RSH 160 - Titans of the Insurance Industry Share Their View of the Future

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Speaker 7 In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 3 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to

Speaker 7 the show.

Speaker 3 Today we have an absolutely tremendous conversation for you.

Speaker 9 This is another repackaged episode and not that I'm trying to skirt you guys but just had two really good non-podcast conversations that I thought were worth sharing with you all here if you hadn't otherwise listened to them or wanted to listen to them again.

Speaker 9 In this case, it's a panel that I did for the IA Evolve Digital Conference.

Speaker 9 Now this is a conference put on by SIA and I had the opportunity to interview a panel of people people that just do not, you know, this caliber of individual, of leader in our industry just does not come together that often.

Speaker 9 And I thought the panel went really, really well. I mean, a lot of times these things can be kind of bore and dry and stale.
And I'd like to believe that this was not one of those conversations.

Speaker 9 Everybody came to play. Everyone came with comments and energy.
And

Speaker 9 it was a really, really good conversation. And I asked some of my colleagues at SIA proper if they'd be willing to let me push it out through the podcast channel and they agreed.

Speaker 9 So what you're going to get is a conversation between me, Amy Zupon, the CEO of Vertifor, Matt Masiello, the CEO of SIA, and Tyler Asher, the head of all IA distribution for Liberty Mutual.

Speaker 9 These are three power players who gave up an hour each of their time

Speaker 9 and about a half hour, 45 minutes of their time in a previous call to game plan for this conversation.

Speaker 9 And I think that hopefully shows you that for these individuals to give up that amount of time to something like this, that they wanted to share this message.

Speaker 9 It wasn't just going to be repackaged, kind of gobbly gook. It was going to be their thoughts, their feelings, you know, where their attention is actually focused.

Speaker 9 And I think that's exactly what we got. So I wouldn't be resharing this if I didn't think it was incredibly valuable.
I do. I think you're going to enjoy it.
There's a lot of great insights.

Speaker 9 It was actually the kickoff panel for the conference. There were a whole bunch of other speakers.

Speaker 9 James Jenkins, Josh Gurley,

Speaker 9 Nick Ayers. There's a bunch of others.
I'm forgetting them.

Speaker 9 Siara Gravier.

Speaker 9 There was a bunch of them, awesome speakers. And so what I'll say to you is if you enjoyed this podcast

Speaker 9 episode or this conversation that I have, you can actually re-watch right now for free all the

Speaker 3 other

Speaker 9 speakers, all the other conversations. Listen to them.
You just go to IAEvolve. That's the letter I, the letter A, and the word evolve, E-V-O-L-V-E dot com.

Speaker 9 Go to IAEvolve.com and you can listen, watch all the other speakers that were, that took place during this digital conference.

Speaker 9 And I just hope that you enjoy this conversation. I love pushing these things out to you.
And as you guys know,

Speaker 3 this

Speaker 9 podcast feed is really a menagerie of information that

Speaker 9 I think is valuable to you. Sometimes I do solo episodes, sometimes I do interview episodes, sometimes I have multiple guests on.
And in this case, sometimes when I do,

Speaker 9 when I deliver content or I'm part of content in other places, I try to get that recording and push it back out through this vein so that you get access to that when possible.

Speaker 9 Not always possible, but when possible. And in this case, we're able to do it.
So I want to say thank you to my colleagues at SAA for letting me push this out.

Speaker 9 I hope that you'll go check out IAEvolve and and all the other speakers.

Speaker 9 And I hope you enjoy this conversation. As always, I love you for listening to this show.
And if you find this information valuable, if you find this content valuable, please share it with a friend.

Speaker 9 Go down social, text to someone, email to someone, share with your team.

Speaker 9 More ears listening, more ears getting involved in these types of conversations. This type of content helps push our industry forward.
And that's why I do this show. So, love you guys for listening.

Speaker 9 Let's get on to this amazing panel from IA Evolve.

Speaker 3 Hello, everybody, and welcome to the

Speaker 3 opening kickoff panel of IA Evolve.

Speaker 3 I'm going to do very short intros in a second for our panelists. We have an absolute rock star panel here.
I feel like

Speaker 3 something funky must be going on in the universe to have such power players like all this gravity in one place.

Speaker 3 My computer is also wonky, so the delay is on purpose, just so you guys know, I did that for effect.

Speaker 3 All right, so before we get to our panel and get into what I think is going to be an absolutely tremendous conversation, I just want to give a big shout out and thank you to all of you who are attending.

Speaker 3 iEvolve is an annual event and the entire SIA

Speaker 3 ecosystem family is very happy to put this on and happy that you would choose to spend time with us.

Speaker 3 There's a lot of good presentations that are going to happen throughout the course of of the next two days um this this panel being the first of uh of what should be a wonderful event that being said just a couple housekeeping items before we get there um there is a q a section that you'll see

Speaker 3 i'm not exactly sure what you're seeing but somewhere in the screen that you're looking at there's a q a button um when you have questions pop them in that QA section. We will get to those questions.

Speaker 3 Now, if your questions are terrible, I am not going to read them on this thing, but all of those terrible questions will be answered by either the Verti4 team, the Liberty Mutual team, or the SAA team afterwards.

Speaker 3 So they will, you will, people will get back to you about those things. But if you ask about like, hey, Tyler, how come our commission rates aren't 45% instead of 20%? I'm not asking that question.
So

Speaker 3 any. pertinent, good, thoughtful questions that you have, we absolutely will try to get as many of those to our panel as we can.

Speaker 3 But any like really tactical kind of

Speaker 3 very specific questions, please still ask them. That's the point.

Speaker 3 And then someone from the team of whichever respective organization you are asking that question will get back to you. So

Speaker 3 I want you to ask those questions.

Speaker 3 And then there's a group chat thing. There's like a whole bunch of features, but really the one I'm going to be watching is the Q ⁇ A.
So use that Q ⁇ A. uh once we get there uh also

Speaker 3 lisa gave me some few other things that i'm I'm kind of forgetting now that we got going, but the QA was the big one that we're going to follow up after.

Speaker 3 And there are tons of great panels, so just keep watching. And we appreciate you being here.
Okay, with that, let's get on to our panel.

Speaker 3 I'm going to do very brief introductions because I don't think the individuals

Speaker 3 who we have on panel here today need a tremendous amount of bio read.

Speaker 3 And really, I don't want to waste any more time

Speaker 3 on non-content related things. Also, Christopher, congratulations on not actually asking a question, but being the first one to use the tool.
So whatever prize that gets you, wonderful. So

Speaker 3 our first guest is Amy Zupon. She is the CEO of VertiFort.

Speaker 3 Amy, it is a pleasure to have.

Speaker 3 Tyler Asher, who you cannot see.

