As the insurance market softens, the customer relationship becomes vital for customer retention. For Doug Pullen, regional vice president at nCino, better use of data and AI could give brokers the insight they need to become more valuable advisers.
A common risk insurance firms encounter in a soft market they chase premiums and become “less disciplined on the risks they place,” Pullen explained. Most brokers, particularly at large incumbent firms, are reliant on outdated technology with data isolated across multiple systems or a single platform containing incomplete data. “By the time they sit down for a renewal the risk picture in front of them is already wrong,” he added.
A recent report from Getstrada estimated insurance agents waste up to 2.5 hours a day on manual tasks. For a team of 20 agents, that accounts for 12 hours each week lost to manual input rather than supporting the customer relationship. The brokers that can succeed during the competitive soft market will be those reducing those manual workloads and improving client/broker relationships.
Pullen said, “The brokers who do well when the market’s soft aren’t the ones racing to cut price, they’re the ones who know the risk better than the client does. You can’t do that if your data’s a mess.”
Using intelligence to improve customer relationships
Providing brokers with greater intelligence is not simply giving them access to policy history, it means giving them the full client picture. This includes data on how the client’s business has grown, where risk has shifted since renewal and how the client compares to others in the market. Financial signals are also important to paint an accurate picture. Successful brokers are those who check the information given by the client against their own live data. If this underlying data is stale or incomplete, brokers will give“ a confident answer that’s simply incorrect,” Pullen said.
Stronger intelligence can also help brokers transform customer engagement into a proactive, insights-led conversation can help reinforce the relationship between broker and client beyond purely transactional.
Pullen stated, “Most renewal calls still start with ‘how did last year go’ instead of ‘here’s what’s changed.’ That’s backwards. If you’ve got AI running properly on accurate data, it’ll flag things a broker would only spot by luck otherwise, new headcount, a new site, turnover moving. That turns the meeting into a conversation about what’s coming rather than a rerun of what already happened. Clients remember the broker who told them something they didn’t know.
”By leveraging intelligence tools and AI, firms can ensure they stay proactive throughout the policy, rather than simply reaching out when a claim is needed or for renewal. “A client’s risk doesn’t sit still and wait for renewal day.” It is very likely that the customer’s risk profile has changed since the policy start date and both sides are unaware of how these changes can impact their protection. Whether a client opens a new site, adds vehicles or enters new markets, their exposure changes frequently.
This is something Pullen has seen happen many times. One recent example saw a broker unaware their client’s fleet had grown far beyond the policy parameters going unnoticed for months. With real-time intelligence, brokers can react as something happens, not three months later when it’s too late. “That’s the difference between advising someone and just processing their paperwork. Get the data flowing properly between systems and brokers start looking like risk advisors again, not order-takers.”
This, Pullen predicts, is the future of the broker/customer relationship. Brokers will spend less time manually entering data, thanks to AI and more time on decision-making.
Pullen said, “That doesn’t push the broker out of the relationship, it raises what clients expect from them, more foresight, more contact before there’s a problem, less waiting for the renewal date to roll round. The ones who use AI to sharpen their judgment will pull clear of the ones who just see it as another bit of software. This is about brokers doing more advising and less admin. That’s better for the client and it’s a stronger business for the broker too.
nCino was recently named in this year’s InsurTech100, which identifies the companies leading tech companies in the insurance sector. The full InsurTech100, including profiles on each company, can be found here.
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