KEY TAKEAWAY:

--With access to precise geocoding data, claims departments can swiftly assess risks, verify policy coverage and estimate claim values. This streamlined approach minimizes manual intervention, reduces errors and enhances operational efficiency.

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Geocoding plays a crucial role in the insurance industry, particularly for underwriters, claims departments and adjusters, by delivering accurate structure location. Geocoding can increase profit margins, improve risk assessment, minimize losses on claims and empower claims and adjusting teams.

Geocodes are available with varying degrees of precision, such as ZIP9 geocodes, interpolated geocodes, parcel geocodes and rooftop geocodes—each offering a different level of accuracy. However, only true rooftop geocoding can maximize an insurer's investment and enhance risk assessment. 

The two most popular types of geocodes are parcel-centric geocodes and rooftop geocodes. Parcel-centric geocodes identify the center of a parcel or lot, while rooftop geocodes find the exact roof of a structure. Certain providers, including major search engines, may pass off parcel-centric geocodes as rooftop-accurate. 

Relying on parcel-centric geocodes when writing policies can lead to inaccurate risk assessments and underwriting compliance issues. Parcel-centric geocoding may increase the number of full-limit-losses paid, decrease revenue or even get your company in hot water with regulatory agencies. 

When vetting geocoding providers, it's worth verifying the absolute accuracy of the geocodes they return. 

Great Geocoding Requires Great Address Validation

Address validation cleanses and standardizes the geocoded addresses to reduce false positive matches. Using address validation, geocoding can also identify the address type, including non-postal address, residential or business, or determine if there is a multi-unit structure.

Pairing Geocoding and Data Enrichment Maximizes ROI

Whether you're writing a business owner's policy (BOP), vacant land policy, property policy or product liability policy, you must ask your clients questions about their home or business. However, peppering your clients with property attribute questions regarding their home or business can be tedious. Often, clients don't know the answer, and sometimes, they may even give incorrect information. Rooftop geocoding enriched with property attributes can improve the experience for you and your clients. 

Insurers using property attributes to augment the data they already have typically do so through a separate company's application programming interface (API). Through this API, insurers can obtain hundreds of supplementary data points and use them to paint a clearer picture of the risks involved with insuring the property in question. 

In addition to generating a positive ROI on the front-end, geocoding and data enrichment provide insights that enable insurers to enhance their risk management strategies. By identifying specific property characteristics and associated risks, insurers can develop loss-prevention initiatives and offer valuable risk mitigation advice to their clients. 

Geocoding Using Cloud-Based APIs Adds Flexibility and Speed

Historically, geocoding uses on-premise systems that tie up hardware resources and require time-consuming updates and processes. Geocoding using cloud-based APIs is more efficient because all data updates and hardware maintenance aren't needed. The flexibility of chaining together multiple cloud-based APIs is a huge plus.

Cloud-based geocoding can also be very fast. Some cloud-based providers can process geocodes much quicker than most on-premise systems for a fraction of the overall cost.

Persistent Unique Identifiers (PUIDs) Are Key 

Addresses can sometimes change due to street name modifications, address renumbering or subdivision developments. Getting the most out of geocoding means choosing a provider with persistent unique identifiers (PUIDs)—a type of digital fingerprint. PUIDs remain constant even when the underlying address data changes—allowing insurers to link historical data and maintain data integrity.

Considering how often addresses can change, it's not cost-effective for carriers, brokers and agents to manually correct them. PUIDS can help insurers automate this process, saving time and cost. 

And, by linking the property to previous claims, property updates, loss trends and other data, underwriters can more easily determine policy premiums and program eligibility. 

Geocoding Streamlines Straight-Through Processing

Rooftop geocoding has become a necessity for streamlining straight-through processing in claims departments. With access to precise geocoding data, claims departments can swiftly assess risks, verify policy coverage and estimate claim values. This streamlined approach minimizes manual intervention, reduces errors and enhances operational efficiency.

Rooftop geocoding also aids in efficiently deploying adjusters. Empowered with exact coordinates, insurers can assign adjusters who are geographically closest to the claim site, send them to the right place the first time and reduce travel expenses while providing timely and responsive claims handling. 

The future of geocoding holds exciting possibilities. With advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics, insurers can harness the power of geocoding to extract deeper insights from location data. This enhanced understanding of risks and exposures will enable insurers to develop more tailored policies, promote risk management and drive ROI

KEY TAKEAWAY:

--Smart homes offer a vast array of benefits in: risk mitigation and prevention, data collection and analysis, personalized premiums, faster claims processing, home monitoring services, liability coverage, premium discounts, the environment and health and wellness.

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Smart homes, equipped with various Internet of Things (IoT) devices and technologies, have the potential to change the insurance industry.

Insurers have a natural synergy with smart home technologies. With almost 69% of U.S. households owning at least one smart home device, it is clear that such technologies help consumers manage, protect and efficiently run their homes via mobile applications.

While smart home technology is not a new concept, many insurance companies and homeowners are adopting it like never before to optimize housing efficiency, streamline daily tasks, improve quality of life and well-being and reduce urban household risks.

What Are Smart Homes?

Smart home technology integrates various devices and appliances with internet connectivity, enabling remote monitoring and control through mobile applications. Implementing smart home devices, such as smart security cameras, door locks, thermostats and water leak detectors, significantly reduces the risk of potential hazards and damages, affecting insurance policies in many ways.

Here's how smart homes and insurance are connected

Risk Mitigation and Prevention

Smart homes are equipped with sensors, cameras and connected devices that can help prevent accidents and damages. For example, smart smoke detectors, water leak sensors and security cameras can detect potential hazards and alert homeowners in real time. Insurance companies can offer lower premiums or incentives to homeowners who invest in these technologies, as they reduce the risk of costly claims.

Data Collection and Analysis

Smart home devices generate a wealth of data related to occupancy patterns, usage of appliances and environmental conditions. Insurance companies can leverage this data to better understand customer behavior and assess risks accurately. For instance, if a homeowner's data shows responsible use of heating and cooling systems, they might be eligible for lower energy-related insurance premiums.

Personalized Premiums - Usage-Based Insurance (UBI)

By leveraging data from connected devices, insurance providers can tailor premiums based on homeowners' usage patterns and behaviors.

The data collected from smart homes can be used to create personalized insurance policies. Traditionally, insurance policies were based on statistical models and generalized risk assessments. However, with the advent of smart home technology, insurers can now offer UBI. This way, homeowners have more control over their premiums, and insurance companies can better assess individual risk profiles.