Speaker 3 He is coming in via telephone because technology.

Speaker 3 Tyler is president of IA distribution for Liberty Mutual. And we also have, who is on the line and you can see, Matt Masiello, the CEO of SIA.
So I want to give a big, a big welcome to all of you.

Speaker 3 And thank you for taking time out of what I know are very busy schedules to be with us here today.

Speaker 3 That being said, let's get to our very first question. All right.
So I'm going to throw a softball up. And

Speaker 3 we'll start with a.

Speaker 3 Our very first question that I wanted to get into, just to kind of get things rolling here, is there's lots of things happening always

Speaker 3 in our space, regardless of when we do this, always things happening. We work in an industry that is always evolving.

Speaker 3 I guess my first question for you, Amy, is like, what is one trend that just something, something that's happening that just has your attention?

Speaker 3 When you see an article on it, maybe you just pause for a second and it kind of catches you. What's one thing that's catching your eye right now that's going on

Speaker 3 that you find interesting and relevant to our time?

Speaker 10 Yeah,

Speaker 10 it's a great question, Brian. You know, I've been in insurance now for six years here at Verticor, and it is hard to believe.

Speaker 10 It's actually gone super fast, but there's so much going on in our industry right now, and specifically around technology.

Speaker 10 You know, when I think about this question, where I might go is I might highlight the increasing amount of M ⁇ A activity that's happening in the agency space right now.

Speaker 10 And in reality, it shows no sign in slowing down anytime soon. In fact, it's picking up.

Speaker 10 We like to follow the agency and broker buyer index. And in Q2, what it told us is it showed a 74% increase in acquisitions over Q1.

Speaker 10 And deal count is actually up 16% year-on-year, despite economic headwinds that are around.

Speaker 10 So, you know, and yet at the same time, there are still similar numbers of independent agencies out there as there was when I joined six years ago.

Speaker 10 And so what that's telling you is the big are getting bigger, they're getting more complex, there's no question about that, but that newer, smaller agencies are popping up every day.

Speaker 10 And for a vendor like us, you know, it really means that we're constantly investing in our solutions to help automate and simplify things because large agencies need to handle the complexity that comes with acquisitions, conversions, how to help folks clean up data.

Speaker 10 And new agencies that are popping up need simple, automated solutions that can get you up and running quickly.

Speaker 10 And I just, I find, I find the amount of MA activity and the amount of independent agencies staying about the same just to be a pretty fascinating tribute to the strength of the independent channel.

Speaker 3 Amy, do you just quick follow up in there? Do you think that, you know,

Speaker 3 whether we actually dip into a real recession or not, or how big it is, whether it's a shallow or it ends up being deep, do you think that what does feel like some sort of slowdown, you know, to a degree no one can really tell necessarily.

Speaker 3 Do you think that's going to have an impact? Or do you see on M ⁇ A activity? Or do you think we're just in a time where we have

Speaker 3 enough individuals whose career has hit a point where they're starting to consider making a move that we're just, this is just going to be a continuing trend that it's just going to continue to increase?

Speaker 10 You know, it's obviously hard to predict the future. I'm not a crystal ball reader about what's going to happen, but my perspective is that,

Speaker 10 you know, if we were starting to see those slowdowns, we would have seen them by now. There's a tremendous amount of money that continues to be invested in this space.

Speaker 10 And I think for the foreseeable future, we're just going to see that continue to go in that direction.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I know at least, you know, my, the people that I talk to, they're seeing all the same stuff.

Speaker 3 There's, you know, I got a buddy that has a certain type of agency that like almost on a weekly basis, he has someone new pitching him.

Speaker 3 And it's just incredible what's flying around and uh it's a very interesting time for him ma so um next uh and and tyler this this is not in order of importance it's just in order of how i want to ask the questions i'm going to go to matt next uh so tyler be prepared you know i know you're the third one so you gotta you're kind of playing roulette with these questions here but matt what trend are you looking at um it can be m a two or whatever but what's what's catching your eye that's that's stopping you when you see a piece of information or report or a study that that's uh on your brain yeah it's sort of like uh uh sticking your hand in a candy jar right now to answer that question i mean there's a lot of sort of fascinating trends that are going on out there and so when i thought about this i was thinking granular uh or or sort of more global and i'm actually going to go one step just above where amy went where amy was on sort of m a and in the health of the industry um

Speaker 8 you know i i was once told by the way um when i was the youngest person in the room uh that one day i would wake up and i would would be the oldest person in the room, which I actually think on this screen I am.

Speaker 8 And what's fascinating is in all the years I've been doing this,

Speaker 8 without exception, I've been told that independent agencies are dinosaurs, we're going to go away, we don't deliver a value proposition to the consumer, the carriers don't need us, the internet, banks, insurtech, everyone's going to put us out of business.

Speaker 8 And what I find fascinating, even on the tails of

Speaker 8 certain large consulting organizations, even in the last five years, sort of counting independent agencies down and out. Um, it's the strongest I've ever seen the channel.

Speaker 8 Uh, we are converting exclusive channel business over to the independent agency channel.

Speaker 8 Uh, we are seeing, uh, I think the direct response, you know, I won't say sort of plateauing, but you know, they do have a limited product offering.

Speaker 8 We're seeing carriers double down on their independent agency investment. We're seeing obviously technology partners invest significantly into the channel.
And so,

Speaker 8 just, you know, Amy's MA piece is a huge piece, but I just think, you know, we should believe in what we do because other people believe in it now, too. And I think that that's a fascinating trend.

Speaker 8 You know, I say all the time right now, this is simply the most exciting time to be in this business. And, you know, you started an agency.
There are thousands of people starting agencies right now.

Speaker 8 They're doing it because it's a great opportunity.

Speaker 8 You know, recession, market, economy, debt markets, MA, doesn't matter. It's a great time to be in this business.
So that's a great trend.

Speaker 10 And I might add one point to what you just said.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 3 Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 10 Sorry, I might add one point to what Matt just said because I love it is, you know, when I got here six years ago, that was the same comment made to me, which is, hey, you know, the independent agency channel, it's going to diminish over time and it's going to go to direct and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 10 I think one of the things that's super interesting right now, if you look at the data, is that

Speaker 10 the amount of premium that's actually going through the independent agency channel is actually going up. It's not going the other direction.
So it's going up.

Speaker 10 And, you know, I think that's falling away from the captives a bit if you look at the premium. But and direct is also coming.

Speaker 10 So that's not something to ignore and, you know, make sure you're multi-channel and all of those things. But I find that the premium going through the channel is only going up.

Speaker 3 Does anyone else feel like direct business is really just like a feeder program for independent business?

