Brokers, consider these questions before adopting new InsurTech
Origami Risks' Glen Carey shares his advice to insurance professionals challenged by the InsurTech revolution.
Implementing new InsurTech can be a daunting endeavor for insurance agencies and brokerages to consider. That is why agents and brokers must understand all the factors associated with InsurTech solutions — whether the company provides the service is a fit for a brokerage to the maintenance required after installation.
PropertyCasualty360.com spoke with Glen Carey, senior sales executive at Origami Risk, a provider of integrated SaaS solutions for the risk and insurance industry, to address the challenges and common questions agents and brokers have when adopting InsurTech.
PC360: What should insurance agents and brokers ask themselves before investing in new technology?
Carey: One of the things that brokers need to truly ask themselves to be successful with whatever kind of technology they’re investigating is: “What is the problem I’m truly trying to solve? Am I looking to solve an internal efficiency problem, like something with an agency management system; am I looking to solve an external efficiency problem, or am I trying to solve an analytics problem?” Those technologies are not necessarily the same thing. Sometimes brokers do not fully understand what they expect technology to do, so another thing they should ask themselves is, “did I have a negative or less optimal experience in the past six months to a year where the right technology would have made a difference?”
What a lot of brokers do is they get very excited by the bells and whistles. When things go wrong with technology, it’s generally because the broker saw something cool that they thought would solve a very specific problem. You don’t want to get the tech just to get it; you want to get it for a particular need to solve.
Brokers may also want to ask peers about their experience with different technologies and how they are using different solutions to solve problems.
PC360: What pitfalls should brokers avoid when partnering with a tech provider?
Carey: There are so many solutions out there that do incredible and interesting things, but brokers should understand exactly what they want the company to do for them. Just because the company is a great tech provider does not mean that it’s a good fit for your organization. That’s a conversation I have with brokers on a regular basis.
Brokers should also know whether the technology they’re investing in is a “set it and forget it” type of solution, where you sign the contract, and the provider does all the work for you. On the other hand, are you partnering with an organization that’s expecting you to do a fair amount of the work yourself? If that’s the situation, you want to make sure you have people prepared to take ownership of that project internally. Where it goes bad from a broker perspective is when they think they are buying a “set it and forget it” solution, but, in fact, they have technology that needs to be worked on.
PC360: What is a common misconception you hear from agents and brokers about InsurTech?
Carey: I think probably the thing that brokers underestimate is the fact that they are truly forming a partnership with their tech providers, and it’s going to take some time to set up solutions. There are going to be some questions and good-natured arguments about trade-offs and benefits in order to structure solutions correctly. As a provider, we’re going to need to get agency employees trained correctly and make decisions around data, which are going to take some time.
I’ve had conversations a week before Thanksgiving when the client asks for their solution to be live by January. We can’t do that. Not because we are lazy, but because we are implementing a sophisticated approach to risk.
PC360: Where do you see the InsurTech industry heading in the next few years?
Carey: People’s expectations are higher than they’ve ever been, and technologies are actually meeting those expectations in new and pretty exciting ways. There are some incredibly exciting things in the next five years in the InsurTech world for brokers, risk managers and underwriters. It will be incredibly exciting, but that’s also going to make it a greater challenge because that pace of innovation has increased for brokers to ask questions, talk with people who know the business, and receive good feedback on the technology.
But, if agents and brokers are not embracing this wave of technology, they’re potentially shortchanging their clients because clients expect their brokers to be ahead of the curve. Technology, to a certain extent, is like staying in shape. It’s an ongoing process. Technology is a constant reinvestment. We call it “digital debt” at Origami Risk. The longer you hold off on reinvesting in your company and your platform, the more digital debt you incur. Brokers have a responsibility to keep reinvesting; it doesn’t mean you have to buy a new system every year, but you have to know where you stand in that process.
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