Roadmap to Becoming a Modern Independent Agency

As a small, local independent agency owner, you’ve likely considered “going digital.” But with limited budget and employees to focus on all the technology needed to become a modern agency, it can be overwhelming.

In this guide, we focus on the needs and goals of the local independent agency whose primary business is personal and simple commercial insurance lines. These agencies usually have one location and fewer than ten employees.

Technology may not be in your wheelhouse but in today’s modern world, it must be. This ebook is designed to help you prioritize what InsurTech should be top of mind to help you meet your ultimate goals: happy clients and more revenue.

We’ve created this guide to help you determine the best journey to becoming a modern agency.

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Challenges/roadblocks for these agencies

Your agency needs to retain current clients and build new business, but day-to-day tasks take too long, not leaving you enough time to focus on what’s important.

You don’t have a budget, or a very large budget for new technologies, nor the IT department to support them.

You don’t have an in-house expert to guide you on InsurTech leaving you overwhelmed on what’s the right course of action.

“Those who actually use the technology daily, the CSRs and account executives, are least likely to agree that the agency is on top of technology.”

– Celent ,“Optimizing the Independent Agent Experience” July 2021

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The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us why businesses need to be agile. Agencies were forced overnight to have remote workforces doing almost all business digitally. We learned digital interactions can strengthen client relationships by offering more channels of communication and making you more available where and when clients need you. Your client needs proof of insurance at 2:00 a.m. after a minor fender bender. Boom, they can pull it up on their phone.

Many of the technologies recommended intertwine to give your employees, clients, and prospects the most efficient and positive user experiences. The most successful agencies are using these technologies in an integrated and comprehensive way, but every agency needs to start somewhere. There are some foundational steps that are critical to your success and others that are nice-to-haves based on your agency’s unique needs.

A 2019 Liberty Mutual/Safeco research study divided 600 agencies into three groups based on their variation of digital adoption and scored them on the number and complexity of their digital tools. Year-over-year, low digital adopters, with an average score of 2.76, grew revenue 7.4% while high adopters, average score of 6.76, grew 12%—equating to 60% more growth for highly digital agencies.

more growth

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Roadmap Steps

We understand how many technologies are available to businesses, and with new ones entering the market all the time it can be tough to navigate and determine the best path for your agency. Leveraging our 50 years of experience in the insurance industry, working with agencies of all sizes and across the distribution channel, we’ve compiled a list of technologies that every modern agency needs to consider.

While second on our list of must-have technologies, an agency management system (AMS) is essential to any growing agency. Your AMS handles your day-to-date tasks but it should also easily integrate with your other best-of-breed tools. Your AMS will be your agency’s central nervous system, and the more tools you can plug directly into your AMS, the more efficient your agency will become.

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Personal lines comparative rating tool

Faster quoting.

• Enter data once—for as long as the insured is with your agency.

• Re-shop quotes at any time—in seconds.

• Change coverage, reassign vehicles, or swap a named insured.

Increase efficiencies.

• Click and your carrier site will open with all your quote data prefilled! Answer a few questions and start the binding process. No fax. No snail mail.

Higher accuracy.

• Real-time quotes directly from carriers, including payment plans, annual premiums, limits, and deductibles.

• Compare to see what works best for your client’s unique needs and budget.

More effective remarketing.• With automated remarketing, you can follow-up with prospects who haven’t yet

purchased to get in front of them multiple times to increase your close ratio.

Valuable reporting.

• Gain valuable insights to see where your business is coming from, what carriers are being quoted, close ratios by producer, location, or carrier, and more.

We highly recommend implementing an AMS and a personal lines rater that are integrated together. However, if you MUST pick one first, we recommend a personal lines rater.

Consumers expect competitive quotes immediately. To be a choice agency that your clients trust, you need to have a comparative rater for personal lines to deliver. A personal lines rater, like PL Rating, is a modern agency fundamental that allows your agents to take on a more consultative role, and table stakes for doing business.

