A new report from New-York-based Novarica offers a framework for insurers to use when making decisions about one of the most important arms of its distribution channel: the agent portal. The report, based on interviews with benchmark companies and vendor activities in the area of agent portal software, points to some clearly emerging trends:
1. Build-out of transactional capabilities.The ability to perform self-service transactions is recognized as important to both the carrier and the agent, note authors Don Desiderato and Kim Markel, principal analyst and analyst respectively for Novarica. Capabilities include financial and non-financial transaction such as address changes or account rebalancing. Most carriers have not yet built fully robust capabilities in this area, they say.
2. Creation of a single site. Agent portals started out with multiple custom sites, built for unique distribution channels and life insurance products. Desiderato and Markel hold that carriers have recognized the cost and complexity of this approach and will be concentrating on consolidating to a single site (or a very few number of sites). This requires a strong roles-based agent portal design, they say.
3. E-Signature capabilities. E-Signature technology is emerging from signature pad technology, which requires a digitally captured signature, to click-wrap software which is a mechanism to allow a policyholder to authenticate and provide approval using an electronic internet-based agreement. This capability is being incorporated into modern agent portals, notes the report.
4. E-Application capabilities. A fully automated electronic application that is interactive in nature with reflexive questioning is emerging as the trend in e-app submission. Capabilities exist in some form on many existing agent portals today but will be expanded in future to become more robust.
5. Agent portal integration with social media. Agent portal is being considered in the overall context of a carriers’ social media strategy. The technology itself does not need to become integrated; rather the uses of each form of technology needs to be coordinated. As a very simple example, agents can read some product information on a carrier’s Facebook page and then are directed to the agent portal for more compliance-approved material.
Lastly, trends in agent portal technology must also include consideration of mobile technology. Carriers are investing time and money providing accessibility of portal capabilities to mobile devices, such as BlackBerry, iPod, iPad, and other mobile media.
Carriers have a growing vendor market to select from when considering agent portal capabilities. The authors suggest that carriers ask themselves important design questions regarding their portal goals: Is the agent portal strictly for service purposes only? Is the agent portal limited to policy inquiry, transactions, and forms management?
“Decisions about their agent portal should be made in the context of their core systems, e-business, and social media strategy,” note Desiderato and Markel. “In addition, understanding the desires of the agency force and the growth and trends of the various distribution channels are essential. All of these details are critical to the decision of how function-rich the portal needs to be, especially when evaluating agent portal vendor software.”
For carriers considering agent portal vendor systems, Novarica recommend narrowing the overall market to a short-list of three or four by focusing on four main areas: staff, organization, functionality, and technology, easily remembered by the acronym SOFT. “Using a handful of questions in each of these categories, insurers should be able to narrow their range of potential suppliers to a handful of candidates,” notes the report.