Speaker 3 Like, I love when I see a new direct competitor because I'm like, they're going to scoop up all this business, do a really terrible job, and then we're just going to take it all from them like in two or three years.

Speaker 3 Like, that's, I don't know, that's always been my perspective. That's every time I see like a new insur tech that's going to disintermediate, I'm like, this is going to be great.

Speaker 3 I'm going to get a ton of calls in like two years from all their customers.

Speaker 3 Sorry, that's my perspective. Yeah, maybe

Speaker 3 David, my question around what does MMA stand for? MMA stands for mixed martial arts. We are talking about MA and also known as mergers and acquisitions.
So, sorry. Sorry, Tyler.

Speaker 3 I just wanted to clear that up real quick.

Speaker 7 Oh, no, perfect. And I would, you know, honestly, I would just kind of add to what Matt and Amy said.

Speaker 7 I mean, I think the headline that is soon to be written is that independent agents are going to continue to win.

Speaker 7 You know, the data from market share shows that if anything, the channel is actually getting bigger. You have many carriers that are pivoting models to really exclusively focus on independent agents.

Speaker 7 And the prospects at large continue to be very advantageous for the independent agency system. And I think we're in this environment right now.

Speaker 7 I think many of those on the webinar will attest to this. Service has been something that's been hard to come by over the last couple of years.

Speaker 7 Whether it's staffing shortages, whether it's everyone being remote.

Speaker 7 But I really do think in the years ahead, there is going to be a flight to quality service, a flight to advice. And Ryan, your point on the direct writers, I'd say

Speaker 7 they're very much targeting a different customer.

Speaker 7 And it's customers that truly get to a point where they value advice, where independent agents are a tremendous fit in terms of the value proposition that agents provide and what consumers are interested in.

Speaker 7 And I really do think that independent agents right now are better positioned than they have ever been.

Speaker 7 And again, the headline that has yet to be written is that independent agents will continue to gain market share and continue to thrive in the environment ahead.

Speaker 8 And if I could, Ryan, just jump in on Tyler's coattails there. I think it's sort of fascinating when we talk about your comment a minute ago about the direct channel and Tyler's comments.

Speaker 8 Look, there is some business that just belongs in the direct channel, and we as independent agencies shouldn't compete for it.

Speaker 8 It tends to be lower limit, lower premium, higher risk, low loyalty, low commission, if we happen to write it.

Speaker 8 And so I'm a firm believer that that business does belong in a direct channel. And

Speaker 8 we should fight within our weight class, which is do business with people that are looking for the value that we deliver.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think there's also

Speaker 3 one of the things that since I've been in the business for 17 years and one of the things that I've really and specifically always focused on the marketing side, so I don't know other parts of the business like you guys do, but from a branding, marketing, content,

Speaker 3 you know, voice perspective, there are so many more independent agents.

Speaker 3 And while I would love to see the carriers step their game up in general, I think carriers as well have started to really dial in their message around what our value proposition is and get much better at telling it and telling it more frequently, which is starting to take customers who may have given some of the direct channel competitors a shot.

Speaker 3 They're coming to us first, which I think is a, you know, and again, some of that is subjective.

Speaker 3 It's just, you know, maybe a lot of it is my two and a half years at Rogue, but it's, we're, we're subjectively, internally starting to see that people who may have been direct channel consumers are coming to us because they're seeing messaging, they're hearing messaging that resonates that maybe just in years past they didn't see from us.

Speaker 3 And I think that's a really good sign for what all of you have said

Speaker 3 anecdotally.

Speaker 3 Great. So

Speaker 3 one just one just quick question.

Speaker 3 Amy, you had referenced a buyer index and Carrie had a question, just if you could say the name of it again.

Speaker 10 Yeah, it's the agency and broker buyer index.

Speaker 10 It's just something that gets published every quarter that we can fundamentally look at. And I can, what I can do is look it up here and get you a link and send it out.

Speaker 3 awesome thank you so much thank you okay

Speaker 3 um

Speaker 3 jake we're going to get to your question towards the end you're you're you're you're you're trying to make me bury the lead here so all right so thank you for all that on the trends uh and the back and forth that that was tremendous so i think we're all in in agreement and obviously we're we're we're talking to the audience uh the right audience here as well but uh we wouldn't be on this call if we didn't feel that way but i do think it's reassuring to hear from people in your positions that that you're seeing what i think most of us are feeling is that we're on the upswing and that there's a lot of things happening.

Speaker 3 One of the trends that,

Speaker 3 and I'm going to put this to Matt first,

Speaker 3 it's going to feel like a softball. I know that.

Speaker 3 Don't start hating on me when I ask this question.

Speaker 3 But if you listen to my own podcast, you will hear that this is the way I felt and felt for a while, well before any of my relationship with SIA, is that

Speaker 3 it very much is feeling to me like we can't do it alone anymore, right?

Speaker 3 Not that, not you can't, can't, so, so please don't start hating me in the QA, but it feels very much like whether it's joining a cluster or an aggregator or

Speaker 3 partnering with another agency or a group of agencies, whether that's regionally or based on an industry or whatever,

Speaker 3 that very much feels like the future to me. And having worked in and/or run agencies both outside of an aggregator/slash network and now inside

Speaker 3 pros and cons to every agency, but to me, this feels like the future: being part of a larger group,

Speaker 3 having some access to carriers that you didn't have, taking some of the pressure off early on. You know, we're talking a lot about this MA activity where

Speaker 3 agencies that have been around for a long time are being scooped up.

Speaker 3 Well, all these young startup agencies that are filling the gap behind them, it's very difficult to get appointments, especially when choice is one of our big value propositions.

Speaker 3 If you can only get one or two direct appointments, that is a handcuff. So by joining a network or what have you, you're able to get access and really hit the ground running.

Speaker 3 So, you know, Matt, I wanted to put to you, you know,

Speaker 3 this idea of

Speaker 3 being part of something bigger, of joining forces with other agencies or, you know, whatever, this network model, you where do you see that going? Is this a trend you're seeing in SIA?

Speaker 3 Are you seeing it in the broader ecosystem? And just what other comments do you have on this particular concept?

Speaker 8 Yeah, and I'm going to be generic in my response and let my peers also sort of come around on this.

Speaker 8 I think sort of small businesses in general in the United States need to be part of other organizations because that's what allows us to remain small, independent businesses. What is it?

Speaker 8 80% of the U.S. economy is small business.

Speaker 8 And it's hard to go it on your own if you're not partnering, collaborating in a buying group, whatever the case may be.

Speaker 8 70% of the independent agency channels under $1.2 million of commissioned income. So we're small businesses.
So you need to be part of something.

Speaker 8 You know, the carrier access thing, you know, agencies can access carriers anywhere right now. They can access carriers through wholesalers, through joining networks.
It's sort of table stakes.

