Library: CapGemini – Agents, Brokers, and Carriers: COVID-19 as an Accelerator of the Pivot to Digital for Life Insurance

Executive summary :

Digital tools, digital products, and the replacement of legacy processes and systems will be needed to optimise how carriers interact with both with the agent and the customer as preferences shift (whether due to pandemics or simply generational shifts).

Brokers remain important 

Life in the old dog, yet

Life insurance companies have been working to improve their speed to market for new and refreshed products, but they have struggled to effectively message these improvements to frontline agents and brokers.

Even as more customers shop online, the value of the agent and broker model still exists for many customers and prospects.

Thanks to the lengthy and very highly publicised COVID-19 pandemic, the life, annuities, and even group benefits businesses have seen significant growth in interest for life insurance products, supplemental health products, and income protection products, despite the economic downturn.

Going digital

Many companies that previously struggled with other initiatives/priorities to push digital initiatives for agents/brokers are now seeing an urgent need to enable their agents for current – and future – opportunities via a digital channel. While some of these efforts include direct digital channels, most life/annuity/health products require significant education (and compliance) components which will take time (and innovation) to address digitally (unlike personal lines P&C products such as auto insurance). As a result, digitally enabling the agent is the fastest path to adapting to the current environment.

But brokers remain important

Customers are—at least for now—more inclined to work with brokers/agents, typically local and (eventually) in-person. For the large majority of carriers that rely at least in part on agents/brokers, the relationship is vital to their marketing, sales, servicing, and retention, and their current business models rely on it. Unless and until these carriers fundamentally change their business models and/or business processes, they need to work with agents/brokers to enable them to sell and service customers in what is—during a pandemic—a digital-only world.

Various themes are flourishing with regard to digital enablement, and the objectives have never been clearer.

Through a digitally enabled front office, agents and brokers can focus on high-priority tasks without wasting energy on the “low value-add transactions,” as Seth Rachlin, executive vice president and global insurance lead at Capgemini indicates.

Agents are augmenting their value proposition and building better connections with the customer with these tools but can only do so when a carrier supports it.

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