The Future of Insurance Producer Recruiting

Historically, it’s pretty tough for carriers, agencies, and MGAs/MGUs to find and recruit the producers and downstream partners best aligned with their needs. But for insurance companies to stay competitive in today’s insurance landscape, they need to use accurate data and insights to vet and recruit great agency and producer partners. 

What are the indicators of a good producer? 

That really depends. 

Some clear red flags – such as regulatory actions – indicate whether a producer won’t be a good fit. Regulatory actions include DUIs, selling outside of a license, selling products that consumers can’t afford, or using deceptive marketing tactics. These actions are a good indicator of the quality and character of a producer, but they’re not the only thing insurance companies should take into account when recruiting producers. 

For the most part, finding a good producer or downstream agency depends on a company’s specific needs. 

Data on what carriers an agency is appointed with, which lines of authority they specialize in, and how much experience they have is incredibly valuable for insurance companies but typically isn’t easily accessible or affordable.

Using valuable data to make business decisions

In any industry other than insurance, companies can buy lists of demographic data to inform outreach for hiring. These lists typically include details such as contact information, profile information, and website traffic activity.

By tracking behavior signals as metadata, organizations can reach out to prospective hires in an informed way that syncs cross-departmental goals – across sales and marketing, for instance – to align overall organizational strategy. That doesn’t exist for insurance producers and agencies. 

Insurance producers are a very elusive population from a digital footprint standpoint. With a median age of nearly 60, many insurance producers and their associated small agencies don’t even have a website. As a result, there aren’t many sources of truth where you can look at quality data across insurance distribution channels. And for MGAs and carriers looking to hire a particular profile of producer or A/B test specific channels, there aren’t a whole lot of levers they can pull to do that. 

Why is data so hard to come by in insurance? 

The data that is available to insurance companies is segmented across a number of legacy systems. Beyond that, it’s very expensive and isn’t updated or refreshed with any regularity. 

As a result, insurance companies try to sporadically self-source information about recruiters and staffing agencies through social media sites, such as LinkedIn. While it’s great information, manual processes are labor-intensive and time-consuming. By the time a company compiles all of the necessary data, it could very well be out of date. 

Stale data just won’t do when it comes to recruiting producers. 

Revolutionizing distribution channel strategies with better data

Part of leveling up your distribution strategies is going to involve better-leveraging your existing tech, and there are a number of ways to do that using AgentSync. By understanding your compliance data, you can get insights into other relationships your existing distributors have, and then action on those insights for a more competitive and cost-effective business.

With AgentSync Manage, you can run reports to on a producer’s full list of appointments in what states, as well as what regions they have licenses in. Being able to understand what relationships your downstream producers and brokers already hold can give you key information for “paths of least resistance” for new relationships.

Armed with that data, MGAs and carriers can prioritize their funnel and target industry segments, proactively deciding what their distribution channel should look like. As a result, they’ll be able to rethink how they run their business, revolutionizing the insurance industry in the process. 

Just-In-Time appointments: pay only for the producers who produce

Once a company finds a slate of potential producers in their recruiting process, they typically need to narrow it down to a select few possible partners. While carriers don’t need to appoint every downstream agency they come across, they also don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to work with a great partner. Appointments cost an average of about $50 per producer per state per year. For carriers with hundreds of thousands of producers, the cost of appointments can add up quickly. 

Plus, typically, a carrier will see 20 percent of their producers writing 80 percent of their business. 

Many states offer Just-In-Time (JIT) appointments to help carriers offset appointment costs for producers or agencies who aren’t writing business. But the process of managing Just-In-Time Appointments without technology is simply too cumbersome. 

We built our JIT processing system to help our customers pay only for the producer appointments they need. It gives carriers the freedom to hire the best producers and agencies out there without unnecessary appointment costs and the risk of non-compliance through insufficient licensure. 

Technology: the future of insurance recruiting

Technology isn’t going anywhere, and neither is innovation, in fact, it’s just getting started. As insurtechs continue to streamline and improve workflows across all business functions – from compliance to recruiting – there’s simply no way to turn back to the past. And why would we want to? 

Using technology to drive efficiencies in the producer recruiting process saves insurance companies money, saves employees time and headaches, and helps place producers with the insurance companies in which they’ll thrive. Learn more about how AgentSync helps to revolutionize the recruiting process. Book a demo with us to see how AgentSync can help you.