Speaker 8 What it ultimately becomes after that is what is the value proposition that they're looking for in any sort of a relationship? Because it is more than carriers. It is more than just income.

Speaker 8 It becomes thought leadership. It becomes technology.

Speaker 8 It becomes collaborating on how agencies are going to look into the future.

Speaker 8 And where I'll sort of pivot that question just a little bit is it really isn't just joining a network or a cluster or an aggregator or something like that. It's

Speaker 8 being an active participant in technology user groups.

Speaker 8 It's being an active participant

Speaker 8 with some of the carriers, right? We'll give Tyler some opportunity to talk about Agent for the Future and the investments they've made there.

Speaker 8 But I think we all have to be sort of collaborating and part of something as we move forward, especially as small businesses.

Speaker 8 None of us can afford to go out and sort of change the world today, but if we all get together, we can do that. And

Speaker 8 20 or 30 years ago, as independent agencies, we would sit here and say, Well, we're just going to wait for

Speaker 8 the agency management systems to solve this problem, or we're just going to wait for the carriers to solve these problems.

Speaker 8 And the basic fact is, they're looking for us to help them solve those problems. And so, we should be active participants in that.

Speaker 8 And scale brings you to the table to be active participants in the future of not just how you're going to grow your agency and your individual business, but how we're going to grow the industry overall.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 We'll go kind of reverse order. Tyler, what's your thoughts on this particular topic? Joining forces, we'll say, is the general concept here?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I actually loved how Matt framed that. I think, you know, we like to say going independent doesn't mean going it alone.

Speaker 7 And so I think there's lots of ways for agencies to pick up scale, whether that's being a part of something, whether that's tapping into programs that carriers offer.

Speaker 7 We certainly, Liberty Mutual Safeco, you know, our commitment to agents is to do more than really anyone in the carrier side to help agents win.

Speaker 7 We have a ton of programs to help agents from digital marketing to their websites, hiring, training producers, to loans to bring new staff in. You know, we have programs that really cover everything.

Speaker 7 And so for agencies, I think it really just means tapping into the resources that are truly available.

Speaker 7 I mean, we are in an industry where scale increasingly does matter depending on the aspirations for the organization.

Speaker 7 So there are many small agents that are serving a local community, and they're content or they're happy with how big the agency's gotten, the success they've reached, that's fine.

Speaker 7 But if an agency owner has an aspiration to continue to grow, to continue to expand, you know, scale starts to matter. And so, you know, we see that certainly on the agency side.

Speaker 7 That is certainly true on the carrier side as well.

Speaker 7 You know, making sure that you've got the ability to continue to invest in the future, the ability to bring in new technology, the ability to hire new talent, the ability to really invest in marketing and brand, all comes down to scale and being able to invest in a smart way.

Speaker 7 So I really do believe that scale matters. There's lots of ways for agencies to get support.

Speaker 7 And again, I love the title of this panel, Transforming Our Industry Together, because I do think that's ultimately what it's going to take for us to win.

Speaker 7 And together is a partnership, you know, between carriers, between agencies, and between all of the technology providers and all of the service providers and kind of a broad agency ecosystem, all working together to ensure the channel is really set up for success.

Speaker 3 Amy, anything to add on this topic?

Speaker 10 So I loved what both Matt and Tyler had to say, in all honesty. I think the two things I would kind of build on is,

Speaker 10 I mean, I obviously don't have the experience of being an aggregator or a cluster or an agency, right? But I'll draw the parallel to being a software company.

Speaker 10 At VertiVoor, we can't do it alone either, right? We 100% believe in an open platform from that perspective.

Speaker 10 We 100% belong to groups where we participate with technology companies that look and feel like us, that work in other industries, right?

Speaker 10 I mean, you really need to understand best practice, new trends. I'll take cybersecurity as a great example, right? What are all the threats?

Speaker 10 Well, our head of cyber participates in all sorts of things. And that's where we get all that insight that helps us to protect you.

Speaker 10 And so kind of building on what Matt said, it's not just us in our industry. I think it's across the board for small businesses.

Speaker 10 You really need to have those support systems that help you do the things that you don't have to go it alone.

Speaker 10 And then, you know, kind of building on what.

Speaker 10 Tyler said on the title of the panel of we do this together, you know, I find this industry to be fascinating from the perspective of it's a coopetition type of industry.

Speaker 10 And I actually love that part of it, right?

Speaker 10 Never before have I been in an industry where you feel such a sense of camaraderie and support across agents. At the same time, you're not necessarily competing for business.
Super cool.

Speaker 10 And when you look at technology and the opportunity that we have to actually drive impact for our users, for our end consumers, it's going to take the folks like Tyler in the carrier community.

Speaker 10 It's going to take all of you on the phone. And it's going to take people like me working together to really kind of break through and drive some of those advancements.

Speaker 10 So I think that together we're a really important angle of what Tyler was saying.

Speaker 3 This was one of the most important lessons that I learned launching Rogue Risk was

Speaker 3 just how alone you feel if you don't join something, a group.

Speaker 3 a network, a networking group, you know, a mastermind.

Speaker 3 If you don't reach out, if you don't get involved, one,

Speaker 3 our industry, everyone is so, so willing to help each other, which is amazing. Right now, I can tell you there is an SI, I have a buddy, SIA member, who's watching this panel.

Speaker 3 Then he's doing David Carruthers' killing commercial thing this afternoon. And then tomorrow he's going to Chris Paradiso's mastermind.

Speaker 3 So in two days, four different groups, all this cross-pollination of ideas, everyone's so willing to share. It just, that to me is, I think,

Speaker 3 one of the most redeeming qualities of our industry. And I think it's so incredibly important.
And if people do feel like they're on an island,

Speaker 3 put a question in the Q ⁇ A. If I can't find you a place to join and learn, one of our panelists will or someone in their organization will find you some place that you can connect.

Speaker 3 So if you're out there and you're listening to this and you're feeling like

Speaker 3 you don't know where to turn, you don't know where to go,

Speaker 3 put your information in and we'll, we'll, whether it's, you know, someone who's involved in this or not, we'll find you a place.

Speaker 8 You know, but before you go on to your next question, I think this is actually a cool evolution of the industry, right? Because this was an industry where we all liked our box, right?

Speaker 8 Everyone had to stay in their lane and stay in their box. And, you know, we had non-competes and non-piracies and confidentiality agreements, and we didn't want to share and collaborate.

Speaker 8 And as some of us got more and more involved in technology over the years, and I think Amy makes a good point coming in from the outside with technology, is you did did see things like open source and collaborating on moving technologies forward.

