It isn’t the most earth-shattering news in the world; in fact you will have to work your way down our Newsbriefs section on page 10 to find the tidbits.
State insurance departments in Alabama and Kentucky have upgraded their respective Web pages to make them more easily operational.
In Alabama, industry representatives and consumers can now find easier routes to industry news, forms, etc. In the Bluegrass State, agents now have the option of renewing licenses, completing address corrections, requesting certification/clearance letters, scheduling exams, ordering copies of the insurance code, and much more.
As someone who feels fortunate just being able to turn on a computer, the more help the better. Without giving a plug for the company, I’m often humored at the commercial on television where a father and his two kids grudgingly go to a well-known computer company after hours and kidnap the tech guy from the parking lot. When they get him back to their home, they sit him in the chair and ask him to get rid of that blaring error message on their family computer. Okay, I’m not quite that inefficient when it comes to my home or office machine, but …
When I’ve attended some technology conferences in the past, one thing I often heard was that the “old guard” has been slow to adapt to change. The paper shuffle continues in many insurance offices across the country and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. One can never replace the all-important paper trail.
But technology, like it or not, is here to stay and will only increase in the years to come.
Companies, agents, and departments staying ahead of the technology curve and being able to do business electronically will be those who survive and have a better relationship with consumers.
Having said that, agents still must maintain that one-on-one relationship with their customers. I can’t tell you how many agents and bosses have told me in my three years in the industry that you can never replace that face-to-face contact. Some labeled it networking and some termed it schmoozing. Either way you cut it, it is called sealing the deal.
While technology continues to evolve on an almost daily basis, agents need to remember that their customers, while enjoying and taking advantage of their computers, still in many cases appreciate and expect that handshake at the end of the business day.
We hope you like your Insurance Journal Southeast issue, and we’ll talk to you soon.
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