How Digital-First Insurance Helps Agencies Compete and Grow

Competing with digital insurance players who can offer sleek online experiences is becoming increasingly tough for independent agencies. Facing slow growth and shrinking margins, many have yet to fully modernize their digital capabilities and take proper advantage of what makes them unique. 

Yet, the modern customer expects a high level of digital convenience in all their interactions. Agencies risk losing business if they cannot meet these rising expectations. Today, bolt looks at how agencies can compete with digital-native insurance brands – without losing their trusted, relationship-driven edge. 

The Challenge: Modernizing Insurance Agencies With Digital Tools

Let’s first look at the modern consumer. 

As we’ve seen digital and online services expand, we have also seen the rise of “convenience culture”, or a growing demand for accessibility and speed of service. Consumers now expect the same levels of convenience, self-service, and sleek interaction Amazon delivers so well in every experience. 

While insurance may not be a prime candidate for same-day shipping, many aspects of the insurance journey lend themselves to digital solutions. Yet, the 2024 Agency Universe report suggests that 68% of agencies have not explored digital self-service options. Only 27% have increased their digital carrier interactions 

We are also in something of an agency slump, with the organic growth rate falling to 8.4%, the lowest since 2021, and commercial P&C line growth has fallen almost to match. Profitability is suffering from a similar growth bottleneck, falling by 28.7% from the first quarter of 2023, primarily due to lower margins in contingent and override income.

Taken together, we see a picture of an industry not meeting those customer-driven modernization demands. Digital-first insurance experiences are filling that gap. Offering convenience features like instant quotes and online policy management through self-service options like mobile apps, they are seeing stronger profits and steadier performance that traditional agencies, still tied to phone calls and manual processes, are not. An earlier study on the rise of digital insurance offerings suggests that “highly digital” agencies can see up to 60% higher growth rates than low digital adopters, and that gap is only likely to accelerate as insurance agency digital transformation does.

Competing with digital insurance players is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a necessary part of an independent insurance agency’s profitability planning – or you risk driving potential customers directly into the arms of your digital-native competitors. Customers want convenience and options, and agencies that can’t give them digital-first insurance experiences will find themselves losing market share to competitors who can.

Solutions: How Agencies Can Compete With Digital Native Brands

Luckily, competing with digital insurance players doesn’t have to mean lengthy overhauls and substantial infrastructure investments. The path forward to insurance agency digital transformation lies in four strategies:

Adopt Digital-First, Direct-to-Consumer Capabilities

Offerings like mobile hubs and customer portals allow customers to access quotes and other information and manage their policies without an agent’s intervention. Branding and customization for the portal can help maintain the agency’s brand identity and build a sense of relationship ownership. After all, a digital-first insurance experience doesn’t mean removing that sense of interaction and relationship. It just means customers have greater choice in how they engage. 

Use a Comparative Rater with AI Intake

Next, agencies competing with digital insurance players should look at their quoting process. Smart pre-fill technology and AI-driven data collection let agencies deliver instant multi-carrier quotes without sacrificing speed or accuracy. Improving quote time and responsiveness helps close the advantage gap that digital companies typically hold over traditional agencies, and boost customer satisfaction, too.

Embrace Insurance Agency Digital Transformation

While our first two strategies look at specific digital channels and increased customer convenience and accuracy, this one is about how your agency works from the inside out. If you’re adding digital trappings in customer-facing roles, but not applying the same lessons in your back office, true digital transformation will remain elusive. Comprehensive workflow automation introduces proactive renewals with automatic reminders to keep revenue steady, and centralized CRM systems to make data access both more accurate and comprehensive, and more convenient for the agent. Automatic lead nurturing ensures no opportunities fall through the cracks. All while freeing up producers to focus on client-facing interactions and solving more complex issues instead of basic admin tasks.

Balancing Human and Digital Interactions

It’s critical to remember that competing with digital insurance players isn’t about sacrificing all human interaction for digital options. Instead, it’s about making digital tools part of how you work and improving customers’ options and touchpoints, and agents’ workflows. After all, many people start their buying journey with internet searches, but will then switch to a phone call to finalize the purchase. The goal is to use technology to scale personal service and improve it, not replace it. With the right balance, independent agencies can keep their relationship advantage and still meet modern customer expectations.

How The bolt Platform for Agencies Helps You Compete With Digital-Native Insurance Brands

The bolt platform for agencies offers you a unified growth engine that addresses each of these areas. Instead of having to fall back on multiple point solutions, bolt offers an integrated approach, helping agencies embrace digital transformation and compete freely.

• Fully Customizable D2C Portals: Keep agency branding while offering seamless online access and self-service experiences to customers. 
• Comparative Rater With Smart Pre-Fill and AI-Driven Intake: Put smart pre-fill to work to reduce redundant and repetitive data entry for your agents. Simplify onboarding with AI-driven intake, and let your customers enjoy multi-carrier quotes near-instantly, eliminating the wait times that can often drive customers to faster digital competitors.
• Native CRM and Workflow Automation: Streamline how you work, from lead generation to renewal, with proactive renewal features to protect retention rates, and integrated lead nurturing for consistent follow-up and optimal conversions. 

Using the bolt platform for agencies let one national broker achieve a 113% year-on-year increase in quoted premiums after making the switch. They were able to launch a fully revamped platform in just 12 weeks – an impossible timeline with traditional approaches. 

Modernizing insurance agencies with digital tools doesn’t have to mean years-long implementation and massive investment. With the right platform partner, like bolt’s cloud-based, modular API system, agencies can compete effectively with digital-native insurance players while keeping customer service high and interpersonal relationships strong. 

Actionable Steps for Insurance Agency Digital Transformation

If you’re ready to compete with digital insurance players as an independent agency, here’s how to get started:

First, invest in direct-to-consumer capabilities as a core business expectation, not a “nice-to-have” extra. Remember that the modern customer expects self-service options, and agencies that don’t provide them will lose business to those who do.

Next, focus on blending human expertise and seamless digital touchpoints, rather than seeing them as competing approaches. The most successful insurance agency digital transformations enhance their people, not forget or replace them.

Look to replace rigid and siloed legacy tools with newer, flexible, and integrated platforms. This gives you the agility to respond to changing market conditions and adapt as customers’ preferences change. Point solutions are notorious for those data silos, where a comprehensive platform helps streamline how agents work for true transformation.

Digital transformation can be simplified by partnering with proven technology providers who understand the insurance industry’s unique requirements. The bolt platform for agencies offers a simplified route to modernizing insurance agencies, with tools that can launch your modern digital journeys in weeks. 

Competing with insurance digital-only players needs digital capabilities, but your agency already has something those players lack: expertise and trust. bolt helps agencies combine trusted relationships with powerful digital-first tools to help you win new customers and grow productively. Contact us today to learn more.