Faster Claims Processing

In the event of a claim, IoT devices can provide valuable data to insurance companies for faster and more accurate claim assessment. For instance, if a burglary occurs, security camera footage can help verify the claim and expedite the claims process.

Home Monitoring Services

Insurance companies might offer home monitoring services as part of their policies. These services could include continuous monitoring of security systems, smoke detectors and other safety devices. This not only enhances home security but also provides peace of mind for homeowners.

Devices, such as connected security cameras, smart locks and water leak sensors, offer real-time monitoring and early warning capabilities. These devices can detect potential threats, such as fires, gas leaks or water damage, in real time. In case of emergencies, the devices can automatically trigger alerts and notifications to homeowners and relevant authorities, helping mitigate risks and minimize the extent of damage and potential insurance claims.

For example, The Flo by Moen Smart Water Security System learns your home's water usage and can automatically shut off the water supply if there's a detected leak, reducing the likelihood of insurance claims.

Liability Coverage

Smart home devices can potentially assist in liability claims. For instance, if a guest is injured on the property, data from smart security cameras or access logs could provide evidence about the circumstances, helping to determine liability and claims settlement.

Premium Discounts

Some insurance companies already offer discounts for homeowners who implement certain smart home technologies, such as security systems or leak detectors. These discounts can encourage homeowners to invest in these technologies and enhance their overall safety and security.

The Environment

Smart homes often have sustainable and eco-friendly features to improve homeowners' carbon footprint. For instance, smart homes can be equipped with thermostats to automatically adjust a room's temperature to help people conserve energy and cut their utility bills. Insurance companies can encourage eco-friendly initiatives by offering incentives for homeowners who purchase such environmentally responsible devices.

The adoption of smart home technologies and their impact on insurance can vary by region and insurance company. As technology continues to evolve, the insurance industry will likely find new ways to leverage smart home data to provide more personalized and efficient services to their customers.

Health and Wellness

Many smart home devices help improve the health and well-being of homeowners. For example, smart fridges can be programmed to reorder healthy food, and smart bathroom mats can monitor your weight and posture. Insurers that create programs and incentives encouraging plan members to adopt smart home wellness technology can help them live healthier and longer lives. Lower mortality and morbidity can help employee benefits insurers increase profits while reducing strains on healthcare systems.

A Smart Future

While smart homes offer many benefits, there are also concerns related to data privacy and cybersecurity. Insurance companies must ensure that the data collected from smart devices is properly protected and used responsibly to maintain customer trust.

Smart home and smart city technologies radically change the insurance value and are integral to creating more resilient and sustainable urban environments.

KEY TAKEAWAY:

--AI can help with customer service through a careful use of chatbots, can speed underwriting in ways that will let agents be more responsive to clients and can automate aspects of the claims process that currently distract agents from more meaningful work.

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What would you say is the most prominent theme throughout human history? Many argue that conflict or culture defines humanity. Still, when we examine the entirety of human existence, I see one central point that outshines the rest: advancement. 

Each age of humanity has been defined by an innovation that changed the course of history. Whether it be the wheel, the invention of steel or the internet, humans seem determined never to settle for their current reality and are always rushing toward that next defining moment. 

We believe that the next defining moment is already here, and it has come in the form of artificial intelligence (AI). The floodgates are open, and in as little as five years AI will likely have significantly altered how we live and work.

What does this mean for insurance agents? Well, if history has taught us anything, it is that those who properly implement innovative technologies are rewarded while those who don’t either fade into obscurity or serve as a cautionary tale for why you shouldn’t blindly charge forward into uncharted territory. 

In this article, we explore how the emergence of AI could affect independent insurance agents and make the case for why agents should carefully implement this technology into their agencies’ operations. 

First Things First 

The burning question that professionals of all stripes are asking themselves is, “Can AI do my job better than I can, and will it make my role obsolete?"

Insurance agents are not immune to this line of thinking, but, thankfully, it is unreasonable to assume that machines will eliminate the need for human agents. Most consumers are not experts on the different types of coverages available and defer to the expertise of an insurance agent. While AI tools such as ChatGPT do a great job scouring the internet and organizing information to answer a question, purchasing insurance requires trust, and consumers trust that their agent can advise them on their potential risks and securing the right coverage for their needs.

That level of trust is not easily transferable to an artificial machine (do you prefer navigating an automated customer service menu or speaking with a live person?), especially considering the nuance required to properly advise and service a client. As such, it is highly unlikely that consumers would ever prefer their risk profile to be assessed and managed by a programmable machine instead of a real person. 

No one knows what the future holds, but we firmly believe that no matter how sophisticated AI becomes, it can never replicate the interpersonal value and expertise provided by agents. 

See also: AI in a Post-Pandemic Future

On the Bright Side

That being said, AI can potentially eliminate the need for agents to perform repetitive and mundane tasks and empower them to focus on where they provide the most value: advising and servicing their clients. How will it do this? Let’s take a look. 

Customer Service 

The use of AI chatbots to answer basic customer questions is an increasingly popular feature. These chatbots help companies stay connected to consumers and are especially useful outside normal business hours. For example, imagine a customer needing information about your agency’s renewal process after you’ve locked up shop for the day and your customer service team has gone home. Featuring an AI chatbot on your website that is capable of answering this customer’s questions will add value to your customer and in turn strengthen their loyalty to your agency.

Even today, using AI to enhance your level of customer service can reduce service costs by up to 30%, according to Entrepreneur. Imagine what that number will be in 10 years as AI continues to advance. Additionally, companies such as Synthesia allow users to create AI videos that could be used for employee training or continuing education purposes. 

AI chatbots are best used in tandem with your customer support team and should primarily be used when your team is unavailable (holidays, weekends, non-business hours, etc.) or as a fast reference for your team members when issues arise outside of their circle of competence. In our opinion, having a live person responding to customer inquiries is the preferred method (especially because being an insurance agent is a service role), but when a live person is not available an AI chatbot can provide an acceptable level of support in the interim and is certainly better than no support. Remember, AI should not replace your customer service staff but instead work in tandem with them to increase the service your agency can provide customers. 

Underwriting 

AI and machine learning (ML) technologies are already transforming the underwriting process by improving data collection and risk assessment methods. For example, instead of relying on potentially inaccurate data provided by customers on an application, insurance companies are beginning to use technology that can automatically gather data through many different sources and more accurately discern the level of risk present in each policy.

