The digital age has reduced much of the coverage advice that brokers used to discuss face-to-face with clients, to a commodity. Commodities have a lower perceived value. That is one of the major impacts that technology trends have had.

Almost everyone uses technology first, and makes human contact second. The net result is that insurance agents must:

• Use technology to reach out to their potential client groups
• Be more responsive to individual requests, comments and opinions
• Be more accessible to satisfy the “I want it now, and I want it my way” mentality.

Automate Workflow

Two major, time-consuming activities are:

1. Understanding policy and plan details in order to offer advice and to remain compliant
2. Processing claims

Both of these can be sped up by technology. Automate these two activities, and you achieve two results:

1. Processing costs go down
2. More time becomes available to interact with clients and potential clients

Prospects and clients both need advice, not just information. People accept advice from those they know, respect and trust. Technology enables insurance brokers to become these things in their marketplace. They must use technology to reach out to specific target groups and then respond to the individuals within those groups.

Use Software That Improves Client Experience

Technology can 'dehumanize' but people still need that 'high touch'. Technology can enable high touch. Brokers, therefore, must choose the software systems they install with great care. Good administration matters, but it should be invisible to clients. Clients, today, expect data they have to input, such as names, email addresses and phone numbers, to be remembered and auto-filled on application and claims forms.

''If it's easy, it's good." Says today's client. If the simple customer-experience is good, then the obvious conclusion to draw is that the brokerage is good. If the initial experience is clumsy or irritating, then why should the advice and opinion be any different?

Communicate With Entire Groups

Another trend that technology is changing, is how local independent agents actually reach out and communicate with their local markets. Having a website, a Facebook page and a Twitter account impress no one anymore.

Time saved doing office-based work must be utilized by making real use of technology as a marketing machine. Technology enables and encourages real interaction, so that ideas, needs, problems, opinions, solutions, etc can be shared, explained, understood and acted on.

Agents, today, must decide on their markets and communicate with those markets. Today, markets are not just geographic (where) and demographic (who). Technology has made markets psychographic as well. Agents must use technology to connect with people based on where they are, who they are and now, critically, how they think, how they behave, and what they value.

Technology is not about automation, in the same way the automobile was not about moving faster than a horse. The automobile opened up the country, so people's lives could change for the better. The trend that is having the greatest effect is agents learning how technology will make clients' lives better.

The obvious impact is that technology really does enable you to show them the real reasons they should connect with your office. Technology trends are impacting the future of independent agencies, and we are here to help your agency to make the most of it.