In the rush to improve customer experience, many insurers have overlooked a critical group of stakeholders: the independent brokers and agents who sell their products every day.
With this group now numbering over 1 million individuals in the U.S., they are a significant force within the insurance ecosystem.
These frontline professionals play a pivotal role in influencing policy decisions, particularly in personal lines like home, auto and specialty insurance, yet few carriers invest in understanding their needs, frustrations or feedback. While customer-facing insights often get the lion’s share of research attention, broker experience (BX) is a blind spot that’s costing insurers more than they realize.
The Research Imbalance
Most insurers today have dedicated teams monitoring NPS, tracking claims satisfaction and testing messaging for direct-to-consumer efforts. But for intermediated business, the broker or agent is the one who explains the policy, answers the tough questions and ultimately drives conversions.
And yet, many of these professionals are navigating clunky carrier portals, toggling between outdated tools and working with disjointed support from their partners. When a broker has multiple carriers in their ecosystem, the easiest option wins. If one carrier’s platform feels five clicks too long, or their quoting tool stalls out one too many times, that carrier may quietly fall out of rotation no matter how competitive the product is. This reality captures the urgency.
BX Impacts CX More Than Most Brands Realize
From inconsistent training materials to confusing co-branding, some brokers report friction in day-to-day interactions that could be easily addressed with better listening. If the messaging they get doesn’t match what the customer is seeing, it puts brokers in a tough spot and ripples into the customer experience.
While some carriers are doing broker and agent research, it’s often concentrated on the product side, especially for life and annuity lines. That’s important work, but for most P/C carriers, the pain points driving attrition aren’t about the product itself. They’re about the experience: the portals, quoting tools, service interactions and day-to-day workflows that determine whether a broker chooses to place business with you or the carrier down the street.
BX should be an integral part of any insurance company’s strategy.
Why Feedback Loops Matter
The insurers gaining ground in competitive categories aren’t just investing in customer research. They’re actively engaging their intermediaries, asking what’s working, what’s not, and how the experience can be improved across systems, communications and service.
Importantly, they’re not waiting for annual surveys or anecdotal complaints. They’re embedding more agile, conversational methods to capture broker feedback in real time, often through mobile channels or short, contextual check-ins that feel more like a dialogue than a task.
These listening systems are uncovering friction points that would otherwise remain invisible, like inconsistent quoting logic across states or gaps in multilingual support. But just as importantly, they’re building trust. When brokers feel heard, they’re more likely to advocate for the brand, push its products and stay loyal in a highly fragmented ecosystem.
BX as a Competitive Differentiator
Insurance products are often seen as interchangeable. From a customer’s perspective, a homeowners or auto policy may look similar across multiple carriers, especially once price and coverage are roughly aligned. That’s where the broker experience becomes a key lever for differentiation.
When carriers streamline quoting tools, integrate data seamlessly or provide responsive service teams, they make it easier for brokers to do business with them. In turn, brokers are more inclined to present that carrier’s product first, or with stronger advocacy, in client conversations. Over time, this preference can translate into higher placement rates and deeper broker loyalty—two outcomes that have a direct link to premium growth.
It’s also an opportunity to create brand equity in a part of the ecosystem that isn’t consumer-facing but is still critical. If brokers consistently associate a carrier with reliability, speed and support, that reputation travels quickly within networks and professional associations. In a distribution-heavy business, positive word of mouth among agents can be just as powerful as consumer advertising.
Forward-thinking carriers are already experimenting here, layering broker feedback into product rollouts, portal updates and even training materials. Those who treat BX as a source of competitive advantage, not just a service obligation, are setting themselves apart in a crowded marketplace.
Final Thought: Invest in the People Selling Your Product
In a category where trust is everything, independent agents remain a vital human touchpoint. They’re translators, educators, problem-solvers and, too often, an afterthought in the insights process. Insurers don’t need to guess what will make the agent experience better. They just need to ask. And the carriers that do? They won’t just sell more policies; they’ll build stronger partnerships and more resilient brands.
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