How AI Is Transforming the Insurance Agency Experience

Now that it’s clear artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just hype, the question isn't whether AI will impact the insurance industry, but how to leverage it to transform your agency for the better. As someone deeply invested in insurance technology, I've seen firsthand how the right AI tools can revolutionize your workflows, policyholder relationships, and bottom line.

The day-to-day operations of an insurance agency are often filled with administrative tasks like claims processing and data entry, but automation has changed the game. With AI-powered solutions, agents can now eliminate bottlenecks, vastly improve the customer experience, and streamline workflows with precision.

Putting Time Back in the Day Using AI

The most valuable resource in any agency isn't carrier relationships or even your client database. It's time. When your CSRs and account managers spend hours wading through lengthy emails, manually creating content, or struggling to extract key information from policyholder accounts, that's time they're not spending on customer interactions.

AI-powered tech is changing this equation dramatically, enabling faster decision-making and helping to reduce the time-consuming workload for agents.

Take email summarization, for instance. In my work with my team, I've always appreciated emails with bullet points because they reduce reading time and highlight essential information. Now, AI integrated into your agency management software can automatically transform long-winded client emails into concise summaries highlighting the critical points and required actions.
 
AI technology doesn't just save time; it enables your staff to:

• Become quicker with client interactions and responses

• Handle more accounts efficiently

• Return to what matters most: Being trusted advisors and relationship builders

AI for insurance agents continues to redefine traditional roles. Equipped with insurance agency technology, agents can focus more on strategic growth and customer satisfaction by relying on AI-powered tools for operational needs. Simplified workflows, automated assistance, and efficient document handling allow agencies like yours to concentrate on delivering better service to clients.

Content Creation That Connects

Marketing presents another significant opportunity for AI implementation. The reality is that many agencies don't have dedicated marketing departments, yet all need compelling content to attract and retain customers.

Vertical AI solutions that integrate with agency management systems can now automate the creation of customized content based on the data already in your system. Generative AI tech that uses large language models (LLMs) similar to ChatGPT can craft emails, social posts, and other marketing materials that speak directly to your clients' specific situations and needs.

The key here isn't to replace human creativity but to augment it. AI technology creates the foundation, and your team spot-checks and personalizes it, ensuring the content maintains your agency's voice while dramatically reducing the time investment.

Client Education Through Intelligence

Better-educated clients are easier to sell to and retain. AI helps bridge the knowledge gap by making complex insurance concepts more accessible and highlighting relevant risks for specific client profiles.

Earlier this year, Applied announced an AI solution called Account Summarization as part of EZLynx Virtual Assistant (EVA™), which is in our EZLynx management platform, that demonstrates this potential. By analyzing account data, this technology can provide client risk assessments and coverage gaps that might otherwise remain hidden in the noise of daily operations.

The result? More informed conversations with clients about their actual needs, not just policy renewals. When AI handles the heavy lifting of data analysis, your team can focus on having meaningful policyholder discussions about risk management and protection strategies.

Making Every Renewal a Growth Moment

Renewals are a natural time to evaluate client risks and coverages, making them an optimal opportunity for cross-selling and upselling. However, our 2024 Voice of Customer survey found that managing renewals was the #1 most inefficient task for agencies. The time-consuming nature of commercial lines renewals often leads to reactive selling and missed revenue. With account rounding a critical growth lever, agency leaders need smart solutions to boost the productivity of their commercial teams.

Coming soon, Applied Book Builder™ will leverage the power of AI to enrich commercial risk profiles based on thousands of publicly available sources to round out risk profiles and identify coverage gaps within existing policies, then deliver corresponding market placement insights to help teams submit business to carriers likely to fit the customer's needs.

Embedded in Applied Epic^®, these commercial risk attributes and intelligent account rounding recommendations will create successful producers faster, accelerate renewal and new business growth, and generate a more profitable book of business with the best coverage for customers.

Reconciliation Made Simple for Busy Finance Teams

Reconciling financial transactions with carrier commission and payable statements is a time-consuming and resource-intensive task for agency finance teams. Statements arrive in various formats – unstructured PDFs, .XLS, .CSV, or even paper – with hundreds or thousands of records to process manually. Reconciling direct bill commissions and agency billed payables are the two most common daily accounting tasks, according to our customers. Additional user research found that manually gathering, processing, recording, and reconciling statements can take accounting staff over 15 hours each week, with some agencies dedicating entire teams or outsourcing this process to BPOs, incurring significant costs.

Launching this fall, Automated Statements is an AI-powered tool that makes recording and reconciling direct bill commissions and agency bill payables easy. Just upload your statements, regardless of format, and the AI extracts the data you need, matching and reconciling it directly to policies and plans in Applied Epic. This means significant efficiency gains for billing processes.

With workflows built right into the Applied Epic General Ledger, agents can forget about jumping between systems or handling piles of paperwork. Automated Statements lets finance teams pay producers and carrier partners quickly and accurately, all while cutting back-office costs and supporting profitable growth.

The Human-AI Partnership

Despite all these advancements, I want to emphasize that AI isn't replacing insurance company professionals; it's empowering them. The best implementations of AI in our industry aren't about automation for automation's sake. They're about creating a partnership where technology handles and optimizes repetitive routine tasks while humans focus on relationship building and complex decision-making.

When your agency embraces this partnership model, you don't just save time, you transform how you work. CSRs can handle more accounts and customer interactions without burning out. Producers can spend more time in front of prospects rather than behind screens. Marketing efforts become more targeted and effective without requiring more resources. Finance teams can pay producers and carriers faster by accelerating time-consuming reconciliation workflows using AI automation.

The Applied Vision: Excellence in the Age of AI

The rise of AI platforms signals a turning point for all stakeholders in insurance. As the adoption of AI-driven tools expands, agencies are equipped to deliver proactive support, anticipate client needs, and provide real-time solutions. From managing claims data to performing in-depth risk management, AI positions agencies as leaders of innovation.

We believe the benefits of AI for independent insurance agencies extend far beyond efficiency. It’s about elevating the role of agents in the digital age, helping them surpass client expectations with smarter, more agile solutions. By delivering practical, intelligent automation into the insurance lifecycle, we’re empowering independent agents to harness the full potential of their business operations. By embracing insurance agency technology, today’s agents are not just meeting challenges; they’re reshaping the next generation of our industry.

Insights on AI & the Next Generation of Insurance

The Next Generation of Insurance will be defined by agencies that skillfully blend technology and human expertise. Those who view AI as just another tech trend will miss the bigger picture: this is a fundamental shift in how you can serve your clients and run your business.

By thoughtfully implementing AI solutions that address real pain points in your workflows, you can create an agency that is more responsive, more insightful, and ultimately more valuable to the clients you serve.

The future of insurance isn’t about choosing between human touch and technology; it’s about leveraging the best of both to create an experience neither could provide alone.

Check out our artificial intelligence insights to see how Applied is investing in AI insurtech and how implementing AI-specific to the insurance industry, aka Vertical AI, will help your agency become more efficient, responsive and customer-centric.