You may have seen the pictures from a baseball game played last week by the Atlanta Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates. The two teams went 19 innings and played for over six hours before the Braves won thanks to one of the more egregious umpiring calls in recent years.
Such bad calls are rare. Of the millions of decisions made by major league umpires in a season, only a handful are bad enough to warrant an explosion on YouTube (and an appearance on this blog; sadly MLB has taken down the video).
Still, even in the face of pretty obvious evidence, Major League Baseball does nothing to correct these horrible calls. A few years ago, MLB adopted video review for home run calls to judge whether a ball cleared the fence, but that's as far as they go. Obvious mistakes, such as the one made in Atlanta, go uncorrected. Apologies are made, but nothing is done to prevent them from recurring.
I was once one of those who opposed video review in baseball because I felt it would slow the already tortoise-paced games to a snail's pace. I did not want to see the endless delays for reviewing calls such as what we see in the National Football League.
With the technology available to correct many calls, baseball refuses to face this important fact, as stated by Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski: “… it's just not sustainable in today's technological world to make bad calls on the field.”
Now what does all this have to do with insurance?
Last week I interviewed Belen Tokarski, assistant vice president of technology and agency solutions for CNA, for an article I am writing on real-time download for commercial lines insurers that will be running in the September issue of Tech Decisions.
She reports that approximately 75 percent of the agents CNA deals with fall under the heading of technology challenged. These agents aren't using typewriters and mailing in requests for quotes, but they aren't taking advantage of even some of the options available through their agency management systems, much less enjoying the capabilities of early adopters for real-time download.
These agents are finding it easy and comfortable to perform tasks that aren't challenging because most insurers—while scouring the market for early adopters—are still following the mantra of being “easy to do business with.”
Those satisfied with the status quo will be in for a rude awakening sometime soon. One day, carriers will find that it is “just not sustainable in today's technological world” to continue to do business with agents who are unwilling to accept the challenge of progress, particularly when carriers are investing greatly in solutions that make everyone's life easier to live—and work.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
