Insurance professionals are constantly seeking ways to alleviate the often overwhelming work demands in a challenging insurance market. At Applied Net 2024 in Nashville recently, this issue was a core topic on stage and in conversations, with high hopes for artificial intelligence playing a supporting role. Applied and other technology vendors promoted solutions to:
- Summarize and save client communications,
- Reduce keying and rekeying of information,
- Auto-fill or pre-fill data,
- Speed up the time to quote and issue policies, and
- Meet customer service expectations.
Although the conference theme, “The Next Generation of Insurance,” was primarily focused on technology, a significant portion of the discussion centered on finding the next generation of insurance professionals. Applied Systems CEO Taylor Rhodes addressed this on the main stage and during a live recording of the On Point Podcast with Peter van Aartrijk.
Talent is a big issue, Rhodes said. A lot of people are going to retire, and new, younger people aren’t coming into an industry that they don’t understand. For people currently in the industry, there’s a lot of drudge work.
“How can technology take tedium away?” Rhodes asked. He noted that customer service representatives (CSRs) report spending a staggering 5.5 hours per day going through emails. A demo of an AI-driven service that could significantly reduce this time by summarizing client email communications and saving it in the agency management system received a very positive reaction.
“Everyone clapped,” Rhodes said. “Why? Five and a half hours a day.”
Mark Breading, a senior partner at ReSource Pro, observed that most of the current conversation revolves around optimizing legacy and core systems, with AI being a future focus for many.
“All the talk is AI. All the action is about legacy technology,” Breading said.
The current challenges are opening the eyes of insurance agency employees to the benefits of promoting customer self-service capabilities, said Jackson Rollo, CIC, President of Rollo Insurance Group. He explained that employees are becoming more eager to promote self-service because they are overworked and could use the break.
My take: Unfortunately, many people in the industry still believe that service is what differentiates their agency. According to a recent Salesforce study, 57% of customers prefer to engage with businesses through digital channels.
It’s not digital-only; it’s digital-also.
I’m hoping for the sake of clients and the work-life balance of agency employees, that customer-self-service continues to grow, so agencies can redirect that time saved for doing things like improving core systems and figuring out how to utilize AI in meaningful ways.
- Dale Steinke leads the Agent for the Future Advisors for Liberty Mutual Insurance, Safeco Insurance and State Auto Insurance.
