Embracing InsurTech is Wise

Part III - Insurance Future

“Why the hell would I want to get my insurance license?”

That was my first reaction when my dad suggested I get my producer licenses. While my family was filled with lawyers and landlords, no one was in the insurance industry. I like to say that I 'fell' into insurance. I guess it was inevitable as my love for numbers and problem-solving instantly went to work building an independent insurance agency from scratch.

But, I also love technology, having bought my first IBM computer when I was 8. I’ve been both an independent insurance agency owner and an InsurTech founder and I know the struggles agencies face. I see the impact that technology can have on agencies should they embrace solutions coming out of this corner of the industry.

You’d be foolish to undermine InsurTech. Others have missed this in the past. Think about how taxi companies have been upended by Uber. Remember travel agents before and after Priceline? Even now, hoteliers are adjusting to AirBnb’s new competition. Now is the time to embrace.

ronoco - How Technology Improves Insurance Experiences

At ronoco, we create innovative and efficient applications that enable people to experience insurance in a new way. Users can maintain their assets, link their policies, and get meaningful advice. For individuals or companies with many assets and policies, dealing with insurance is an incredibly complex experience even with the best agents on your team.

When you have dozens of assets to protect, you’re often dealing with a handful of agents to get the coverages you need. We wanted to start by making that experience better for people. We do this by allowing users to see everything in one place. Agents that adopt this model can win over more business from their existing clients and separate themselves from their competition. For users, this means no more shuffling through file cabinets or online storage, or calling insurance companies for the most essential information about your coverage. For agents, the experience we provide has been described as a game-changer. We’ve also teamed up with FICO to provide meaningful AI-driven advice based on each user’s unique situation.

My vision is to unshackle insurance agents from the office and agency management system enabling them to conduct business on-the-go by using a versatile digital insurance platform.

I believe this helps fix a number of problems our industry is facing today. As the InsurTech movement evolves, ronoco will be at the forefront of building the the independent insurance experience of the future by bringing agents and clients closer together.

Status Quo

What really makes you different from your independent agency competitors? Everyone touts amazing service and the best carriers - but is there anything that clearly makes you stand out?

Over five years as an agency owner, I realized that the operating standards were not what I needed to deliver clients the amazing experience I’ve envisioned. It was difficult to meld together the available technology that I needed to be able to grow my business because of the manual processes that are standard to our front and back office. The purpose of bringing these efficiencies to the process is to leverage technology that will enhance the agent-client human-to-human relationship with is irreplaceable.

If you’ve ever hitched an Uber before, the experience is very different than a taxi. I always get into a conversation with my driver about how long they’ve driven with Uber, what they like or don’t like about it, and then onto topics of the day. I’ve never done that in a taxi. Why? Uber takes all the guesswork out of the experience for both driver and passenger by automating the transactional elements through a mobile application.

Rebuild & Restart

When I decided to rebuild and restart, I had already realized that the next wave of competitive advantages in this industry will be the use and application of technology. The industry is starting to realize there are a handful of significant hurdles and an outdated experience wasn’t the only one.

The first, many people in the insurance workforce will retire in this next decade. Secondly, millennials were disinterested or unaware of a career in insurance, however vast the opportunities. Finally, there was hints of a coming wave of innovation and disruption to every corner of this five trillion dollar industry. To put this number in perspective, if you stacked five trillion one dollar bills from Earth to the Moon, they would reach the moon and you would still have plenty to spare.

The insurance industry is one of slow response and change. If insureds don’t demand more from their agents, carriers, and policies, there’s no real need to enhance. Status quo works well for an industry built on risk-aversion because anything else is too risky to be certain enough to gamble on. So, while insurance companies are slow-moving and hesitant to take risks, the wave of InsurTech spearheads the research and development of innovative and disruptive ideas. Most will fail. Perhaps because they are outsiders with experience in technology and software development but lack a comprehensive understanding of the ins-and-outs of how this vast and complex industry functions.

If you haven’t yet, I’d urge you to see what’s going on with InsurTech. There’s a lot of new and creative businesses sprouting up that are itching for industry professionals’ expertise and a lot for the industry to consider when looking to grow and improve. Many of us are the millennials our industry has been looking for and needs to keep moving forward.