Speaker 8 In the insurance industry, we didn't did that. We didn't do that.
We all stayed in our lanes. And I think that we are evolving as an industry because of this willingness to collaborate and share.

Speaker 8 And it's sort of a rising tide thing. And there's some that still want to just stay in their lanes.
But I think where everyone's making this investment,

Speaker 8 including their time and treasure to help others is a really, it's a really big deal in this industry. I think

Speaker 8 it's a great trend for us to evolve because if we don't evolve, we will die. And we are evolving right now.

Speaker 9 What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. And in exchange for that, I need your help.

Speaker 9 If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes, et cetera.

Speaker 9 This helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in.

Speaker 9 We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things, sharing their stories around peak performance, leadership, growth, sales.

Speaker 9 the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business.

Speaker 9 But they all check out comments ratings reviews they check out all this information before they come on so as i reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you i need your help share the show subscribe if you're not subscribed and i'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because i read all the comments or if you're on apple or spotify leave a rating review of this show i love you for listening to this show and i hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do creating the show for you.

Speaker 3 All right, I'm out of here. Peace.
Let's get back to the episode.

Speaker 3 Talking about the evolution of the industry. Only one question so far, 30 minutes in, has been about download.

Speaker 3 So that's a, that's a big, that's a big positive for the evolution of our industry right there.

Speaker 3 Also, April says it is much easier to embrace change when you're not on an island by yourself. Amen to that, April.
I appreciate you sharing that sentiment.

Speaker 7 I think that's wonderful. So, all right.

Speaker 3 So, kind of keeping this kind of idea going, we've set up some trends and um and and talked a little bit about how we can't do it alone um the next thing i want to talk about is how do we actually choose our partners or our collaborators how do we how do we make these decisions what is what is the filter that we pass people through and again i i i tend to think about these things as filters because there's no absolutes right there all of us will be different and with different partners all the criteria might not always be the same so i don't want to i don't expect anyone to give here are the seven things you need to do if you want to you know be part of Vertifor's Orange Partner Program or something.

Speaker 3 That's not what I'm asking for. What I'm asking for is from your position, from your seat,

Speaker 3 what are some of the high-level filters? And Amy, we'll start with you.

Speaker 3 What are just some of the high-level filters that you're looking for when you or your team is considering a partner or a collaborator that you would like to bring in?

Speaker 3 Because it is a big decision, especially with the size of the organizations that are on this call. When you decide to partner with someone, it's news.

Speaker 10 and i am positive that you're aware of the gravity of that so um just just anything you can share around some of the filters you use to make those decisions would be wonderful yeah absolutely so um you know we we did start that orange partner program with the philosophy of being open and building on relationships and collaborating with others to build things right i think um you know first and foremost me partnership whether it's about the partner program or it's about our customer relationships or anything partnership is about trust and communication at the end of the day right?

Speaker 10 You know, relationships are never perfect.

Speaker 10 They're never, you know, everything doesn't always go exactly as you expected, but there is no substitute for having base level trust and good, honest, open communication.

Speaker 10 And to me, that is like first and foremost, that's table stakes for thinking about who a partner is. I think the second thing for us is,

Speaker 10 you know, you're looking for a win-win, right? In a partnership. It's good for you.
It's good for me. Those partnerships live, right?

Speaker 10 And so I think a lot of times we're looking for um solutions that solve the problems that our customers actually are facing right now as we think about who our partners are these this is something that matters to their business it's going to make a difference and it does so in a way that automates and simplifies things for them meaning we're not looking just to have a partner because it's a like a flashy new object we want to actually do something that's physically going to solve a problem and again that kind of goes back to the second point i was making about win-win right we're looking for a win for whoever we're partnering with and a win for us at the end of the day.

Speaker 10 So, just some high-level philosophies as we're thinking about things.

Speaker 3 Tyler, what about you guys?

Speaker 3 Um, I shared with you in our pre-call that my buddy Chris Klein, who used to work for Westfield, he said he had to hire an assistant just to filter the partnership calls that they would receive like on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 So, I'm sure either you or someone in your organization, it's probably pretty similar. So,

Speaker 3 how do you think through what could potentially be a partner or a collaborator

Speaker 3 when you're making those decisions?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I mean, I think

Speaker 7 collaborators come in lots of shapes and sizes from agency partners to technology vendors or places where we might integrate fully for the benefit of an agent.

Speaker 7 But I'd say broadly, what we're looking for is a partner that shares our philosophy to Amy's point, win-win.

Speaker 7 We're driving mutually beneficial partnerships, that we share a philosophy for what's what's ahead for the channel, and that we share a commitment to continue to advance, to push the channel forward, to help the channel evolve.

Speaker 7 So, you know, for an agency partner, we're looking for someone who maintains a growth mindset and is really looking to continue to drive the business forward.

Speaker 7 That means always looking to add new producers where possible. That means always being willing to take some risks on new technologies, to try new ways to interact with customers.

Speaker 7 You know, certainly, like the, I know there's a question in the chat about getting direct access to carriers.

Speaker 7 The biggest thing actually isn't, you know, whether you're a scratch agency, it's whether you've got a good marketing plan, whether you're building a strong agency culture, and whether you're really maintaining kind of a growth mindset.

Speaker 7 in terms of how do you take the business to the next level? How do you always ask the question of what's next? So broadly, that's who we look to partner with because it aligns to our interests.

Speaker 7 I think from an agency partner perspective, we do business with a lot of agents, you know, about 24,000 retail agents across the country out of about 36,000.

Speaker 7 So we see partners of all different sizes, shapes, you know, operating models, but really the agents that we most

Speaker 7 find success with are those that really, again, meet those core commitments to want to grow, meet those commitments of wanting to do good in their local community, and are deeply committed to advancing the channel.

Speaker 7 And from a technology partner, same thing. You know, obviously we're looking for someone who's tech forward, easy to work with, easy to integrate with.

Speaker 7 Looking for someone who is committed to advancing the channel, who's willing to help at times when necessary, push agents forward, whether that's digital adoption or whether that's a new technology.

Speaker 7 I'm not going to say download the new tech, but other technology advances, just making sure that we just align on those key tenets.

Speaker 8 Matt, what what about you yeah i mean i i i i actually love the question because it is it goes back to you know how excited it is to be in the industry and and how important being part of other organizations are and i sort of look at at sort of these partnerships and collaboration as bookends

Speaker 8 and the first part of it starts with you got to like them

Speaker 8 And then the second part of the bookend is you have to have the same goal. Everything else that happens in between there

Speaker 8 a result of a good relationship with somebody that you like and can work with, and the same goal, because ultimately, you want to find the alternative paths to get to that goal.

Speaker 8 We can't be linear in this industry, you know, with well, this is the way it needs to be done, or this is the way we've always done it, or this is what the carriers require, or this is what the technology platforms require.