Benefits of a personal lines rater

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• Your personal lines rater should be tightly integrated with your AMS—like the integration of QQCatalyst and PL Rating—to save time and provide you with the information you need, at your fingertips. Your AMS will prefill most of the client information into your rater, so you only need to collect missing data, reducing processing time.

• The higher number of real-time carrier connections, the better.

• A wide range of insurance lines (auto, home, fire, flood, etc.).

• Ability to integrate with your website and social media accounts, like you can do with PL Rating Consumer Rate Quotes (CRQ).

What you should look for

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Agency management system

Automating the daily operations associated with running your agency will allow you and your staff to spend more time with clients. Your AMS does so much more than track communications with prospects, clients, and carriers. Because your AMS is built specifically for the insurance industry, it can function as your customer relationship management (CRM) system to organization your book of business.

Work smarter, not harder, with an AMS built specifically for the small independent agency.

Building relationships is at the heart of your agency. However, when you face piles of paperwork, manual processes, and disconnected systems you have less time to devote to current or prospective clients.

To help keep your employees happy, and more productive, an AMS is a must-have for all insurance agencies. As the central nervous system of your agency, it can and should integrate with your other best-of-breed tools, so client records are centralized and always up-to-date.

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Operational Efficiencies

• Business-critical documentation can be simply and securely managed and organized by client, carrier, or policy.

• As a business owner or manager, your AMS can provide you with valuable insights into employee productivity so that you can spot opportunities to increase efficiencies across your team and highlight leaders.

• Make your employees’ life easier and more productive by using workflow automation to automate tasks that are currently done manually. They can be setup to run whenever a trigger occurs. Use workflows to train your team with integrated training or create standardized procedures to ensure every step is completed correctly, every time.

“68% of agents rank the ability to receive edocs and messages in their AMS as very valuable.”

– Big I, 2020 Agency Universe Study

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Marketing and Sales

In the cloud

Your AMS should be hosted in the cloud and accessible through modern web browsers so that your employees can work wherever and whenever they need. Having a web-based AMS also allows for easier upgrades and updates so there is little to no strain on your IT team—which more than likely is you.

One size does not fit all. Having the ability to connect best-of-breed solutions into your AMS helps your agency expand its technology stack while maintaining a sole source of truth. Understanding that while your AMS can do many things, it can’t (and shouldn’t) do it all. With an AMS that has a modular and open approach, and partners with industry-best solution providers, your agency is empowered to use the features and products that meet your needs.

Open architecture and API integrations

With built-in marketing communication tools, you can automatically send policy renewal reminders, birthday emails, and follow-up communications. This will easily help increase revenue and keep you top of mind with your clients.

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Marketing and communications

Today’s consumers frequently start their search for a new product or service with a web search. They may also look on Yelp, Google, or Facebook for reviews and recommendations. Once they find a few results, they click on the website to learn more.

Your agency needs to be in all those places to win more business. Summed up, you need to be easy to find and easy to do business with.

“According to 61% of users, if they don’t find what they want immediately on a mobile site, they’ll just head to another site straight away.”

– Think with Google

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Client portals and apps

Your agency needs to have the tools to provide traditional and digital interactions to meet client expectations and win more business. Client portals—whether through the web or a mobile app—are an essential part of today’s digital experience to provide the anywhere, anytime service people expect. A client portal empowers your insureds with 24/7/365 self-service access to view policy data, print auto ID cards, change requests, and more. And when your client portal interfaces with your AMS (like the Insurance Agent App integration with QQCatalyst or the integration between InsurLink and AMS360) your employees will also get time back in their day to focus on earning more business.

Yes, your clients might be able to do much of this in carrier portals. But wouldn’t it be simpler to have personalized insurance details in one place, especially if they have policies with multiple carriers? Even better if the portal has your branding and is accessible from your website to help build awareness and loyalty for your agency? We think so.

Professional website

Your website is the digital face of your agency and a starting point for potential clients. Your website must be modern, well-designed, easy to use, and work on mobile devices. This will be a prospect’s first impression of your business and you want it to be a good one.

