Since participants are essential to AUGIE's effectiveness, one of the key areas of focus in 2013 will be using outreach to engage young professionals in user group activities throughout the year.

"Young professionals are the future of the industry, and this industry will create more and more jobs for them as growth happens and as boomers retire," Durland says.

AUGIE has already been increasing its efforts to encourage existing group participants to bring other colleagues to panels and events. So far, the results have been promising.

"We've been successful in getting more involvement at panels," says Durland, adding that sustaining that success will require showing that the industry has rewarding careers to offer.

"For young professionals, the insurance industry provides the opportunity to be an entrepreneur," she says. "As an agent, they can decide what market to promote, where to specialize, and how to build a book of business. At insurance companies and vendors, roles and responsibilities are going beyond the traditional realms of service, claims, and underwriting into high-tech and other fields."

Building a Community

At the same time AUGIE has been working to build its ranks of participants from within the insurance industry, it has also expanded its reach beyond agencies, brokerages, and carriers to include vendors, consultants, and media in its communities.

"We've been successful at engaging the choir, but we need to get more perspectives involved," Durland says. "The pace of change is rapid and there are a lot of unknowns out there, so a breadth of perspective is essential to help us set priorities."

The group has moved from having teams where information flow was limited to those teams to the new AUGIE Community where anyone can follow activities and work in progress. "We're inviting everybody who has an interest in helping independent agents be more effective and profitable," Durland says. To sign up to follow a Community, follow the links under the "Community" tab at acord.org.

Download and Real Time

One of AUGIE's longstanding goals is to encourage real time and download to become the predominant workflow of independent agents. Commercial lines download continues to be an agenda item in 2013, with the group seeking to grow the number of agencies and brokers using commercial download and the number of consultants advocating its use.

Despite the benefits of commercial download, there is resistance to using it—and AUGIE seeks to understand why. "Through our subgroups and face to face meetings, we're addressing the issues where there is pushback one by one," says Durland. "Encouragingly, we have seen a growth in commercial lines download, but not to the extent that we'd like."

AUGIE is further promoting real time in a class called "Real Time Makes Real Sense." Originally planned for the for the FAIA (Florida Association of Insurance Agents) convention in June 2012, the class is now offered as a webinar that carries two hours of continued education credit in several states, with more states being added each month. The class is included in the ABEN catalog, which is part of the IIABA, and is offered twice monthly. 

"Real-time helps independent agents truly act like independent agents by enabling SEMCI, " Durland says. " The success of real time is real and proven by people who speak from their heart and experience in the webinar."

AUGIE also continues its efforts along several areas of e-business and mobility, including working with states to gain acceptance of electronic ID cards and with agents and carriers to promote e-signatures.

"We continue to advocate for e-signatures and get the message out to our user base, agency associations, ACORD task groups, and more," says Durland. "E-signatures are happening. Agents are already using this technology to increase their success rate at the point of sale and improve service to clients, as well as reduce their E&O exposure." 

The "New Strategic Analysis: Guidelines for e-Signature and e-Delivery in the Insurance Business" paper has been posted in the Document section of the AUGIE Community. The paper contains a wealth of information on the benefits and use of e-signatures, including best practices common to insurers and producers for their use.

Lastly, AUGIE has its eyes on mobility in 2013 and beyond as an efficiency gain for independent agents and their customers. Throughout the year, the group will continue to advocate for ways that agencies can provide service to their clients through mobile offerings and to communicate to states on the benefits of mobile technology as well.

"It's no secret that everybody wants to use their mobile smart device to do business, so independent agents need to do whatever they can to be mobile," says Durland. That includes optimizing agent web offerings for the displays, capabilities, and user interfaces of mobile devices.

"Agents emphasize that clients come to them in person or through their website. Websites are designed to provide many options for their clients to contact them and an easy to use experience, and are expanding the depth of information that is available for self-service.  That is why connectivity from their agency management system to the carrier systems is so important—it is the link to ultimately expanding those self-service options," Durland explains. "It's our goal to help agents work toward that goal so that their website and staff become a one-stop, home-base destination for customers, who in many cases have many policies with multiple carriers."

Agents are making progress on this front, but there is still work to be done. "There is often not total integration with the agency management system yet," Durland says, "but when agencies get to the point where that information is flowing freely throughout the process, they will see tremendous gains in both service efficiency and customer satisfaction."