connectivity strategy +
How important is automated interface?
Next-step tech +
Brokerages: Increase digital connectivity with insurers to enhance service opportunities and provide 24/7 service your customers not only demand but require in today’s new normal. Bringing quoting and service workflows directly into the management system eliminates manual, time-consuming work while providing a simple, digital application process. Exchanging policy-related information digitally from insurers increases ease of doing business and improves the customer experience by providing critical insurance information in a fast, electronic way.
Insurers: Increase digital connectivity with brokerages to expand your distribution channel and increase policyholder satisfaction and retention. By connecting to brokers through integrated digital channels, you can build omnichannel distribution strategies and drive profitable premium growth in the digital future of insurance.
Next-step tech
No time like the present to build and execute a connectivity strategy
You place more business with those insurers
that provide automation.
What are some of the benefits of selecting an insurer
that offers automation?
About the Survey
2700 independent agencies and brokerages, MGAs and insurers across the U.S. and Canada participated in the Annual Applied Digital Connectivity Technology Adoption Survey, from which the results of this report were generated. Respondents voluntarily participated in an online survey conducted in Q3 2020. The findings are based on responses to a set of questions about digital technology use.
Role at Organization
Brokerage Size
Type of Organization
Independent Agent/Broker:
MGA/Wholesaler/
Program Business:
Insurer:
Other:
74%
2%
17%
7%
1-9:
10-24:
25-49:
50-74:
75-99:
100+:
33%
27%
15%
7%
4%
13%
15%
27%
12%
4%
3%
10%
16%
1%
11%
About the Survey
Administration:
Customer Service:
Executive:
IT:
Marketing:
Operations:
Sales:
Underwriting:
Other:
6%
14%
12%
13%
6%
17%
14%
12%
7%
Administration:
Customer Service:
Executive:
IT:
Marketing:
Operations:
Sales:
Underwriting:
Other:
10%
5%
33%
10%
5%
10%
0%
14%
14%
Administration:
Customer Service:
Executive:
IT:
Marketing:
Operations:
Sales:
Underwriting:
Other:
What are the greatest benefits of using a comparative rating engine?
The method you use most to quote a personal lines policy:
Next-step tech +
Meeting brokerages where they work is a win-win +
100% of brokerages surveyed use comparative rating engines to quote personal lines policies. The top benefits of using a comparative rating engine are providing the most accurate quote to customers (33%); responding to customers more quickly (27%); and quoting more insurers per customer (24%).
Brokers want speed and accuracy when quoting personal lines
When it comes to personal lines quoting, this is the name of the game.
Brokerages: Streamline document management, billing and claims workflows for faster customer service throughout the policy lifecycle to quickly and accurately exchange policy information between insurer systems and your management system.
Insurers: Distribute your products to the largest network of independent brokerages. Expand distribution with technology that empowers you to quote and service through multiple online and integrated channels. By connecting directly to brokers’ management systems and comparative rating engines, you’ll eliminate time and expense spent configuring, managing and maintaining multiple connections in separate systems and increase ease of doing business with your brokerage partners.
Next-step tech
When brokers use rating engines, they benefit from increased productivity and faster, more accurate quoting. This allows them to offer consumers choice and advice, and deliver an exceptional customer experience. Insurers that offer real-time rating directly to brokers via rating engines see more personal lines business come their way since brokerages are more likely to give personal lines business to those insurers that provide the most comprehensive comparative quotes.
Meeting brokerages where they work is a win-win
2
Does your company currently send Claims information directly into your brokerage partners’ management systems?
What are some of the benefits of automating data exchange with your brokerage partners?
What is your brokerage’s preferred method for accessing your clients’ policy information?
Next-step tech +
It’s just a matter of time +
Continued use of eDocs remains high (89%). For insurers, providing access to critical documents in broker partners’ management systems makes the distribution much more efficient. eDocs provide a common language and a consistent transactional flow for brokers and insurers. In the current environment, paperless is critical and the use of eDocs download will continue to be essential to provide customers key policy documents.
Automated download servicing technology use shows continued signs of industry collaboration
This is one area brokerages and insurers are starting to align on better.
Brokerages: Use online tools that provide an easier way to streamline workflows and provide faster customer service throughout the policy lifecycle. Increase brokerage-insurer connectivity by accessing documents, and single sign-on billing and inquiry offered by your insurer partners. eServicing provides a comprehensive view of current and potential download capabilities. These tools are complimentary for brokerages and easy to get going on right away.