According to McKinsey, by 2030 underwriting processes will be almost entirely handled by machines, and most policies will be quoted instantaneously. This removes the need for underwriters to handle repetitive tasks such as data entry and allows them to focus their energy on handling complex submissions. These innovations will be groundbreaking for carriers and brokers. However, independent agents stand to benefit as their customers receive increasingly accurate and error-free assessments of their risk profiles and instant quotes on most policies, allowing agents to focus on other items, such as product education and customer retention. 

Claims 

Claims processing can be a tedious task that requires hours of investigative work and the examination of countless documents. McKinsey estimates that by 2030 AI and ML will play a significant role in the claims process, with nearly half of all claims being fully processed without human oversight or intervention. (Lemonade already handles half of their claims via AI.) 

What does this mean for agents? It means less time focusing on data collection and information sharing with carriers and more time providing support and counsel to their customers. AI will never be able to match the interpersonal touch of a live agent, but using AI and ML to eliminate tasks such as data collection and information sharing allows agents to focus their efforts on ensuring their customers have the guidance needed to properly file their claims. 

See also: Achieving a 'Logical Data Fabric'

A Pivotal Moment 

AI has already proven itself capable of enhancing customer support, underwriting and claims processes. The technology is here to stay and will only become more prevalent. The way we see it, insurance agents have three options: 

1. Reject its implementation and become the equivalent of an agency still using a typewriter in 2010 
2. Rush to implement the technology without cause or consideration and watch it blow up in your face 
3. Identify the areas where AI can increase efficiencies and cut costs and meticulously implement the technology over time 

The key to mastering the age of AI is to choose option three. If you don’t, you may be overtaken by competitors that are more efficient and better serve their customers.

Recently, we announced the winners of the 2023 Datos Insights Insurance Technology Impact Awards. I’m writing a blog series examining industry trends as seen through the lens of the 2023 Impact Awards’ 65 case studies, which catalogue real tech projects that real insurers delivered to create real success. Today, I’ll be diving into trends from data and analytics projects across the industry.

Unlike digital projects, data tends to be a smaller category, because it so often captures projects that are intensive, multi-year efforts: things such as training algorithms to automate underwriting decision making or migrating an on-premise data warehouse to a cloud data lake environment. “Easier” data projects might be setting up a self-service data mart where business users can independently use reporting tools like Tableau to get their own analytics and insights.

Data projects are large, complex and difficult, but also crucial and unavoidable.

What’s clear from this year’s Impact Awards data case studies—and from the digital and core case studies, for that matter—is that practically anything an insurer would like to do ultimately comes down to effective data and analytics capabilities. Accurate, available data is the secret key to all the other capabilities insurers want to implement.

Take midsize property/casualty winner Mosaic Insurance (now a back-to-back Impact Award winner!). Mosaic implemented an underwriting portal to improve customer experience for high-end specialty lines customers. Creating the speed the team wanted required Mosaic to embed AI-based decision making capabilities within the portal so the system could quote, bind and issue policies automatically. What seems like a digital initiative on its face (“let’s sell specialty insurance online”) is actually a data initiative, because the algorithm is such a crucial component of the overall function.

To that point, the data used to train an algorithm must also be high quality, and any third-party data invoked in the new business process must be reliable. Fellow winner CNA is an example of the latter. CNA wanted to provide faster quotes, and its path to doing so was to build an AI-enabled automation solution to improve data extraction from forms.

These needs also extend beyond new business. Life winner Lincoln Financial wanted to improve customer experience, but what the team built was a holistic customer data view, because the core of that customer experience is being able to serve accurate information about accounts, on demand, to the portal or channel where the customer wants to view it.

See also: Achieving a 'Logical Data Fabric'

It’s data all the way down.

Whether an insurer wants to sell more, manage risk better, serve customers more effectively or differentiate itself from the competition with superior user experiences—all of it ultimately comes down to data and analytics capabilities.

Want to provide a superior distribution experience by providing instant quotes? Underwriting components are typically core, but you definitely need good data and good analytics.

Want to improve customer experience by pre-filling fields for your digital FNOL user flow? You need to be able to pull that information from a data lake.

Want to save on claims costs by more effectively flagging potential fraud or more accurately predicting claim severity? Pure data and analytics, which will have a clear impact on profitability.

Insurers, like everyone else, are rightly paying a lot of attention to generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT. But at baseline insurers need data that’s accurate, reliable and available, as well as algorithms that are trained on quality data and that produce decisions that can be trusted. More and more, data is core, data is digital, data is everything.

To check out all 13 data and analytics case studies, read Insurance Technology Impact Awards Case Study Compendium 2023: Data Initiatives. Interested to see what’s happening in the world of digital, core and IT practices? Find information about all of this year’s Insurance Impact Awards winners here.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

--Convergence means many parts of the industry are consolidating, and strategic partnerships are proliferating. Platforms and marketplaces are springing up and bringing many product offerings together. Home life and the workplace are converging, as are technologies such as those that enabled the smartphone.

--Today's insurance services will become increasingly obsolete. Drawing on technology, insurers are already shifting their value proposition from “repair and replace” to “predict and prevent.” This shift will change almost every aspect of insurance, including skills requirements, product design, distribution and pricing models.

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The violently disruptive and confusing shifts we are all experiencing are in large part a result of accelerating convergence. 

According to Marc Benioff, founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, “The world is being re-shaped by the convergence of social, mobile, cloud, big data, community and other powerful forces.”

Another perspective on the same phenomenon comes from Chunka Mui, author, futurist and innovation expert: “We have the good fortune and awesome responsibility of sitting at the inflection point of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. For better or worse, ever better and cheaper technological building blocks, including pervasive connectivity and computing, AI, robotics and genomics, are blurring the lines of the physical, digital and biological worlds. They are already reshaping industries and societal patterns, and the transformation is accelerating.”

This convergence is taking place across all industries, products, services and technologies. Its influence extends to the blurring of the previously clear separation of our work and personal lives, giving rise to the current focus on work/life balance.

Convergence and the Insurance Industry

Insurance is one of the larger industries to have significant exposure to these shifts, given the dependency on accurately predicting and managing risk and on the broad and diverse customer base, and we are already seeing the effects of this convergence.

In the financial services industry, convergence is bringing together banks, credit institutions, wealth management and insurers to develop products that combine the elements of each sector.

