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Commentary

New platforms shake up the insurance industry's distribution system

While emerging distribution options could threaten the viability of insurers that are overly dependent on agents and brokers, they also represent opportunities to drive growth.

By Sam J. Friedman | Updated on September 12, 2016

Insurers and their intermediaries could be forgiven for presuming that since the products they sell are so often complex, opaque, and misunderstood, the expertise and sales skills of the industry’s agent-based distribution system preclude widespread disruption by new types of providers.

Unfortunately, evolving technological platforms are helping to turn that conventional wisdom on its head and threaten to render intermediaries irrelevant for many insurance transactions as consumers consider a host of new online shopping and purchase options already at their disposal or on the near horizon.

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