Insurers: Take advantage of cloud-based data exchange software that delivers the latest policy-related information from your systems directly into brokerage partners’ management systems, ensuring that current, accurate information is instantly available for everyone throughout underwriting and servicing. Using a single end-to-end application, you can manage connectivity across every stage of the policy lifecycle – binding, claims, first notice of loss, and renewals.
Next-step tech
Gone are the days of mailed or faxed policy details to be scanned into brokerages’ management systems and then filed away. The industry is pushing to be paperless, and data shows that insurers and brokerages are adopting the technologies to automate this information exchange between their systems of record. The main benefit? Time savings. Brokerages save approximately two hours of time per employee per day by using automated information exchange technologies like download. In addition to time savings, insurers that rely on download to distribute policy information find it easier to do business with brokerages and faster to service insureds resulting in more premium growth.
It’s just a matter of time
5
It would be useful to receive submissions in a digital way so we can reply more rapidly.
My company spends too much time on administrative/data entry tasks in order to process a commercial submission.
What percentage of commercial submissions are declined and not quoted?
What is the average cost for your organization to process a submission?
Next-step tech +
Digitizing the commercial lines process results in significant speed and cost savings +
39% of insurers report that 26-50% of commercial submissions are ultimately declined or not quoted. To process a commercial submission, 56% of insurers said they spend too much time on administrative tasks, which also has bottom line expense impacts. Unsurprisingly, nearly 90% of insurers believe it would be useful to receive submissions in a more digital way so they can reply more quickly. This would be well received by brokerages because 85% said they would give more business to insurers who quote the fastest.
Commercial lines overhead is weighing insurers down
There is too much overhead associated with this process.
Brokerages: Turn the traditionally cumbersome insurance application into a simple, Turbo-Tax like experience. Digitize the process for new applications and renewals to make it fast, collaborative and easy. Not only will you save your clients and brokerage time and money, you can minimize E&O exposure, increase productivity, win more business, and make customers happier.
Insurers: Today’s manual management of submissions is weighed down by lengthy paper-based applications and supplemental forms. The back and forth between insureds, brokers and underwriters is time intensive and riddled with potential errors. By digitizing the end-to-end commercial lines process, you can more quickly and easily connect directly to brokerages and automate submissions data exchange between your system and brokerage management systems to lower cycle times and increase win rates.
Next-step tech
Traditionally, managing the submissions process involved in-person meetings, faxes, mailed-in documents, and a litany of back-and-forth emails. The current state of affairs has made this inefficient and cost-laden process even more obvious. By eliminating time spent manually pushing paper, insurers can reduce overhead costs while increasing speed to market. Brokerage staff previously weighed down by administrative tasks can instead turn their focus to bringing in new business more quickly and retaining current customers.
Digitizing the commercial lines process results in significant speed and cost savings
4
Insurers’ preferred method to receive a commercial lines policy to quote:
The method I use most to collect data from insureds during the application process is:
Next-step tech +
Now’s the time to fix this broken process once and for all +
The predominant ways brokerages collect data from insureds during the application process are by phone calls (46%) and email (38%). When it comes time to submit the quote, the method used most often by brokers is retyping into insurer portals (59%) followed by emailing a PDF submission to an underwriter (28%). A lot of time is being spent marketing commercial lines risks with some brokers reporting more than one hour per day (37%).
There’s room for improvement in the commercial lines application and submissions process
The way this is being done versus how it should be done leaves a lot to be desired.
Brokerages: Turn the traditionally cumbersome insurance application into a simple, Turbo-Tax like experience. Digitize the process for new applications and renewals to make it fast, collaborative and easy. Not only will you save your clients and brokerage time and money, you can minimize E&O exposure, increase productivity, win more business, and make customers happier.
Insurers: Today’s manual management of commercial applications is weighed down by the back and forth between insureds, brokers and underwriters making it time intensive and riddled with the potential for errors. By digitizing the end-to-end commercial lines process, you can more quickly and easily automate data exchange between your system and brokers partners’ management systems to lower cycle times and increase win rates.
Next-step tech
For both brokers and insurers, the heavy lift of data collection and transmission is one of the largest challenges in the customer experience. Today the interaction takes days, even weeks. By digitizing the application process and collaborating online, this exchange could be hours or minutes. The result is speeding up the entire channel by having a more efficient powerful digital workflow. By taking a lot of the work load off brokers’’ and insurers’ plates by automating the process, more time can be spent creating a frictionless customer experience.
Now’s the time to fix this broken process once and for all
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* How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point – and transformed business forever. McKinsey Global Survey of Executives, October 5, 2020.
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Brokerage
Insurer
MGA
Number of Employees