Using your website to capture leads, service clients, review policies, and live chat with both prospects and clients can seem like a daunting task—but it doesn’t have to be with the right tools. With solutions like Forge3 Active Agency, you can add that “wow” factor to your website and connect it to your agency management system, like QQCatalyst or AMS360, and consumer rate quoting system like PL Rating CRQ.

Once you have your website live and ready for business, consider allocating budget for paid search to bring new prospects to your website.

“Eighty percent [of 225 independent insurance agents surveyed] agree that it is important to provide policyholders with self-service tools.”

– Celent ,“Optimizing the Independent Agent Experience” July 2021

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Search is the most used touchpoint across the insurance journey phases. Social media appears to play a larger role in the journey, particularly when it comes to considering reviews.

Insurance

30%

4%

InitialInspiration

ResearchingDetails/Features

ConsideringReviews

ComparingPrices/Rates

Search

Social mediaOnline videoFamily/friend

recommendation

Brand website/app

Source: Think with Google, “COVID changed the consumer journey, but what’s likely to stick?” May 2021.

Think with Google: Consumer Insights for post-Covid behaviors

Reviews and reputation

Your brand relies on your reputation. Online reviews are where your agency gets better visibility and credibility from Google, Facebook, Yelp, and others. These rankings and reviews add up over time and improve your search ranking and online reputation. With something as important as insurance, people will do their research before picking an agency.

To get started, your agency needs to start collecting reviews, so make sure your agency is listed on all local search and review sites. Make sure your information is up-to-date—this is where you will want to include a link to your website, social media handles, and your reviews.

With communications platforms, like Rocket Referrals, that are built specifically for the insurance industry and integrate with your AMS, you can get up and running quickly. QQCatalyst integrates with Rocket Referrals and AMS360 has Vertafore Client Communications built-in, using the Rocket Referrals platform.

Once you have your listings ready, actively ask clients to rate your agency on top review sites in your area.

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Electronic documents

Consumers expect to be able to do most personal business from their phone, tablet or laptop, including their insurance transactions. With an electronic document tool, documents can be sent and signed, quickly and securely. Your staff will spend less time tracking down documents—and you can feel good that all steps are documented and complete.

Raise the bar: If your e-doc tool is integrated with your management system (like QQCatalyst or AMS360 and DocuSign) the documents are automatically filed—no need to scan or manually create an activity.

Marketing communication tools

Once you have a database of clients and prospects in your AMS, you need to start proactively communicating with them. But how often? About what topics? What is the best way to reach them? With an automated communications platform—preferably built into or integrated with your agency management system—you can use email, text message, or direct mail to send your clients the right message, at the right time. Is an important client expecting a baby? Make sure they get a text or email congratulating them…and reminding them of the importance of life insurance! Policy renewal time? That’s covered too as both you and your client will get an automated reminder!

90% of customers welcome brand communication over their mobile apps and devices.

– Twilio, 2016

“Study why clients become unhappy with their agent and you’ll find that 75% of the time it’s related to poor communication.”

– Carl Maerz, Rough Notes

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Phone systems

A phone system is an obvious must-have, but upgrading to a hosted VoIP network phone system enables your agency to modernize communication. Imagine being able to pull up the client’s account when they call in. Having integrated contact management makes this possible.

“In areas of personal finance (banking, credit cards, insurance), over 70% of people still consider talking to a live customer service representative highly useful.”

– Google, May 2021

Electronic payments

If your agency bills clients and then pays the carrier, you may want to investigate electronic payment solutions. And of course, you will want your e-pay tool to integrate with your AMS.

Producer licensing and CE credit tracking

To simplify getting and managing all the credentials your agency needs to sell insurance, a licensing and CE credit tracking tool, like Sircon for Agencies, is recommended. You’ll be able to expedite electronic license applications and renewals, in any jurisdiction, from a single location. They also enable you to manage carrier relationships, keep track of credentials, and stay up to date on regulatory changes.

Nice to haves

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Gillman Insurance Problem Solvers directly attributes their success to their ability to grow technology. Their focus is on both their client’s digital experience and managing a modern agency. Their agency is comprised of both personal lines and complex commercial lines, which is why they chose AMS360 as their agency management system. They’ve been able to increase efficiencies by automating tasks and reducing re-keying in data, which results in more time to serve clients and find new business.

