Building an InsurTech stack can be a daunting task for any independent agency. Whether you’re a one-person band or orchestrating offices across multiple states, your tech needs are unique—and you need a tech stack that fits your business.
These four key metrics can help any agency successfully evaluate their options and build a tech stack that works for them.
1.) Purpose-built for insurance
Insurance is an industry like no other, and it therefore deserves (and demands) technology solutions that are built for insurance. The customer journey, key metrics, and growth strategies in insurance are unique to the industry and are often not captured by or compatible with generic technologies. When working with technology partners dedicated to the insurance industry—and only the insurance industry—solutions will be better positioned to deliver a higher ROI, employee adoption rate, and lower overall spend.
Look for a vendor that serves the insurance industry exclusively. That vendor will be staffed with insurance experts who understand the needs of agencies of all types and will have developed strategies and considerations to solve a host of insurance-specific pain points and bottlenecks.
2.) Product agility
The best solutions are the ones that not only address the specific needs and pain points of the insurance industry, but also the ones that are built to evolve over time as agencies themselves evolve. Independent agencies are always looking for ways to grow their book of business and expand their reach, and when that growth happens organically or through acquisition, InsurTech applications need the ability to grow with them.
InsurTech vendors should be dialed into their community and share their product vision to customers and prospects, showing how dedicated they are to not only providing solutions for today’s insurance market, but also tomorrow’s.
3.) Open architecture
Another key to vendor partnership success is finding those with an open API architecture approach to building solutions. When InsurTech platforms are built with an open architecture, they allow for seamless integrations with complementary best-in-class solutions.
Complementary integrations offer a significant benefit to independent agencies seeking to modernize. Functionalities like e-payments, digital signatures, automated client communications, and other hallmarks of a modern digital experience can be onboarded quickly and reliably with partners that have a strong, vetted relationship with the InsurTech vendor.
4.) An emphasis on partnership
Whether it’s collaborating with agency customers or working with industry leaders on best practices, vendors that place an emphasis on partnerships are always looking at what’s next and what’s best. This can impact everything from investing in a better user experience and user interface (UX/UI) to innovating with the latest trends in data security and a continuous focus on customer education and support.
The most customer-focused InsurTech vendors are not operating in a vacuum, and rather are working within the greater community and the customers themselves to continuously innovate and deliver the best in breed to their suite of solutions.
Agencies have a lot of choice in their InsurTech journey. With the right partnership in place, agencies can find a vendor that empowers them to build the tech stack that supports their needs and is designed for how they work—because one size rarely fits all.
To learn more about the modern agency ecosystem and how you can build a successful InsurTech stack, visit https://www.vertafore.com/agency-ecosystem.