Consolidation of market share is another form of convergence, as the big get bigger. The $800 billion U.S. property & casualty insurance industry is highly consolidated, with 2% of carriers holding between 50% and 75% market share across most lines of business. This consolidation has caused many supply chain segments in the insurance ecosystem to themselves consolidate to meet the many new and different  needs and expectations of these large national carriers.     

In the estimated $500 billion U.S. auto insurance ecosystem, several highly fragmented segments, including collision repair, auto glass, insurance replacement car rental, salvage management, towing, third party claims administration and independent appraisal and adjusting, are seeing significant consolidation because of investors with access to large pools of capital. While thousands of these individual businesses controlling billions of dollars in revenues have already been consolidated, the process still has a long way to run in most segments.  

See also: The Power of Ecosystem Transformation

Strategic Alliances and Partnerships, Mergers and Acquisitions

Alliances and partnerships between participants in the insurance ecosystem are the result of, and precursors to, convergence. Historically, fewer alliances and partnerships existed because management believed that their company’s core competencies were competitive differentiators, and the “not invented here” prejudice was prevalent. The most progressive of companies may have collaborated with others, but nothing more formal than that.

As industry consolidation proceeded, new participants came to market leveraging new technologies, and competition in general heated up. Partnerships and alliances became recognized as valuable and eventually necessary. Similarly, mergers and acquisitions became attractive strategies to further formalize these benefits. One good example of this evolution is CoreLogic’s partnership with, minority investment in and ultimately acquisition of the property claims information software provider Symbility in 2018. The acquisition has helped CoreLogic compete with Verisk and its Xactware property estimating solution suite. 

Management began to recognize the value of these combinations in product development, speed to market, rationalization of duplicated overhead and acceleration of revenue. In some cases, partnerships with especially attractive companies were defensive, as suitors sought to keep these companies out of the hands of their competitors.  

Platforms and Marketplaces

Other more indirect forms of alliances and partnerships are emerging in the insurance industry in the form of so-called platforms and marketplaces. The most-recognized of these “hybrids” are the platforms created by insurance core system providers such as Guidewire, Duck Creek, Majesco and Sapiens. These companies are enabling third party information and service providers to integrate into their core systems and thereby become easily accessible to hundreds of common insurance clients, thus avoiding lengthy, resource-intense, one-to-one integrations. Some of these core system software providers have begun acquiring the more attractive and popular of these third party partners (e.g., Guidewire’s 2021 acquisition of HazardHub and Duck Creek’s 2023 acquisition of Imburse).

Other examples of platforms that focus more on claims, especially auto physical damage claims, include CCC Intelligent Solutions, Mitchell Enlyte and Solera/Audatex. All have numerous strategic partnerships with multiple third party providers, with many integrated into core claims solutions and linked to their common customers for ease of access and use. We expect to see many more of these strategic alliances, some of which may well result in acquisitions and further market consolidation by these claims information services and solutions providers.

OEMs and Insurance

Car makers, otherwise known as OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), auto insurers and software developers are converging. Most OEMs have partnerships with insurance companies around auto insurance distribution and repairs, even as some are simultaneously focused on developing their own bespoke auto insurance operations.

OEMs are developing certified repair networks in which collision repair shops that follow OEM repair guidelines are “certified” to perform repairs on those brands. This certification includes the use of OEM parts, as opposed to the less expensive alternative parts, which insurers frequently prefer. And today’s vehicles are essentially computers on wheels, as OEMs pursue subscription software models in which consumers pay for specific premium auto features “over the air” on a monthly basis. OEMs believe the market size for subscriptions will be in the tens of billions of dollars by 2030.

Telematics-enabled products are also converging as vehicle-installed software and programs and motion detection data resident on smartphones are aggregated. These hybrid solutions will enable greater functionality and reliability for solutions such as accident notification, emergency response and crash detection, which will be heavily monetized by auto insurers, OEMs and others.     

Workplace Convergence

For most of us, our workplaces and our homes converged during the pandemic, and for many of us that continues to be the case, either partially or completely. The implications of the shift to “work from home” are felt by the insurance industry in more ways than by most industries. Being so historically labor-intense, insurance companies own more physical facilities than most other industries, but that is changing rapidly. Most notably, Allstate insurance, one of largest personal insurers in the U.S., recently sold its entire 2 million-square-foot headquarters campus in the Chicago area. 

Technology Convergence

The smartphone is a prime example of technology convergence, in which several previously separate technologies (telephones, wrist watches, digital cameras, computers, web browsers and GPS navigators) were fused into a single easily portable device.

Data convergence has increased as AI software programs became capable of processing huge volumes of data into actionable information.  

According to a report published by Dell Technologies with the Institute for the Future, 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 hadn't even been invented when the analysis was done in 2018.

Likewise, the insurtech movement and the large amounts of capital invested in it over the past 10 years caused convergence between technology and insurance. While perhaps not the upending of the insurance industry that some had predicted, the movement has certainly accelerated adoption of digitization and automation in insurance processes and the leveraging of big data and analytics.

See also: Insurtech: Not Dead but Different

Future of Insurance

In such a changing world, today's insurance services will become increasingly obsolete. Drawing on technology, insurers are already shifting their products and value proposition from “repair and replace” to “predict and prevent.” This shift will fundamentally change almost every aspect of insurance, including skills requirements, product design, distribution and pricing models.

Embedded insurance represents both new insurance products and new distribution channels. Similarly, episodic insurance (e.g. travel interruption insurance) is a new insurance product enabled by technology and delivered digitally. 

Managing Convergence

Perhaps the most powerful convergence of all is the convergence of the future and the present. The speed of technology-enabled advancements continues to accelerate, and what was new only yesterday is replaced by even more important advancements today. This is as true in the insurance ecosystem as it is in every other industry. The basic question for insurers and others is – how do you manage your business in a world where planning based on historical experience and reasonable expectations is continually being proven unreliable?

To manage convergence, companies will need to be excellent at anticipating the future, innovating beyond their core and transforming their capabilities as rapidly as technology can enable it. This will require leadership to become expert change managers, encourage innovation in more powerful and practical ways with more than just lip service, ensure that the entire workforce is future-ready, develop more powerful intelligence-gathering capabilities to better anticipate and respond to competitive threats and communicate core strategies and changing priorities in a frequent and highly articulate manner. It will be necessary to have every employee understand that it will be a new and very different ballgame.

These skills will define the winners in a rapidly converging world.

Mark the date: Aug. 10, 2023, was the day when the starting pistol was fired for the rollout of autonomous vehicles. 

