Thoughts On The Future Of Insurance Agents?

[Rearden]

Hi y'all,

I am conducting a survey to figure out what agents think of the future.

Feel free to follow the link here to complete the survey. Shouldn't take more than 2 minutes or so.

Any and all insight is appreciated =).

Best,
Dave

 

[fed up]

If anything, the Corona shutdown has opened the eyes of corporate america that their footprint for office space may not be needed in the future. Many are working from home and the dinosaurs who have been against WFH are now being shoved in the right direction. The flip side of this is corporate america may feel that zoom or skype will suffice for the agent force and they only need a few good agents for the people who feel a need to speak with the same person everytime.
I can certainly see schools deciding that they only need 1 teacher to skype a lesson for the day and all students googlechrome their way through the course, thus laying off duplicate teachers. The shopping center agent office will become a thing of the past. Some carriers are already moving to centralized service centers (hello Allstate) which will remove a bunch of licensed staff

 

[LostDollar]

Some carriers are already moving to centralized service centers (hello S*f**o?) which will remove a bunch of licensed staff

Is this a carrier driven movement or older agency owners selling their agencies to larger insurance client holding groups and then retiring? (The insurance client holding groups then route service for the unfortunate clients to the various carrier CSR lines.)

 

[fed up]

Is this a carrier driven movement or older agency owners selling their agencies to larger insurance client holding groups and then retiring? (The insurance client holding groups then route service for the unfortunate clients to the various carrier CSR lines.)

This is ( in Allstate's case) a carrier driven movement so agents can focus on selling instead of servicing their BOB. Make the agents pay for the service center by reducing commission and taxing a percentage of the book. It's only 2% of the book, they won't care. Real pushback is happening and heads are being scratched

 

[Life Hawk]

Well, now that we have gotten passed most of the covid stuff, things are going to start opening back up again and people will probably start dying again and need insurance.

So I guess I'll just keep selling life insurance.

 

[leevena]

We had a similar discussion about this a few years ago, maybe 6 or 7. My opinion was, and still is, that the role/need for an agent will decrease over time. BTW, I have always been on carrier side.

Long story short. Most carriers view the customer as the insured, not the agent. The agent is being paid to bring the insured to the carrier. There are agents that treat the carrier as if in an adversarial relationship. Technology is allowing the carriers to market direct to market, thus reducing the reliance on the agent to bring them clients.

This will occur mostly in the markets were products are a commodity, such as term life, auto, small cost policies, etc.

 

[Markthebroker]

Q:
Thoughts On The Future Of Insurance Agents?

A:

 

[PA Bill]

So long as perfectly smart and educated people don't even know the basic difference between term and whole life and have neither the time or interest to learn about it, we should be okay. Technically, the technology to replace the agents has been in place for decades. Big companies going to take on huge boosts in payroll to have the people folks inevitably will want to talk to?
Bullshit!

 

[marindependent]

Hi y'all,


Any and all insight is appreciated =).

How did it turn out?

 

[somarco]

How did it turn out?

Turned out @Rearden discovered he is no longer needed. He is now peddling Amway products out of the trunk of his car.