Imagine going online to receive competing rates for an account from multiple carriers just once. No more logging onto to individual company sites, with their separate logons and passwords, and re-entering data at every turn.
Increased sales for you and your companies, better customer service and retention, more efficient operations. Everybody wins. What a dream!
But it’s not just a dream from a technology standpoint. The technology to do it exists. What’s missing is the critical mass of agents and carriers willing to commit to it. More agents, carriers and vendors need to buy into the dream for it to become everyday reality.
The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America has issued a wake-up call for the industry to accelerate its efforts to implement real-time multiple-company rating.
“Independent agents and brokers are extremely frustrated with the current process of having to go to multiple company Web sites and enter the same data multiple times to find the most attractive rate for their customers,” says IIABA CEO Robert Rusbuldt.
“We have an historic opportunity right now to materially improve the rating process for the agency force for the long term, but it will require pro-active steps by agents, companies, and vendors,” believes Bob Slocum, chairman of IIABA’s Agents Council on Technology and president of The Slocum Agency Inc., Warwick, R.I.
IIABA’s National Board has adopted a policy statement pressing independent agents and brokers to advocate for real-time rating process with their companies and vendors and then to implement the new technology promptly when a company makes it available.
Prompt adoption by agencies of the technology is important because the companies and vendors are closely monitoring agency usage in deciding whether to invest in it further, according to Slocum.
The statement also calls upon companies and vendors to make the needed investments to enable this new rating process, and for national and state agent associations and user groups to make this issue a priority in their discussions with agents, companies and vendors.
The policy statement came about at the urging of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York. “Real-time multiple company rating will allow independent agents to operate much more efficiently, freeing them up to concentrate on new sales and enhanced customer service,” said Steven Spiro, president of Spiro Risk Management in Valley Stream, N.Y. and IIABA’s national board director from New York. “Carriers will benefit from increased agency sales and customer retention, and vendors will benefit by meeting the needs of their agency customers and promoting a growing customer base.”
If success is to be secured for the future, agents and their carrier and vendor partners must get on the same page. The page to start with is www.acttechorg, where agents can find which carriers and vendors are offering real-time multiple company rating.
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
German Insurtech Wefox to Replace CEO After Board Rejects Mubadala Sales Plan 
GEICO Tops Progressive With Higher J.D. Power Scores 
Big ‘I’ Report: Independent Agency Channel Placed 62% of Premiums in 2023 
Cyber Insurance Market ‘Stable’ With Potential for Growth, Says AM Best From This Issue