Everything to this point was testing. But the California Public Utilities Commission voted 3-1 last Thursday to allow two robotaxi services -- GM's Cruise and Google's Waymo -- to operate at all hours of the day in all parts of San Francisco and to charge riders.

What happens now?

A lot, and as quickly as Cruise and Waymo can manage -- but only step by step. Let's call the next phase radical incrementalism.

It has taken quite a while to get to this point in the rollout of AVs, certainly longer than General Motors expected when it bought Cruise in March 2016. I'll 'fess up to some excessive optimism myself, having written a book with Chunka Mui in 2013 called "Driverless Cars: Trillions Are Up for Grabs."  

Part of the issue is the sheer complexity of the technology. Glitches don't appear often -- but often enough to cause skepticism. In 2021, Waymo cars developed the odd habit of pulling into a particular cul-de-sac in San Francisco, then making a three-point turn and leaving. Residents complained that as many as 10 cars a minute were buzzing up and down their quiet street, waking many people up in the middle of the night. Just last week, as many as 10 Cruise driverless cars simply stopped in the middle of the street in San Francisco's North Beach area. The crowd at a concert was using so much cellphone capacity that the cars lost contact with their home bases when they neared the venue and shut down. More problematically, driverless cars can get confused in the presence of emergency vehicles -- a complaint that the San Francisco Fire Department made at the PUC hearing.

The glitches have happened often enough that resistance has developed among San Franciscans, even though the city may be the most technologically aggressive in the world. Some protesters learned that they can confuse an AV simply by putting an orange traffic cone on its hood, and they do, paralyzing cars with indecision.

The broader problem is that the technology has to fit into an existing system full of human drivers and pedestrians and adapt to all -- as in, every one -- of our odd little behaviors. That's double-parking, opening car doors into traffic, cycling the wrong way on a one-way street, darting out from behind a parked car... you name it. And driverless cars are trained to be cautious, so they're weak about left turns in traffic and no good at all on a crucial bit of human driving. You know the one I mean: You have to merge into a steady stream of traffic, so you make a quick move and hope drivers think you're just reckless enough to pull into their lane, even though you're just feinting. Then, when one of them blinks, you pull out in front of them.

Cruise and Waymo both say their cars haven’t caused any traffic fatalities. Waymo says its self-driving vehicles, in fully autonomous mode, haven't even caused a collision with another vehicle in their first million miles.

But now they have to prove it in full-on commercial operation. That means roughly 300 robotaxis for Cruise in San Francisco and 250 for Waymo. Waymo says it has a waiting list of 100,000 signed up for rides in its AVs, so the cars should get a workout.

Getting San Francisco right will be step one in the radical incrementalism of the AV rollout.

Step two will be expanding into other cities. Waymo has been gradually rolling out service in Phoenix and will continue to expand there -- the environment is far more favorable than in a city like San Francisco, which is why I count the California PUC's decision as the start of the real rollout. Waymo is also beginning service in parts of Los Angeles county and Austin, Texas. The company says it currently provides 10,000 fully driverless rides per week and will soon reach 10,000 a day. Cruise has announced plans for robotaxi service in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami and, most recently, Nashville.

Other companies will likely jump in, too. For instance, Amazon's Zoox has been testing self-driving technology in San Francisco and is developing a boxy vehicle specially designed for taxi services. (I'm not discussing Tesla because its approach to driverless technology is very different -- it mostly consists of Elon Musk claiming every year for the past decade that full self-driving is months way, only for it never to arrive. He may get there eventually, but, for the foreseeable future, "self-driving" in a Tesla requires a human driver with eyes on the road and hands on or right near the wheel.)

Step three will move self-driving beyond cities. At the moment, self-driving of the non-Tesla variety requires extremely detailed maps, so the car can triangulate and figure out exactly where it is even in rain or snow. But Cruise says it wants to get beyond its home base in San Francisco and serve all of California. If it can do that, then the handcuffs will truly be off. Cars will be able to drive even in areas that haven't been carefully mapped -- meaning AVs can go just about anywhere. 

Those are just the initial steps for robotaxi services, but car and tech companies won't stop there. They didn't spend tens of billions of dollars developing the technology, with tens of billions to go on the rollout, just to be a cheaper Uber. Step four -- a huge step -- will be an attempt to replace your car with an AV, whether you own it or just summon it from time to time. That means a whole set of other steps to watch for.

Fortunately, my friend Chunka laid out those steps for us in a series of LinkedIn posts here, here and here in 2018.

Let's look at the key issues he raises that are still in play and see how AVs are progressing.

--Mass production. Basically, the question is: Even when the AV technology is ready to go, will car companies be able to manufacture enough? I'd say this is a pretty clear yes, especially because the slower-than-expected rollout has given car companies time to prepare. GM has said the ability to turn technology into cars is a competitive advantage that it intends to exploit.

--Charging infrastructure. Again, the slow (in relative terms) rollout for AVs has given companies time to recognize the issue and prepare. We're a long way from having enough charging stations, but companies are building out the infrastructure quickly. A key is that companies are rallying around the Tesla plug as a standard -- it just doesn't work if you pull up to a charging station and find the plug doesn't fit your car.

--Fleet management and services. This will be one to watch as Cruise, Waymo and maybe others scale up. The issue with AVs isn't just whether the technology works -- as high a hurdle as that is. You also have to position the cars so they're as close as possible to those people who want to commute into a city in the morning and then back to the suburbs at night. You have to be able to recharge the cars and to clean them whenever a couple of kids covered in sand roll around in the back seat -- or adults engage in other forms of recreation. You need to ward off criminal behavior, such as having people use your cars to make drug deals. You have to have a backup when someone puts an orange cone on the hood or when the cars lose cellphone connection because of a nearby concert. You have to assume that major competitors such as Uber and Lyft will respond to your entrance into their market and be ready to react. There is a lot of potential for trouble here.

--Customer service and experience. Cruise and Waymo say customers settle into a driverless car and begin to trust it within minutes, but that first ride will still be disorienting, and many customers will always need care that they can no longer get from a driver.

--Security. Women may feel more comfortable traveling alone because they won't have to worry about a male driver, but it's possible to stop a driverless car just by standing in front of it -- you know it won't run you over -- and the cars are a huge target for cyber hackers, so plenty of security issues will surface. 

--Regulation. It's going to take regulators a long time to get their heads around all the issues with AVs -- how can it be otherwise? In the meantime, anyone dealing with driverless vehicles will have to be prepared for twists and turns.

