New Research Shows Agents Flourishing – What This Means for Quoting

Today, agents are flourishing, according to brand-new research published last week by Property & Casualty 360 and the PIA. They’ve always been a vital part of the insurance distribution ecosystem, but these latest findings show exactly how crucial they are as our industry grows. Two in three agents grew their businesses in 2022, and more than a quarter grew by more than 10%. Even during the pandemic, agents did good business as people turned to their agents as trusted advisors to recommend increased coverage for better protection. Nourishing those relationships with policyholders has given agents this impressive growth as the market has picked up.

Insurers can benefit from this growth so long as they view their agent relationships as a high priority. Year after year, agents have emphasized how important ease of doing business is in their work with carriers. All else being equal between two insurers, ease of doing business is liable to tip the scales. To put it simply, making life easier for agents is good for the bottom line.

Ease of doing business is an enormous and nebulous concept. It’s easy to agree to its importance and hard to figure out how to make significant improvements. In addition, insurers need to invest in process and technology innovation that will create the biggest impact.

Over the next few weeks, we’re zeroing in on quoting as an area where insurers can get a lot of bang for their buck to improve ease of doing business. Quoting is a complex process, especially for more complicated risks. There will always be back and forth between the carrier and the agent and the prospect. What insurers can do is find ways to streamline their processes by reducing friction and touchpoints.

In this new blog series, we’ll examine the quoting process one stage at a time: Submission, Qualification and Pricing. We’ll share our expertise on the top pain points in each stage while offering tangible, actionable ways to reduce friction and promote ease of doing business. We’ll look at lessons learned from our clients, specific case studies, thought leadership and technology trends that affect your quoting processes.

To learn more in the meantime, you can look through our case study library for quoting success stories, like the 85% reduction in quoting time achieved by our client Appalachian Underwriters.

At OwlSurance, we have years of experience working with our insurer and MGA clients to simplify their submissions and streamline their business processes. We help our customers prioritize ease of doing business and provide the technology and insurance know-how to help them get there.

Our next topic: the top pain points and ways forward in the Submission stage, which will help guide you in determining where to prioritize efficiency gains.

1 2023 Independent Insurance Agent Survey by NU Property & Casualty and the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents.

About OwlSurance

At OwlSurance, a cloud business unit of ValueMomentum, Inc., we offer a unified data platform because we believe in the power of unified data to transform how people do business. Let us help accelerate your data journey with the right technology and the expertise you need to put it to work for you. For more information, visit us at www.owlsurance.com.