Five pillars of brokerage digital transformation

More Canadian brokerages are moving towards a fully digital experience as consumer expectations are driving demand for faster, more efficient service, a broker management system (BMS) provider said Monday.

“More brokers are moving to a completely connected experience from internal operations to customer service to insurer relations, transforming their business into digital brokerages,” said Jeff Purdy, senior vice president of international operations with Applied Systems.

Purdy was responding to a question from Canadian Underwriter about what the type of technology brokerages in Canada are using.

Brokerages that digitally transform their businesses stand to gain satisfied customers, lower operating costs and higher growth. McKinsey & Company notes that digital brokerages are made up of five pillars:

• A foundational BMS – A single system to efficiently manage customer relationships, policy and benefits administration, sales automation, financial accounting processes and document management across the entire business in one application
• Mobile – “Anytime” access for staff and insureds to insurance information, with information readily available via their smartphones or tablets
• Insurer connectivity – Secure and seamless communication and data exchange between insurer systems directly to management systems to increase access to markets, automate servicing and reduce manual processes
• Analytics – Transforming data within the management system into visual insights for data-driven analysis of internal operations, new market opportunities and insurer relationships
• Cloud – Provides brokerages a flexible operating environment with scalability for business growth, stronger business continuity protection and increased mobile access to business information.

Canadian Underwriter also asked if there is something brokers would typically ask for or would like to see from a technology standpoint. “Brokers are always looking for more ways to make their job easier, allowing them to focus more on the client rather than processes,” Purdy said.

As an example, artificial intelligence is a buzzword Applied often hears from its customers, Purdy said. “This can come in hundreds of different forms, but the reason behind the need for it is to make processes easier.”

One of Applied’s recent innovation is incorporating AI in its analytics software. Applied Analytics offers a new sales account rounding dashboard that provides recommendations of new prospective policies, based on a broker’s existing book of business for customers that have policies expiring in the next six months.