On the one hand, insurers can use this type of information to benchmark against their peers’ major IT investments, while solution providers want to know what size and type of carrier may be most receptive to their product offerings. In our recent report on insurance core system market activity, we provide an overview of activity in the market and dive into some of the factors that vendors and carriers should consider.

Counting With Complexity

By its very nature, information about the number of deals made, the size of deals, and who makes those deals is highly sensitive; no one wants to tip their hand to their competitors. How then can someone count the number of deals? With our longstanding relationships built on trust and mutual benefit, we’re able to ask questions like that. When enough vendors are willing to share that information, we can combine it with other, publicly available data to derive meaningful, actionable information.

Selecting a Solution

For IT executives at carriers, especially midsized carriers, core system replacements may occur only a handful of times during their career and can take anywhere from 12 to 24 months to complete. Such a monumental task isn’t to be taken lightly, and a carrier would be right to ask if their peers are making major IT investments as often, less often, or more often than they are. The list of considerations for major IT infrastructure investments is long, covering business goals, customer needs, cost, security, scalability, and more. An easy question to start with may simply be, “How often are other carriers of our size buying new core systems?”

Connecting With Carriers

For solution providers, resource limitations are the unfortunate reality of doing business; it just isn’t realistic to try to dedicate full teams to every opportunity. Instead, each opportunity should be evaluated for fit before investing too many resources. Each carrier may have different needs or expectations for a vendor partner. Some may be willing to take a risk on cutting-edge technology, and some will prefer a solution with a proven record of success. One carrier might be comfortable partnering with a vendor to launch a new line of business in a new state while another may prefer a vendor who has already gone live with that line in the selected state. Before investing resources to answer those questions, it’s worth answering a deceptively simple question first: “Do carriers like this one buy from vendors like us?”

It is essential that both insurers and solution providers understand the extent and type of activity within the market. While obtaining that information can be challenging due to its sensitive nature, combining public data with trusted relationships can create meaningful and actionable insights. To learn more about activity in the insurance core systems market, read our report Insurance Core System Market Activity: Deal Count Estimates and Trends for Core Components and Suites or reach out to me at jkrantz@datos-insights.com. You can also view our recent webinar, where a panel of Aite-Novarica Insurance experts discussed the findings of this study in detail.

The post Counting Core Deals in the Insurance Market: Who’s Making How Many With Whom? appeared first on Datos Insights.

Among those peers, we see a consistent focus on data, both in automating collection of it and analyzing it. On the data intake side, there’s a lot of interest in text ingestion and other tools for reading applications and removing the human element of data entry.

Once that data is available, the next big focus is on leveraging that data, e.g., for predictive analytics during underwriting. Carriers are inevitably faced with a seemingly endless list of point solutions and must ask themselves, “How do we decide?” The answer: look to a partner with a point solution ecosystem.

We see four types of evolving ecosystems in the insurance space:

1. Some core system vendors are offering an ecosystem of integrated startups and point solutions. This type of ecosystem offering isn’t new, but the emphasis being placed on it is.
2. IT services vendors are vetting and building relationships with their chosen point solution providers, equipping them to provide guidance and help an insurer make decisions on the right solutions for their specific needs.
3. Some stand-alone players are trying to act as a hub that you integrate with for access to their network of integrations.
4. Some horizontal solutions—like low-code/no-code and CRM players—are building their own hubs, often with a focus on horizontal point solutions.

At the heart of any of these ecosystems are the key integrations that provide value to the carrier. Ecosystems offer carriers access to those key components in a way that still allows each solution to have a specialized team behind it, leveraging economies of scale. Rather than put together an ad hoc team to build something internally, carriers can easily get access to a better solution at lower cost.

As a result of this opportunity for specialization, solution providers can build and maintain development pipelines, giving them an opportunity to be the engine for innovation in the insurance space. To learn more about the services providers currently active in the insurance industry, please read our full report IT Services Providers for Insurers: Vendor Analysis Report.

The post Integrations in Insurer Ecosystems: What to Expect and What to Look For appeared first on Datos Insights.

How did you get into insurance?

