At Liberty Mutual and Safeco Insurance, we believe the future is bright for independent insurance agents.
Customers value the expert advice agents bring and the deep relationships they can have with an agent.
Digital capabilities will never replace human-to-human relationships, but well-implemented digital tools can help augment those relationships and streamline the customer experience.
As seen in this report, there is a wide variation in digital adoption in the independent agent channel. However, all agents are starting to see the importance of digital capabilities to help them serve their customers.
COVID-19 accelerated the pace of digital transformation. At the height of the pandemic, 78% of agents said some or all of the employees in their agency were working remotely, as opposed to just 35% before COVID-19 hit. And there’s no going back. Roughly half of agents said employees will continue working remotely after COVID-19. Many agencies had to adopt new digital tools to enable employees to work from home and continue to serve customers remotely.
This research showed that the shift to digital is largely positive for independent agencies.
Moving forward, we expect to see continued digital adoption across the independent agent channel. If agents can continue to build personal relationships with customers while also offering customers the digital capabilities that allow for easy ways of doing business, they will continue to thrive long into the future.
Beyond the digital takeaways, the research findings also tell us that the independent agent channel is stronger and more agile than ever.
Independent agents were built to evolve and many are approaching this latest challenge with the same sense of adaptability that has allowed the channel to thrive for more than a century. We at Liberty Mutual and Safeco are here to help IAs push the boundaries of what is possible by offering the resources and actionable advice they need to win with digital.