--Public acceptance. This is what Cruise and Waymo are testing now, and we'll know soon enough. Based on my rides in AVs, starting a decade ago, I think Cruise and Waymo are right, and people will quickly become comfortable. But we'll have to wait and see. I learned long ago not to trust my personal impressions.

--Business viability. Early on, AV companies seemed to underestimate the complexity of operating robotaxis as a business. They didn't think in terms of the positioning of cars, the recharging, the cleaning, etc. They now seem to be more realistic and have even benefited from some changes in the economic environment -- the soaring cost for cars, including auto insurance, and the fact that Uber and Lyft are finally charging realistic prices, rather than heavily subsidizing fares as a way of capturing market share. Even if AV makers pass this first test of viability, the much bigger one will come when they try to move beyond today's robotaxi services and into the market for personal auto ownership in a few years.

--Stakeholder resistance. One person's cost saving is another person's revenue -- so all the benefits from AVs will face pushback. That could be from car dealers, insurers, personal injury lawyers, oil companies, truck drivers, transit unions and so on. Potential losers include some of the most influential policy shapers at federal, state and local levels.

--Congestion. When services become cheaper, people buy more of them, right? Well, if driverless cars become as cheap and simple as proponents believe they will, that could mean an awful lot more cars on the road. Various studies have found that Uber and Lyft have increased congestion in pursuit of convenience. We'll have to see what AVs do to the broad traffic picture.

If you put on your insurance hat and look at all the steps between last Thursday and a transformation of the world's transportation systems, you can rest easy for a while. It'll probably take a couple of years for robotaxis to be rolled out in metropolitan areas, even if all goes well. Then it'll take a few more years to get outside cities and on to the open road. Even if AVs become viable replacements for private cars, it takes a dozen years or more to replace all the cars on the road. So, personal auto insurance isn't going away any time soon. 

But I hope I've given you some sign posts. You can take your thinking today about how quickly AVs will roll out and either move up or postpone your estimations based on how well things go in San Francisco, how quickly the rollout to other cities occurs and so on down the line. 

Just remember: The starting pistol has been fired, and some massive corporations are now running as fast as they can.

Cheers,

Paul

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

--With risks changing so dynamically, historical data alone is not sufficient for insurers to embrace the future. Insurers need to be able to experiment with future scenarios to enable evidence-based decision making

--Digital twins make that possible, whether for a part of the business (such as distribution via agents), the whole business or even an ecosystem involving multiple partners.

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2023 is witnessing elevated levels of risks and disruptive events not seen before, including the world's hottest month in July, wildfires in the Greek islands and in Hawaii, cyber incidents, drought and a food crisis because of the war in Ukraine. With risks changing so dynamically, historical data alone is not sufficient for insurers to embrace the future. 

Insurers need to be able to experiment with future scenarios to enable evidence-based decision making. Digital twins, in conjunction with generative AI, will be a gamechanger. Insurers will be able to innovate on products, provide differentiated services in risk consulting and improve sales and distribution, policy servicing and claims.

Digital Twins: 'See, Rehearse and Adapt' 

A digital twin is a virtual representation of physical entity, data, its relationships and behavior. It is an AI-driven platform aided by simulation. It will act as a critical enabler for executives who need to rehearse the future. Accurately predicting the future is virtually impossible given the speed and complexity of converging factors. Instead, businesses need to “See, Rehearse and Adapt” to likely and extreme scenarios, and digital twin technology will dramatically advance the ability to leverage this framework.

For example, a digital twin of an Indian city was used to model COVID-19 characteristics, demographic heterogeneity, mobility patterns etc. and predict the spread. The digital twin helped officials explore effective interventions such as vaccination roll-out strategies and lockdowns through what-if scenarios. This approach helped curb the spread of viruses and reduce or mitigate the burden on healthcare. 

Improving Supply Chain Resilience and Health

Consider a scenario where a mattress firm sources its raw material from its suppliers in Texas and Louisiana and transports it to the manufacturing facility by road. The insurer can create a digital twin of this supply chain ecosystem (beyond primary suppliers) and highlight risks such as the lack of diversity in the supplier network or failure to use multi-modal distribution channels. Combining this digital twin with information on imminent storms, contractual deadlines and so on can help estimate probable risk accumulation and simulate potential business loss scenarios. Such scenario analysis will empower insurers to offer clients risk insights that can help improve capital management and implement mitigation measures for business continuity.

Or consider how COVID-19 has exposed health inequities, how mental and emotional issues are increasing and how the population is aging as lifespan increases. There needs to be an innovative approach to address health, retirement gaps, etc. Insurers can leverage digital twins to simulate health risk scenarios and recommend or drive behavioral change via awareness, empowerment, access to preventative care, empathy-based personalized care etc. Insurers can do this alone or by orchestrating the work of partners in ecosystems.

See also: Do You Need a 'Digital Twin'?

Building a Better Future

The shift in insurers’ mindset from risk transfer to prevention unlocks greater value to insureds and society. Digital twins enable insurers to reimagine their process, personas and products and deliver operational efficiency, personalization and customer-centric product design.

For instance, insurers with aging agents can leverage an “agent twin” (characterized by traits and behaviors of experienced agents) as a playground for new agents to learn from actions/recommendations (i.e., data) from seasoned agents and historical data sets. Insurers can experiment with illustrations and reinforcement learning for effective multi-path strategies, etc. and foresee potential outcomes.

The potential applications are profound. 

KEY TAKEAWAY:

--By empathizing with client needs, emotions and concerns, an independent agent can foster trust and loyalty to ensure a positive and memorable encounter that drives long-term advocacy.  

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Human-centric agencies take the time to build and nurture relationships, develop loyalty and show up for the local community, whether by supporting youth sports, being there when disaster strikes or giving to charities. But how do you take this human-centric connection to the next level and create a truly empathetic client experience? The first step: Understand the true meaning of empathy and the connection to the customer experience. 

Consider Brené Brown’s take on empathy. Brown, renowned for her work on leadership and for her widely viewed TEDx talk on the topic, says, “Empathy has no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting and communicating that incredibly healing message of ‘you’re not alone.’”

Understanding the connection between empathy and client relationships can take your client experience to a new level. By empathizing with client needs, emotions and concerns, an independent agent can foster trust and loyalty to ensure a positive and memorable encounter that drives long-term advocacy.  