I’ve been in insurance for about seven years now. I have basically always been drawn to sales-type positions, and I worked in mobile phone sales for a while. Eventually, I was approached about an opportunity at one of the major captive carriers. I took that chance and worked there for about three years; I was even a part of their agency training programs.

As I started to look at my options, I was drawn more toward the independent side of things. I did my own research and decided that going independent was the route for me. I began looking for opportunities and have been with Radcliffe for over four years now.

As a whole, the agency is pretty broad. Throughout my career, I’ve mostly been on the personal lines side of things, but over the last year I’ve shifted my focus to the small and medium commercial lines side. In our community, we have a big base of contractors and those type of small, sole proprietor businesses: contractors, tradesmen, and the like. Also, as a Spanish speaker, I’ve made that part of my niche. There are simply not enough Spanish speakers in our industry, and that tends to be a very loyal community.

What do you focus on to facilitate customers’ needs?

When we bring on a new client, we have a system to set expectations. Especially since COVID began, everyone has been more friendly toward technology. We try to set them up in a way that they can self-service their policies with online accounts and mobile apps, but we always make sure that we’re available to them as a resource.

For claims, they have that self-service option set up, but for anything that’s serious, we always want them to contact us first so that we can offer them guidance, since that’s really the value of working with us. We want them to have the tools to do things on their own but know that we’re here as a safety net if they need us.

What do you look for in a carrier when placing business?

At the beginning of this year, we started to be more selective about what we take on in order to increase the overall quality. Over time, we’ve come to know different carriers’ appetites and develop relationships with the underwriters. Knowing what they do and don’t like, we’re able to ask clients the qualifying questions and find their best fit. I have a questionnaire sheet for new clients that hits all of the points to segment prospects out and identify the best carriers for them.

With some carriers, we haven’t been able to build those personal relationships, and that makes it a little more difficult to work with them. In those situations, having a good text or live-chat system can be helpful, but there’s no replacement for having a personal relationship with the underwriter and cultivating that relationship.

By giving carriers the type of business they want, we build a relationship of mutual trust. They’ll even occasionally accept some risks that may not be ideal for their appetite, but because of our relationship, they are a little more inclined to take the chance. For really unique risks, I’ll try to talk with the underwriters directly first to at least get an idea if there’s a market and even a ballpark premium range. I can then speak to the client to spare everyone’s time; it beats filling out forms, sending them in, and then finding out it’s too expensive, for example.

The post Young Agent Spotlight: Joel Berrocal of The Radcliffe Insurance Group appeared first on Datos Insights.

How did you get into insurance?

I was a car salesman for about a decade, and some of my buddies were working in insurance. I had to find someone new every day, and here they were telling me that they were getting residuals. I started selling life insurance on the side, and once that built up, I left the auto industry and went fully into insurance.

To be honest, I didn’t know much about insurance, but when I obtained my license, it seemed like every company came out of the woodwork. Life companies came to me with leads in hand, but when it came to it, property/casualty seemed more like it was my speed. I liked learning about the different companies and seeing people’s growth over time. Life is one of those things where you sell it to people, but you don’t see and interact with them much. I mostly do commercial property/casualty, but I do some home and auto too. Whether it’s a young family buying a house or a small company adding autos to their fleet, it’s nice to grow with those people.

What carriers do you work with?

I’m with a brokerage; we have over 50 companies that we can use to find the best fit and rates. A lot of picking the right things involves staying in touch with the reps and underwriters. Every once in a while, they’ll tell us they’re looking for something or are staying away from something in particular. If I know what they’re looking for, I can fit people into that. A lot of the time, we get people coming to us from captive agents with a ding on their record, and I know who I can look at for them because of those relationships.

The best premium isn’t always the right fit for the client. Certain companies like different risks, and we want to make sure those companies are happy so we can grow with that carrier. Some of those carriers have good relationships with us, and they’ll take business on our word, so we want to be careful about not making them unhappy. We also want the clients to be happy and stay with us long term, so it’s a balance that we’ve learned more and more about over time.

What do you think makes a good insurance agent?