Speaker 8 It's all about the consumer. And so, finding that non-linear process of people you like that you can work with that have common goals, and then you can sort of figure everything else out in between

Speaker 3 yeah the one thing that i wanted to add is um

Speaker 3 the partner or collaborator has to actually solve a real problem

Speaker 3 um there's a lot of tools and insur techs out there and specifically that that do cool things but they don't actually solve problems that agencies actually have or care about.

Speaker 3 And that can be difficult sometimes to parse through because you're like, oh, wow, look at this thing and it's awesome. And it does this and this and this.

Speaker 3 And then when you actually look at the workflows of an agency, you're like, yeah, but, you know, we don't really need that. It doesn't really make our lives better.

Speaker 3 It's just different clicks, not less clicks, I guess, sometimes. And that can be, that can be

Speaker 3 a challenge. And the other one I'm sure you see, and I, no one has to comment on this, but I just remember this from a previous life with a,

Speaker 3 you know, company that fired me. But

Speaker 3 we would get a lot of people that wanted to do business with us just because there were like there were like slide decks in incubators where it was like get a partnership with x and that will amplify you right so it wasn't that that they even wanted necessarily to do business with you they just wanted to be able to put on their sales deck that they had you as a partner and you know i'm it's just it's a very difficult thing so um i just hope everyone listening knows that this this is one of the hardest decisions and and these guys i think were all very kind and thoughtful in their responses, but it can be very difficult to choose who you partner with.

Speaker 3 And sometimes I know I'll get side emails. How come this company won't partner with these guys and XYZ?

Speaker 3 And sometimes you might not understand, but I just want everyone to realize that this is a hard thing to sort through because for every great company that would be a really true value add.

Speaker 3 there's a dozen or more similar looking companies that could be an incredible waste of time or or a complete fail. And it is a big decision.

Speaker 10 And Ryan, maybe I can comment on that if that's okay. I think, you know, you hit on kind of one of my favorite phrases, actually, as we think about InsurTech investment.

Speaker 10 You know, it's hard to believe. When I got here in InsurTech, there was about $2 billion being invested in a given year, right? We're now like over 15, 16, right? And, you know, Ryan's spot on, right?

Speaker 10 Not all of it is actually helpful. to you and navigating that is a really complicated thing.
It's the sole purpose why we created the the Orange Partner Program.

Speaker 10 I think it's what networks and clusters and groups that you can join can help you navigate at the end of the day. But in Sure Tech, because it's cool and interesting and kind of looks fun.

Speaker 10 But if it doesn't solve a real problem for your business, it could actually add extra clicks to your workflows, which is exactly what we're not trying to do, right?

Speaker 10 Not helpful, not what we're trying to do

Speaker 10 in the independent agent channel. We're trying to simplify things so that we can give you time back at the end of the day.

Speaker 10 So navigating that's a really, really big challenge, and I think that's where networks, clusters,

Speaker 10 companies like us can help too.

Speaker 7 Yeah,

Speaker 3 yeah.

Speaker 3 Um, all right, so uh, we're gonna pivot a little or course

Speaker 3 just in the line of questioning. This has been tremendous.
I feel like we've done a really good job of developing a narrative here, but we do have some good questions.

Speaker 3 I have a couple other places I want to go. I want to give a quick shout out to Jessica, who said, Agreed, as a new agent, I feel like I would have sank without my my SIA support team.

Speaker 3 So, you know, just stroking some egos out there, loving it. Great.
Thank you. I appreciate your feedback, Jessica.
That's wonderful.

Speaker 3 And it took us 41 minutes to get our first question about accord. So, again, the evolution of the industry.

Speaker 6 This is tremendous.

Speaker 3 All right. So, I want the last kind of scheduled question that I had.

Speaker 3 And I actually want to, I'll give. credit where it's due to Amy.
This was her suggestion. So after this, we'll pivot to the questions that have have been asked in the QA.

Speaker 3 So, if you, if you have a question for our panel, please get that in the QA right now. We have about 20 minutes left on our discussion.
So, we're going to hit this question I'm about to ask, and then

Speaker 3 we'll get into your question. So, if you have them, pop them in.

Speaker 3 And remember, if you think it's silly, I will be your silly filter. So, just get the questions out there.
Keep them rolling in. All right.

Speaker 3 So, Amy, as this was your question, I'm going to put it right back on you.

Speaker 3 What is one problem or a set of problems, whatever. What is a problem that we haven't solved yet?

Speaker 3 What's a problem out there that we as an industry talk about, but just doesn't feel like we've dialed in on?

Speaker 3 Is there anything in particular or is there a set of things?

Speaker 3 Where are you at with this one?

Speaker 10 So I love this question because it's similar to the very first question we had on trends, which is there's so many pick from, right? So it's about where we want to focus and what we see.

Speaker 10 I think for me, my hot button these days is, you know, we live in a complicated ecosystem. We got the uninsured, we got independent agents, we've got the wholesalers and MGAs, we've got the carriers.

Speaker 10 And our collective purpose is to help our end customers get the best coverage they can for the right prices with as easy an experience as possible, right?

Speaker 10 And we have not even come close to crossing the chasm of navigating the possibility of improving the way

Speaker 10 all of these stakeholders connect across one another.

Speaker 10 And we will never get to the point where we can fundamentally drive that fast, first of all, experience if we don't address the connectivity challenges.

Speaker 10 And so, from a technology perspective, I wake up every day and I think about that.

Speaker 10 And back to the comments we were talking about earlier about doing it together, what I learned the day I got here six years ago into insurance, I said, that connectivity problem, we can solve that.

Speaker 10 That's not a big deal.

Speaker 10 Well, what I've underestimated underestimated was all the players in the game and how they all have to fundamentally come together to solve that problem and really get us to the tipping point.

Speaker 10 So, I wake up every day having conversations with carriers, having conversations with agencies, working with my team on how we actually cross the chasm of where we really need to be to unlock the value we can deliver to the constituents by addressing connectivity.

Speaker 3 You mean you didn't realize how many rating systems are still run on COBOL?

Speaker 3 They didn't explain that to you when you joined.

Speaker 3 Sorry, I can't help myself. Sometimes

Speaker 3 it isn't. You are 100% right.
Connectivity is the problem.

Speaker 3 All right, Tyler, where would you go with this? Where would you go? You can obviously expand upon connectivity, which is, I agree, is probably the

Speaker 3 thing that we have not solved or anything else that you're you're seeing?

Speaker 7 No, I mean,

Speaker 7 I think that's actually spot on. I mean, I think if we put the customer at the center of all that we collectively do, so agent, carrier, technology providers,

Speaker 7 there's a lot of work for us still to do.