The facts

With economic fears high, many businesses are weary of additional spending, and some may even look to customer experience (CX) investments as a place to cut back. But many companies find that the short-term cost savings have long-term consequences. At Vertafore, my team understands any cutbacks to the CX department would be a huge gamble. Now is the time for steady investment in human-centered support as customers depend on these knowledgeable teams for a variety of business-critical activities.

In 2023, customers continue to look for exceptional service with not only a human on the other line, but helpful staff who can understand setbacks, talk through scenarios and work to find a solution. An article in Deloitte Insights says, “Two-thirds of customers who switch brands do so because of poor service, and analysts predict that customer experience—including support experience—is expected to overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.” 

Focus on three key areas for continued CX success: active listening, clear language and personalized experience.

Active listening 

Insurance is a deeply personal industry. Clients come to insurance agents seeking protection and support during vulnerable times. The whole agency should practice active listening to build trust and foster long-term loyalty, leading to increased customer retention and positive word-of-mouth referrals.

By attentively listening to client questions, concerns and goals, agents can gain a deeper understanding of their unique situations and provide empathetic responses once the client has completed their exchange. This careful listening enables agents to offer tailored solutions that meet individual needs and build trust and confidence. Agencies that build a culture around kindness and respect will come off loud and clear to the end insurer. 

See also: A Little Empathy Goes a Long Way

Clear language

By avoiding technical jargon and employing everyday language, agents can empower clients with knowledge and enable them to make informed decisions aligned with their unique needs. 

Clear communication can be achieved through multiple platforms. Interactions through different channels, such as phone, email or chat, can be adjusted for tone and pace depending on the client on the other end. Training team members to actively listen, ask probing questions and validate client emotions can significantly enhance the customer experience. Maintaining the right balance of professionalism and compassion is essential, as it enhances the customer experience, cultivates trust and ultimately leads to greater satisfaction. 

Personalized experience 

In an age where customers are inundated with generic marketing messages, personalization emerges as the key differentiator that sets agents apart, creating a competitive advantage that directly affects the entire agency. As businesses strive to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of customer expectations, investing in personalized customer experiences becomes not only essential but also a strategic imperative for long-term success and growth.

By harnessing technology as an enabler of efficient and empathetic communication, agents can leverage its capabilities to enhance client interactions and ensure they feel heard, valued and supported throughout their insurance journey. Technology can empower agents with a complete view of client history and preferences, enabling them to deliver more personalized support during interactions.

Reputation is everything in a crowded market 

When clients feel genuinely understood and supported, they become advocates for your agency. They're more likely to share positive experiences with friends and family, amplifying your agency's reputation and attracting new business organically. CX drives over two-thirds of customer loyalty, which represents more than brand and price combined. 

Customer reviews and feedback play a crucial role in shaping public perception. By consistently delivering empathetic client experiences, you position your agency as one that values and prioritizes the needs of its clients. This positive reputation can help you differentiate yourself in a crowded market and attract high-quality clients.

The bottom line

For independent agencies, the losses that come from poor support can be measured in dollars. But there are other considerations here. Supporting clients with empathy, active listening and clear actions to solve their problem benefits the entire agency and builds a positive workplace culture. It also results in a tight-knit community of employees ready to handle whatever comes next.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

--The recent numbers are way up from 2013, when women held only 6% of top executive positions and 13% of board seats in the industry, but much work remains to be done.

--The key ways forward are: emphasize accountability, not just verbal commitments; celebrate progress; and collaborate with like-minded people across the industry.

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The insurance industry has been welcoming a complement of diverse and nontraditional talent throughout the past decades and embracing a future of opportunity through various diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. This has brought a diversity of thought and sense of belonging that has not only created more fulfilling workplaces but has spurred innovation and boosted profits. 

A Little History

In the early days of insurance, roles for women were typically limited to administrative and clerical work. By 1930, the roles for women in insurance started to evolve, with nearly 15,000 women employed as insurance agents and officials in the U.S., according to Intact Insurance Specialty Solutions. 

Over time, the workforce changed further. We saw a greater presence of women in leadership positions and the emergence of professional associations. In 2013, leadership at the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) decided to launch our first Women in Insurance Global Conference, with a goal to provide a robust platform for discussions designed to advance women’s roles and voices in the industry. 

Our leadership recognized that the advancement of women leaders had, in a way, somewhat stalled. Women in insurance were largely still not present in the top decision-making process or represented in large numbers in the C-suites. Conferences, meetings and industry dinners at this time were still heavily male-dominated, including IICF’s own benefit dinners. 

As our conference series grew and thousands of insurance professionals attended our events in New York, Chicago, Dallas, London and Los Angeles, IICF understood that not only women in our industry needed these forums as a platform to share their voice. During this time, the industry was in the early stages of its DEI journey, and IICF expanded the scope of its conferences by embracing broader topics. In 2020, we hosted our first IICF Inclusion in Insurance Conference.

Progress as Seen Through Our Lens

Our conference series gives us a clear window into the industry, and we've noticed progress in the following areas:

Women in Leadership

Throughout the 21st century, we have been working as an industry to close the gap in leadership roles in insurance. As of 2013, women held only 6% of top executive positions and 13% of board seats in the industry, according to data from St. Joseph’s University Academy of Risk Management and Insurance. This was a challenge we sought to address at our inaugural global conference. 

We started with a simple approach centered on having the few women in senior-most leadership in our industry share their career journeys. Female executives from across the industry gathered to share their own experiences of how they rose through the ranks of insurance, what challenges they faced, such as work/life balance, and what lessons they had learned. Over the following years, we added to our model, discussing empowerment, the gender gap and how to break through the glass ceiling. These sessions provided powerful insights and actionable advice for our fellow industry members.

We have seen some progress as more businesses in our industry promote women into top leadership. The figures remain low, signaling that more work needs to be done. Recent data found only 19% of board seats and only 12% of top officer positions are held by women. This still is significant progress from a decade ago. 

The Development of a Business Case

In 2015, McKinsey unveiled a comprehensive study showcasing how a diverse workforce is correlated with better financial performance. Further industry research highlighted how the next generation of talent prefers to work for an employer that fosters a workforce with broad representation. And from there, our industry was empowered with a strong business case to make greater strides toward a fully inclusive workplace.

The IICF conference centered discussions on this business case, why executives needed to have a sharper focus on their recruiting practices and how to directly address challenges recruiting and retaining diverse talent. We then moved to individual responsibility, sharing what steps people from all levels in the industry can take to create real change in the workplace and why everyone’s actions, regardless of role, matter in the grand objective of creating a fully inclusive future for the insurance industry. 