“We make it [insurance] easy, seamless, and relatively painless.” - Ed Gillman

Gillman Insurance also relies on Vertafore Client Communications, powered by Rocket Referrals, to automate their marketing efforts. This integrated feature in AMS360 helps them deliver the right message to the right client at the right time—increasing their ability to win more business.

“The key is to be in front of the prospect or customer when they are ready and interested.”

To allow clients to service themselves like downloading their auto ID cards, Gillman Insurance chose Vertafore’s InsurLink to offer a client portal. By giving clients a self-service option, they can relieve some of their CSR team’s workload and keep clients happy with fast, reliable service.

With this intense focus on clients and using technology to supplement the experience, Gillman Insurance has achieved $200,000 revenue per employee.

Read their full story

Gillman Insurance Problem Solvers

• Atlanta, GA

• Founded 1993

• Commercial and personal lines

• 2020 Big “I” Best Practices Top Performer

Real-world stories

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“Before, we used to have reams and reams of paper because we printed everything out. Now we save everything as files, we attach it into QQCatalyst, and we can send everything to DocuSign through the system. We can text through QQCatalyst and we have the ability to send quick email files through the system. It has changed our lives.”

– Beverly Scott, Agency Owner, BEVCO Insurance

When Beverly Scott bought a local, independent insurance agency in Lugoff, South Carolina, it had a great book of business—but everything was done on paper. There were 35 filing cabinets filled with client information. Simple tasks—like sending clients a note letting them know that the agency was switching hands—couldn’t be done as there wasn’t a way to gather all the addresses without opening every drawer and every file.

Vertafore’s Orange Partner Program brings together complementary solutions with best-in-class capabilities to the Vertafore suite of products. With the Orange Partner Program, clients can take advantage of utilizing these solutions through integrations with available APIs.

BEVCO Insurance utilizes Vertafore’s Orange Partners to automate its communication with clients throughout the entire client journey. By using DocuSign, the team is able to automate how they prepare and manage agreements, allowing them to service their clients electronically from various devices and locations.

For CRM capabilities, BEVCO utilizes both Bridge by The Kotter Group and AgencyZoom to quickly communicate with clients while also automating time-consuming tasks. During the pandemic, Bridge by The Kotter Group allowed Beverly and team to operate remotely through the mobile app, while continuing to keep their business running as normal.

BEVCO Insurance

QQCatalyst

PL Rating

Orange Partner Program

• DocuSign

• Bridge by The Kotter Group

• AgencyZoom

“ Because of QQCatalyst, we have the flexibility to keep churning out quotes, selling policies and working seamlessly from any location. And with the integrations available, we have been able to use mobile applications, working as if we were in the office. All of these systems in place have made all the difference in the world.”

– Teresa Fuller, COO and Vice President, BEVCO Insurance

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Key Takeaways

Technology is key to your business

Whether your goal is to grow your agency or to keep your current book of business, modern technology will increase employee productivity and morale, provide more visibility to leadership with reporting, and improve client satisfaction and retention by making your agency easy to do business with.

Technology can improve and enhance client relationships

Utilizing technology can both automate and increase the number of communication channels available to you for building client relationships by providing clients with self-service to access information as needed.

Technology must be integrated

While your AMS is the central nervous system to your agency, it’s important that it’s open to plug-in with your other tools. You can have all of the top technologies, but if they don’t talk to one another, they are less efficient.

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As North America’s InsurTech leader for more than 50 years, Vertafore is modernizing and simplifying insurance distribution so that our customers can focus on what matters most: people. Vertafore provides, local independent agencies, to large carriers, solutions that enable end-to-end connectivity, improve the client and agent experience, unlock the power of data, and streamline essential workflows to drive efficiency, productivity, and profitability for independent agencies and carriers. Click here to learn more about modernizing your agency.

The Vertafore Orange Partner Program was created in 2019 to enable agencies to integrate complementary, best-in-class business solutions with their Vertafore products. The program allows Vertafore customers to choose the tools and services that are tailored to best meet their business needs.

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