Speaker 7 So we're all interacting in the service of the customer each and every day, whether that's a simple transaction like paying a bill, whether that's the customer trying to change their policy potentially online, whether it's a claims filing.

Speaker 7 And yet the way we communicate and share data between agency, agency management systems, and carrier still isn't quite in real time. In fact, a lot of it's still overnight downloads.

Speaker 7 The ability for us to continue to meet customer needs is just really important.

Speaker 7 And so I would love for us to continue to come together and drive real solutions to continue to meet customers' expectations, which are only getting higher.

Speaker 7 We work too hard in the independent agency system to bring customers in. We have to make sure that we're providing a differentiated experience, and it really is going to take all of us to solve that.

Speaker 7 We mentioned the complexity. You know, there's 36,000 agents in the country.
There's 350 carriers operating in the independent agency system. There's any number of technology providers.

Speaker 7 Some have a rating software from one vendor, an AMS from the other. So you look at the combinations, permutations, if you will, of tech stacks, and it's a really complex problem.

Speaker 7 But it's one that if you come back to just mutual beneficial partnerships, if you come back to being aligned on the mission, it has to be in the service of the customer.

Speaker 7 And so there has to be ways for us just to make sure that carrier systems, the data that we have and collect is being shared with agents when they need it to provide exceptional service and vice versa.

Speaker 7 So I think there's still a lot for us to do in that space. I think individually we've all made tremendous progress on empowering agents.

Speaker 7 I think together we have an opportunity to truly transform the way we do business and the way we differentiate ourselves from the direct channel.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So Matt.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I'm going to actually start where Tyler ended, which was service, right?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think service is an area that we haven't solved for, that we really need to. And it's that value proposition.

Speaker 8 And you think about, you know, Amy talking talking about connectivity, and we talk about the consumer and we talk about the agency and we talk about the company.

Speaker 8 And when we look at an independent agency, we sort of break down an independent agency into four sections, right? Marketing, operations, sales, and service.

Speaker 8 And we look at what digital capabilities or what new capabilities can we provide into each of those segments within an agency.

Speaker 8 And we suggest that agencies sort of measure themselves on how they're doing in those four areas.

Speaker 8 And staying on service just for a second, we're not yet giving the consumer what they want relative to the service. And some of that is because we're not evolving our business model.

Speaker 8 And so, you know, we as this industry need to figure out how we're going to service this business moving forward.

Speaker 8 Is it the connectivity and giving them the ability to do it themselves through interfacing with our AMS or our mobile apps? Is it carrier self-service in DIY?

Speaker 8 Is it carrier service centers?

Speaker 8 Is it agency agency VAs, which we're seeing as a big growth trend right now?

Speaker 8 And then to a certain degree, agencies do still need to be able to advocate for their consumers when those other things don't work.

Speaker 8 And, you know, I'm a big believer that not only do we as agencies need to find our value proposition in the insurance cycle as technology and digitization continues to come in, we got to find our value proposition for the consumer.

Speaker 8 We also have to recognize that we need to find our value proposition proposition for the carriers that we do business with. And it's not being staffed for service.

Speaker 8 It is being staffed for sales and business development and productive interactions, meaningful interactions with our customers and our clients.

Speaker 8 And so, you know, service and getting that figured out of what that right mix is that's right for the consumer.

Speaker 8 And, you know, we hear a lot of agencies say, you know, my clients still want to talk to me.

Speaker 8 But the basic fact is, is most of the calls that go into the service centers are when agencies aren't open. And a lot of consumers, if we think about ourselves in our own lives, we're busy.

Speaker 8 And so we want to do these things at night or on the weekend. And so we want to be able to either go into the carrier system or into the agency's AMS platform to be able to do these things.

Speaker 8 And we're not solved, we're heading in the right direction, but we're not solving for that.

Speaker 8 And, you know, I always tend to steal a little bit of your thunder, Ryan, on this one, which is we have to use digital capabilities, but we have to human optimize them for when somebody wants to talk to a human being.

Speaker 8 And so, this service thing, we've got to solve for it because at the end of the day, if we solve or get better on how we're providing better service capabilities to our customers when and where they want it, it gives us the ability to go after the business that's out there that might be in the exclusive channel, might even be some business in the direct channel.

Speaker 8 It allows us to compete better and be more efficient and agile in our businesses.

Speaker 3 Yes. So, um, every time someone says human optimized, I have to get a check in the mail for 20.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 all right. So, I have a

Speaker 3 podcaster in me can't help. I have to comment on just a couple of things here because I think there was

Speaker 3 so much in those answers that I thought was tremendous.

Speaker 3 One, here's the solution to carrier service centers. The first carrier that is willing to service other carriers' business without

Speaker 3 getting their hooks into that business, wins the carrier service center game.

Speaker 3 The reason carrier service centers, especially on the commercial line side, have not taken off, and I've talked to many, many agents about this topic, is that there are too many

Speaker 3 accounts that have multiple carrier accounts. And the minute you have a multiple carrier account, the carrier service center model falls apart.
So that's the answer to that. So,

Speaker 3 whoever wants to take that from a carrier perspective and run with it, the first one to do it wins.

Speaker 3 Because carrier service centers are an incredible resource. It's just just the minute there's a multi-carrier solution, it doesn't work.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 the reason that we haven't figured out service from my perspective is because we don't ask.

Speaker 3 It's actually simpler than all of that stuff. We don't ask how they want to be serviced.
We force whatever solution we feel is best down our consumers' throats.

Speaker 3 And that is a big part of the reason why I think adoption of tools like GloveBox, like carrier service centers, like other things haven't taken off agency BAs is because you're never going to have 100% of your client base using any one of those.

Speaker 3 It's really going to be a set of tools and you need to ask your customer how they want to be serviced.

Speaker 3 You know, my dad is going to want to call, but my mom actually likes automated tools. So she would actually use a login thing.
My dad still doesn't want to believe the internet exists.

Speaker 3 So if you want both of those pieces of business, you need to have both options. Here is my question for you guys.
And this is something that

Speaker 3 I just kind of hit me as you were talking. So if we're talking about connectivity,

Speaker 3 and actually,

Speaker 3 Tyler, I'm going to put this question to you. So if we're talking about connectivity,

Speaker 3 it feels like everyone's trying to address this in a slightly different way. There is like a carrier-centric connectivity model where we're doing everything inside of the carrier, carrier dashboards.

Speaker 3 I mean, obviously, Liberty has a very robust carrier dashboard. You can do all kinds of different servicing, all kinds of selling.

Speaker 3 You know, you guys would probably be on the more innovative side of the spectrum.

