Every day in our newsletter we ask a question of our readers. Here are some of our favorite responses recently.

 

Is there an insurance conference you hated and will never go back? Why?

So far, I haven’t attended an insurance conference that wasn’t valuable. I’ve attended ITA Live, IASA, The property insurance summit by Enservio, and Digital Insurance Conferences. This year, I’ll also be attending InsureTech Connect. Great question! I can’t wait to see the results.

 

What is a change you need to make that need to make but havent?

Getting a better more functional agency website

 

Which InsurTech company is actually making a difference in your daily life and how?

The Insuretech company that has had the biggest “known” impact on our agency, not in a good way either, is Assurant.  While they’re actually not an Insuretech, they are indeed a direct writer using Quote & Bind web forms direct to customers needing renters insurance.  In fact they’ve been working with apartment complex property managers for at least the past three years here in Orlando Florida, making it very easy and cheap for their newest tenants to buy coverage via their web portal 24/7.  Here’s the link:

https://www.assurantrenters.com/

We found out about Assurant a few years back while doing our annual rounds of delivering our agency’s HO4 rate rack cards to the apartment complexes surrounding UCF.  While HO4 policies don’t pay much, they do provide us an opportunity to quote auto insurance.  What was once a good source of business has virtually dried up for our agency.   Now with Lemonade coming into this space, none of us can count on HO4s as cross sell opportunities.

So what’s the solution?  I’ve been lobbying our current carriers for over three years now to offer quote and bind HO4 web forms for agency use on their own web sites.  I even proposed that carriers should only allow consumers to buy IF the apartment complex has been pre-approved by their underwriters.  How so you ask?  Well we know that nicer apartment complexes do a great job of underwriting the moral risk on the front end.  These same complexes of course meet the physical risk requirements.  That said, once the location and apartment complex has been verified, offering a buy now button for eligible quotes is a no brainer.

Of course everyone says great idea but no one is acting on it.

 

MODGIC OF COURSE! ;)

 

I switched my renters policy to Jetty and was able to cancel my costly cell phone insurance coverage because they cover my electronics… all of this came with a $100 deductible my old policy couldn’t touch. I’m also a paid affiliate so on a daily basis Jetty also offers me the opportunity to earn extra income from referrals.

 

What are you doing differently this second half of 2018?

Marketing more aggressively, including Loss of Utilities endorsements on everything, and trying desperately to get better at Fortnite.

What is the key issue our industry should be focused on for Q3 and Q4? Any changes or is it business as usual?

Insurance, and society as a whole, needs to be focused on climate change’s impact as well as cyber security.

 

A key issue for us currently is commercial auto. Many carriers have pulled out of the market of monoline commercial auto for small accounts due to bad losses throughout the industry, also some like amtrust are reducing commissions for auto.