Social Networking in an Insurance World

Web 2.0 Tools Enhance the Face-to-Face Interactions in the Industry

Insurance firms that have used the tools of Web 2.0 appear to be won over for good, and have little to say that is negative.

McAuley, Woods & Associates, a privately held boutique wholesale brokerage based in Palm Beach, Fla., is one company that has benefitted. McAuley, Woods & Associates, which uses a select group of retail agents throughout the United States, began using a wiki, a internal collection of Web pages that allows anyone in the company to contribute content,just nine months ago.

So far reviews from the McAuley, Woods & Associates’ employees are positive.

Jim Snyder, a property/casualty broker who heads up marketing efforts for McAuley, Woods & Associates says, the brokerage is currently putting all of its corporate knowledge into the wiki. “We have our corporate processes there as well as training videos and marketing information for all of our carriers,” Snyder says. The wiki, Snyder says, can be updated by anyone in the company. Everyone contributes by entering their knowledge in to the firm’s wiki.

Their main use for it is to market, and to share their success stories. They also receive updates from underwriters on a daily basis concerning their appetites and where they are open and closed. The brokerage also uses the wiki for forums and blogs to share information with each other.

Snyder says it is now faster and easier to access information when answering questions over the phone. “We can look into the wiki and see what we’ve done in the past,” he said. “It helps us market faster and give them answers quicker.”

Snyder believes the wiki will be an excellent teaching tool for new employees. He also believes the firm’s underwriting guides will become more robust as they build the library of risks and how to place them.

The firm also uses LinkedIn to keep up with their agents and prospective clients. They are experimenting with Twitter to keep their agents up-to-date with what’s happening in the markets.

Snyder says social networking tools only enhance face-to-face interaction between customers. “You can start a conversation and relationship in person and then continue it in the community getting input from everyone,” he said.

Community Benefits

Mike Wise, the vice president of IdeaStar, also believes agents will benefit from these tools.

“My opinion is the social web is really putting the agents back in the driver’s seat after being sort of disenfranchised a little bit over the past few years because of search engines,” Wise said. “Everybody’s focused on going and doing a search on a particular insurance product or need. The big direct consumer marketers were dominating the search results and the agents were kind of left out when it came to all that traffic.”

IdeaStar, based in Cleveland, Ohio, provides Web-based software applications to help customers create online initiatives. Wise says Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, blogs, podcasting, videocasting, YouTube, and others, are excellent from a prospecting standpoint.

These tools are appreciated by other experts in the field of technology as well.

Rick Morgan, a board member for the Agents Council for Technology (ACT), who has four decades of experience in technology, marketing, and publishing in the independent insurance agency system, says these tools are easy to use, and very inexpensive. He believes in the concept of social networking, not just because the tools are inexpensive.

“When you engage in the social networking world, you build relationships, and relationships are important,” Morgan said.

“In the agency world of sales, service, and marketing, what they do in small, home-town, Main Street businesses, is they depend a great deal on relationships and on trust. Part of what social networking does is help in that area. It enables, in a digital way, relationship.”

Morgan’s message is that social networking is not a fad; it is a way of tapping in to a core, human desire to belong to a community.

Downsides

So with all the benefits of Web 2.0, is there a downside?

As with anything, Snyder believes there are some concerns. Loss of control and mis-information are always possible contingencies.

“For our internal wiki, if you have rogue employees that deliberately want to try and put false information in, they can certainly do it,” he said.

Future revenue possibilities can’t yet be determined from the use of these tools. Even so, Snyder believes they increase the company’s marketing efficiency. “We’re looking for ways to open this up to our retailers and underwriters so we can all communicate as one team in the future,” he said. “This is a bit far off since there are many issues to consider, but it is my vision to help make our business more transparent to our customers.”

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