Speaker 3 There's agent-centric miles, right? So this would be like agencies having their own user portal and pulling all that connectivity into the agency or maybe through an AMS like AMS360 or QQ.

Speaker 3 And then there's third-party centric, which would be, you know, a tool I used before. It's just one of many.

Speaker 3 I'm not trying to give whatever, just like the guys, like a glove box where the user, the connectivity is a third party. So, in a, in a, in a, in a perfect world, um,

Speaker 3 which one of those models do we think is at? Because

Speaker 3 all three models can't work, right? It, it can't, if we're trying to actually be connected, all three models,

Speaker 3 you know, we can't, all three can't work. Where do we see this going? Is it carrier-centric, is it agent-centric, or is it third-party?

Speaker 7 I think, well, there's the where is it going and the, you know, what to do now.

Speaker 7 And I think right now, the biggest gap is making sure that we're serving customers in the way they need to be served today.

Speaker 7 And so if you look at just customer NPS, customer attention, it is higher, materially higher for customers that engage, we see that in our data, that engage online digital capabilities for service, whether that's an app, whether that's an online portal.

Speaker 7 And so my advice to agents is we have to provide that to customers.

Speaker 7 If agents have a solution, either they're getting it from a different technology provider, maybe they've done it through a mobile app like GloveBox, fantastic.

Speaker 7 If an agent doesn't have their own capabilities, push carrier capabilities.

Speaker 7 The most important thing right now is that we give customers what they need.

Speaker 7 Like I said, we have worked too hard for a customer to have a better service experience from a direct channel because the direct carrier is pushing that as the only option.

Speaker 7 But the experience at the end of the day is what the customer needs and what they're expecting. So they need to get it some way.

Speaker 7 In terms of ultimately, are we going to play or is there going to be one particular end zone? I don't know. I mean, right now, we've been open to all of it.

Speaker 7 So we have certainly proprietary capabilities we're providing. We have integrations with third parties.
We have integrations with agencies to provide those services to their clients.

Speaker 7 And there's pros and cons. You know, the carrier-centric approach, obviously, built into our system, built into our processes.

Speaker 7 You know, you have native experiences that in some cases potentially are a little bit more robust, not because we're not open to making integrations tighter, but because it's an investment.

Speaker 7 You know, so if we're going to invest in APIs to go soup to nuts through the entire claims process and embed that in a third-party platform, we have to have the return on investment to do that.

Speaker 7 So that's been a little bit more of a challenge to get the same level of extensive kind of experiences and services built.

Speaker 7 So from a carrier standpoint, it's a native experience, which sometimes will provide more functionality.

Speaker 7 That said, to your point, Ryan, on the commercial line side, you know, if there is in a commercial account that's split across carriers, you know, that's maybe not an ideal solution for an app where they only have part of the account.

Speaker 7 You know, on personal lines, we're more likely to have the entire household, and so those experiences are a little bit more robust.

Speaker 7 So, I'd say, you know, the most important thing right now, from my standpoint, is that together we remain open and flexible, that we continue to give agents options, whether that's to empower the tools that they're looking to build or whether that's by leveraging carrier tools where customers can use them today to get that benefit.

Speaker 3 Awesome. Does any,

Speaker 3 Matt Arami, do you have any additive comments or can I rapid fire a few of these other questions at you?

Speaker 3 Because we got

Speaker 3 we'll go rapid fire. Cool.
Okay. So I got a couple of questions here from the audience that I'm going to hit real quick.
We got four minutes. So just let's try to punch the answers if you can.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 let's see.

Speaker 3 I'm going to go to you with this one, Matt. And

Speaker 3 Joe asks, what are two action steps that an independent agency can take that wants to scale their business in the 21st century?

Speaker 3 You may or may not have written a book that addressed some of these particular topics.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I mean, there's more than two, but if I had to pick two out of the gate, I would say lead generation and digitization, right? And so,

Speaker 8 and those two things are related, right?

Speaker 8 There's the, you know, we've got a solid, we just heard, we just broke down all the service needs and everything, you know, servicing your business is a obstacle to scaling your growth, but to really grow, it is taking a look at the digital resources that are out there and getting them into your agency, which includes building a digital brand, whether you're in a geographic market or a digital market, to grow your business and generating the leads and the potential prospective interactions with clients or potential clients that your carriers want to write.

Speaker 8 And then, look, technology levels the playing field.

Speaker 8 There's a lot of small agencies out there, and we do business with a lot of them that look a hell of a lot bigger than they are because they use digital capabilities to scale, look, and act and execute much bigger than they are.

Speaker 7 Awesome.

Speaker 3 Amy, I'm going to kick this one to you.

Speaker 3 As much as you're able or willing to offer insights,

Speaker 3 future of staffing, CSRs, you probably see this in the logins that people are adding to the system, that where they're trying to access people from.

Speaker 3 What are you seeing from just the standard questions you guys are getting around VAs from, there's also, I just interviewed a guy who is building

Speaker 3 digital VAs like bots that are going into AMSs and doing sorts of automated processes, which may not even be legal. I don't know.

Speaker 3 But it, you know, what you're this kind of, is it straight local American licensed CSRs or are there other staffing options out there? What are you seeing and what are your thoughts?

Speaker 10 Totally. So I think the answer is all of the above we're seeing, to be honest with you, right? So there's still a lot of people that are

Speaker 10 at the large end building their own service centers and trying to create that internally. There's using offshore resources to do some of that.

Speaker 10 We see people investing in robotics processing to do some of the more kind of standard tasks to ultimately get rid of the,

Speaker 10 you know, order-taking type of activity that a CSR might have to do and trying to free up their resources times to do more value-add thing by some automating some of these robotics processes, which to be honest with you is there's a ton of opportunity there.

Speaker 10 Nobody's done that really in a productized way that everyone could leverage, but when you look at what some of the individual companies are doing, you can you can obviously see there's a lot of a lot of opportunity and then there's still a lot of csr hiring going on across the board right so employment growth is going up in the independent channel consistently and then there's a chunk of those folks that are still csrs

Speaker 3 yeah if i will say from our own hiring at rogue if you are struggling to find high quality service people look to um younger moms and dads who have young kids at home, because most likely some old scodgy traditional agency has punted them and they're just sitting out there dying to come in and rock star your agency so if you're willing to have a remote employee or someone with flexible hours there are a tremendous amount of talent sitting on the sidelines because they don't fit the traditional eight to 430 uh mindset of a csr so just that's a one way that we found some incredible people on our team just something to keep in mind guys matt amy tyler i want to thank you so much i know how valuable your time is i know um that we're all busy it's the middle of the day on a tuesday appreciate you being here sharing your thoughts and uh it was a pleasure and an honor to share the virtual stage with all of you thanks for having us thank you very much thanks for having me

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