A story from a colleague hit home recently. A friend of theirs lost their home to a wildfire this year, and only in the aftermath did they realize they were massively under-insured for the value of their home. Their agent hadn't reached out in years, their policy auto-renewed, and they continued paying their premium, expecting that they'd be covered in case of an emergency.
Instead, they were left to pay for relocation and rebuilding out of pocket.
Stories like this are becoming increasingly common as the U.S. sees more frequent extreme weather events, proving why insurance can no longer be treated like an off-the-shelf commodity.
For example, after Colorado's Marshall Fire,
In light of this growing issue, policyholders need to demand better service and education, and agencies need to rise to the challenge and deliver it throughout the policy lifecycle. Writing a policy and not speaking to that client again for three years is no longer an acceptable level of service. The market is moving too fast now.
Many identify a claim as being the most important touchpoint with a policyholder. Agents can step in to help navigate the process, advocate for them with the carrier and be a guiding support as their claim is processed. But underprotected clients don't make it that far; instead, they're left to sort out recovery expenses on their own.
That is why the claim is not the most consequential touchpoint. It is the ongoing service you provide your clients, which often receives a fraction of the attention. Clients will purchase a home and auto insurance policy when the need arises — maybe they bought a new home or are switching providers for a better rate. Once they have their initial policy, most will let their coverage auto-renew as long as they don't see huge price hikes.
They don't usually call in to understand coverage changes, assess whether their needs have changed or adjust their coverage accordingly. This is the responsibility of their agent. If their agent doesn't reach out to initiate these conversations, they simply do not happen. The result is that clients end up underprotected without their knowledge, which is a failure of the advisory promise that brought them to the agency in the first place.
We've seen this firsthand in P&C renewals. The renewal is a reliable opportunity agents have to connect with clients, understand what's changed for them, help them assess their coverage and make an informed decision for the year ahead. But what actually happens is the client receives their renewal from the carrier, sees their premium, and either lets their policy auto-renew or starts shopping around.
The value of successful communication is measurable:
Agents genuinely want to be the one their client hears from first but are consistently constrained by their capacity to work through their book. Reviewing a policy can take up to 90 minutes, from initial analysis to remarketing and drafting communications. The economics have never allowed agents to spend that kind of time on standard policies.
At its core, insurance is information processing, and AI can now handle that work directly. It can read and analyze every policy in the book, flag coverage gaps, mismatched limits and coverage changes that would otherwise go unnoticed. It can even communicate and explain it to the client.
This gives agents time back to apply their judgment and focus on connecting with clients. AI solves the volume of manual, repetitive work so that the truly advisory work that only a licensed agent can do has time to happen across the whole book.
Agencies cannot count on volatility to return to prior levels. In 2025 alone, weather-related disasters accounted for