It’s kind of different for each line of business, but what I’ve seen is that people who are willing to take the time to answer questions, to sit and make the clients at ease, have been the most successful. It’s all about the long term. For example, a lot of carriers have bonus programs to try to bring more business in, but there’s a lot of turnover on that. If I send 20 people to a company, and in a year there’s only three left, it doesn’t do much good for us or for the clients. It’s more important that, on both the carrier and client sides, I build trust and long-term relationships.

The post Young Agent Spotlight: Jeremy Chase of Insurance Providers Group appeared first on Datos Insights.

How did you get into insurance?

When I left high school, I started out doing manual labor type jobs. I wanted something less physical, so I found a job near my home with an insurance company. They focused on casualty coverage, and it was just perfect for me; it turned out I really liked the job! From there, I moved to American Family Insurance, and I fell in love with it the first month I was there. I liked that I was able to help people.

After working in the industry for a few years, I took a big step and opened my own business. To start, I had a small book of business focused on personal lines, but over these last four years I’ve grown the business and we’ve expanded to cover property/casualty and life across eight states now.

It wasn’t a lot to start with, but I was happy just to have the opportunity to do what I love. Around that time, a lot of people were moving in and out of the area, and many of my older clients were retiring out of state, so I got those licenses in order to stay with them. The clients liked being able to stay with the brand and the people that they knew had their best interests at heart.

Is there any technology that helps drive your business forward?

When I first started the agency, I thought I could see where things were headed. I had a lot of ideas that older agents I talked to weren’t interested in. I wanted to try new things: Can people work remotely? Can I get business without a storefront? How can I get found when people search Google?

I worked with some more tech-focused people to do search engine optimization. When the pandemic hit, we were already ready for it. I saw how things were moving, and I grabbed onto it. I think 2020 was our biggest year of business, and that’s because we were ready to go with a plug-and-play methodology. We already had the hardware and were able to enable remote work.

What do you think makes a good insurance agent?

As long as you’re more worried about the client’s needs than your own paycheck, you’ll be okay. We’re in a business that comes with a lot of responsibilities, and we need to make sure we’re being honest with clients and doing what’s right for them.

I like to think that there’s no such thing as too much insurance. There are definitely people who need more than the minimum, especially in states where the minimum is so low. If we undervalue them by giving them the lowest coverage, just because it’s cheaper, when something does happen to that person they’ll be in a bind and they’re going to blame us. If, instead, we get them what they need and are there for them to help if they have a claim, they’re going to recommend us, and those referrals will lead to even more referrals.

The post Young Agent Spotlight: Hirvin Paredes Rodriguez of Hirvin Paredes Agency appeared first on Datos Insights.

How did you get into the insurance industry?

I had always wanted to be a financial advisor and got interested in economics while I was in high school. In college, I majored in economics and even took my Series 6 and Series 63 exams at that time. After finishing college, I decided to go a different route and joined the military. When I left the military, I got started as an agent at a life insurance carrier, then gradually transitioned to being an independent property and casualty insurance agent.

How do you approach prospecting?

At this point, all of my business is referral-based. I used to do advertisements as well, but referrals from people I have worked with—customers, loan officers, realtors, and others—are now more than enough to sustain the business. By focusing on the customer’s needs from the get-go, looking at their big-picture finances, and continuing to support them if they have claims, it was natural to build a network; people appreciate good customer service and want their friends to have it.

For example, there’s no sense in filing a zero-pay claim; I tell my customers to call me if they have a claim, and then I coach them on what to do and what’s best in the long term. That kind of communication is really key. People may not like it at first, but up-front, honest communication builds long-term relationships, and those bring in referrals.

What can carriers do to differentiate themselves?

Communication with carriers is essential. I always do what’s right for my customers, no matter what, but it’s nice when I can quickly get access to the right people. I don’t like typing and would rather pick up the phone and call. If I can be talking to the right person via text chat in 30 seconds, however, that’s so much nicer than waiting on the phone and getting repeatedly transferred around.

What advice do you have for new agents just entering the industry?

A lot of the time, clients really need an educational component. Coming from other agencies, they’ll have a cheap policy which was based purely on the price, but they don’t know anything about the actual policy. Clients are still interested in the price, but my experience has definitely been that bringing more to the table helps build that referral network. If you show clients that you value transparency and communication, they’ll appreciate it in the long term.

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