Author: Jim Armitage
ACT has been working to drive consistent technology improvements for agents and brokers and to understand and promote action on key technology trends. We are the think tank for agents and brokers concerning technology.
In February, ACT released its Customer Experience Recommendations, which is a road map for agents and brokers on what customers demand when buying insurance and after the purchase. It looks at the entire life cycle of a customer from research to purchase and beyond.
ACT is also now reviewing and updating the Industry Technology Hard Trends that are emerging and impacting independent agents. Two major trends are telematics and driverless vehicles.
In the next few months ACT will be releasing the Top Agency Security Issues, a pocket-style resource for agents and brokers informing them on the critical actions that must be taken when it comes to customer information security.
ACT will be focusing on educating agents and brokers about eSignatures and encouraging widespread carrier acceptance of eSignature. A part of this conversation is getting agreement and putting clarity around the business workflow aspects of eSignature.
Something new this year is a look at small commercial real-time rating from the perspective of saving time and improving the ease of doing business with multiple carriers for small commercial prospects.
ACT will continue to support policy download, claims download, activities and notes download, and direct bill commission download. ACT also supports the ID Federation through its ‘SignOn Once’ solution, which allows agents and their staff to log in once in the morning and to then have access to all participating companies and vendors that they need to access during the day without the need for multiple passwords.
ACT is also actively working to integrate with, and support other Big “I” programs: such as Diversity, Young Agents, InVEST, and TrustedChoice.com. For example, as a part of the IIABA Fall Leadership conference in New Orleans, there will be a special Young Agents/ACT meeting event proceeding the ACT Meeting.
ACT maintains a very aggressive set of objectives for the future which are accomplished thanks to the efforts of its very dedicated volunteers on several work groups, and during the three yearly meetings.
Jim Armitage, principal at Arroyo Insurance Services, is Chair of the ACT Committee.