See also: Solving the Puzzle on Inclusion

A Broadened View of Inclusion

The umbrella of inclusion and belonging today covers a much wider range of topics than it did a decade ago. Inclusivity and developing a culture of belonging has become a powerful movement across our industry as companies have introduced initiatives to support, include and empower individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences, as well as create allies. IICF accordingly has evolved our conference series to include many new perspectives and voices. 

Throughout our decade-plus of leadership conferences, IICF’s conversations encompass women leadership in the industry, accessibility, mental health and wellness, women, caregivers and veterans returning to the workforce and much more. By retaining a special focus on women in insurance, our global conference remains a unique opportunity to engage, grow and network. 

We continue to see businesses acting on initiatives designed to enhance a sense of belonging. We see that it’s now commonplace for insurance organizations to have employee resource groups (ERGs) dedicated to making individuals from different backgrounds and experiences feel comfortable with their role in the industry and see a path to upward mobility, as well as mentorship initiatives focused on welcoming and advancing non-traditional talent.

Where We’re Headed

Over the past decade, we have learned much from our IICF leadership conferences, speakers, thought leaders and others about the real progress toward a fully inclusive industry. Experts say our best approach to continue this positive trajectory includes:

Accountability: This year, we’ve heard that DEI fatigue has been a consistent conversation across the industry. A suggested best practice for the future is an emphasis on accountability, where it’s not enough to simply verbally embrace inclusivity and where leadership promotes accountability for the successful implementation of these initiatives and measure overall progress. 

Recognition of Progress: Once progress is identified, leadership should ensure teams are recognizing and celebrating it. When people can see progress firsthand in their own workplaces, any fatigue will not only fade away, but those employees will also be inspired to do more.

Collaboration: Industry collaboration is also essential to moving inclusion in our industry forward. There is so much we can learn from each other. Recently, we convened the industry for our biennial IICF Global Conference in New York City, gathering colleagues from across the industry along with leading experts in inclusion and belonging. And next June, we’ll host our IICF Regional Forums in Chicago, Dallas, London, Los Angeles and New York, where we’ll continue to advance ideas into action together as an industry.

Our industry has undergone a tremendous evolution in terms of inclusion and representation, especially during recent decades. The insurance industry can continue to build toward a fully inclusive workplace with a sense of belonging for all. Let’s keep the momentum going.

A reliable stream of renewal income from the policies agents sell will ensure a comfortable retirement. Although the retirement income their renewal stream will generate may be years away, there is something agents can do now to optimize it. They can make sure that the business they’re writing today will be sustainable for the future.

Sustainable business is higher-quality business. It’s achieved by getting clients to not just buy but to also “buy-in.” The art of gaining client buy-in can be mastered with the right intention and by following four simple principles. Agents will reap the benefits of applying these four principles for years to come.

Principle #1: Have clients feel as included as possible in their financial planning process.

Clients who buy-in to their purchasing decision will keep their policies in force over the long term. Agents must invite clients to be as personally involved as possible in their purchasing decision and financial planning.

It’s tempting for agents to want to sound smart. An agent may think that, if they assume an authoritative demeanor, then the client will defer the decision-making to them. Even if this strategy is successful, it’s short-term thinking.

Once the agent is gone, that client assumes the role of decision-maker. The decision to keep a policy in force ultimately rests with the client, not the agent.

Taking a back seat may not be ego-gratifying to an agent who wants to assert maximum control. However, agents who allow clients to assume a larger role in their own planning will secure a higher degree of client buy-in.

Principle #2: Be the learner, not the teacher. 

For agents to maximize their client’s personal involvement, the agent must learn about the clients’ own beliefs, values, priorities and concerns. Once those are understood, an agent can integrate reasons for buying with those thoughts and feelings expressed by the client. Clients will assume a higher degree of personal ownership for purchasing a policy as a result.

See also: The Power of Lifecycle Marketing

Strategy #3: Join your client’s team.

A team cannot exist without a common goal. The client’s goal is to make the best decision about whether to invest in the agent’s product. Most agents are not pursuing this goal. The typical agent’s goal is to just get their clients to buy.

Divergent goals make teamwork impossible. Agents can only be their client’s team member by redefining their goal to match their clients’ goal. Agents must take on the role of helping clients make the best investment decision for their unique circumstances.

There are many advantages to having clients consider their agent to be on their team. Clients will be more forthcoming. They will be more willing to be vulnerable and admit when they’re uncertain about something. Agents learn about their clients more quickly when their clients are being upfront and transparent. 

Joining a client’s team reduces the negative judgments agents typically harbor during client interaction. When agents harbor an agenda of wanting to get the sale regardless of the client’s true need, they’re more prone to making judgments. For example, agents will be likely to judge if the interaction with their client is going their way or not going their way. These judgments are distracting. Agents need to be learning as much from their clients as possible. If an agent is listening to their own inner talk instead, then they’re not paying full attention to their client.

These negative judgments can also interfere with establishing client rapport. Agents who think they need to steer a conversation toward their own self-interest are often met by client resistance. Clients who want to make a decision that best suits their circumstances won’t go along with agents trying to steer the conversation toward a different aim. A client may end up buying anyway, but they’re less likely to buy-in. 

Principle #4: Be more customer-conscious than self-conscious.

Prioritize the importance of your client’s buying performance over your own selling performance. 

Every sale involves two conversations rather than just one. Agents can only hear one of these conversations; the other one is silent. The conversation agents hear is the conversation between them and their client. The conversation they don’t hear is the buying conversation happening between their clients’ ears. We commonly refer to it as decision-making.

It’s ultimately the outcome of the silent conversation that determines sales success. In other words, an agent doesn’t get a sale unless their client decides first that the agent will be getting that sale. 

A good decision performance by your client ensures that the policies they buy will stay in force. The quality of your clients’ decision performance depends on the quality of their inner conversation. Agents need to pay attention to this inner conversation by asking questions about clients' thoughts and feelings. It’s the salesperson’s equivalent of “keeping one’s eye on the ball.”

Agents can act now to secure a financially secure future by consciously approaching client interactions by following these four principles. Agents will empower their clients to make the best decisions for themselves. Just compare the level of rapport that develops when someone is empowering you rather than disempowering you. Consciously approaching client interactions with this intention fortifies an element of sustainability in every sale. Agents will enjoy a reliable renewal stream, financial security, plus have a lot more fun in the process!