The World Needs Agents Now, More Than Ever
The ability to share risk has been a key driver in the economic expansion that we’ve enjoyed since the dawn of the industrial revolution.
2020 has been a challenging year for everyone. The pandemic has caused millions to lose their job, upended the economy, and inflicted untold emotional damage on many families. Social unrest has created division, stress, and has caused many more businesses to shutter, many never to return.
But this is the moment when the insurance industry, and agents in particular, are needed more than ever. The time when everyone is sheltering in place and retreating from risk is the exact time when everyone needs the benefits of insurance, and we need to help them understand how, where, and when insurance can help them recover.
The ability to share risk has been a key driver in the economic expansion that we’ve enjoyed since the dawn of the industrial revolution. The fact that individuals don’t have to bear all of the risk–and there is plenty of it to go around right now–is an incredible innovation that most people don’t fully understand or appreciate.
Insurance is what lets entrepreneurs like myself take chances, take on more risk to start businesses, something that would be impossible otherwise.
Insurance is what lets business owners keep their doors open through ordered closures and unrest without bearing all of the risk, allowing them to provide jobs for the community and sponsoring the baseball team when sports come back.
Insurance is what lets families sleep soundly at night knowing they’re protected if the worst happens.
And agents are the only ones who can help people understand this. You’re the experts on risk, the ones who create the relationship and the trust that needs to exist before people can truly understand their risk and how insurance can help them share that risk with others so they can take more chances and embrace opportunity.
I entered this industry without understanding the role of agents. Many startup and technology veterans enter this industry because they’re attracted to the money and the opportunity, and I was no different. But I had the good fortune to start Dais with industry veterans who came from companies that rely on independent agents, which gave me a much wiser perspective and a different vision for the future, one in which agents play a central role.
2020 brings with it unique challenges: we can’t meet face to face, the old ways of doing things won’t scale, and insurance is traditionally slow to change.
That’s where technologists like myself come in–we bring industrial-strength technology that augments agents’ strengths while helping them to adapt to the new world. And while there are many in this industry who are trying to build something for a quick buck and a quick flip, there are others of us–if you look–who are here to partner with you for the long haul.
Our collective job now is to scale the strengths of agents to help them rise up and meet the unique challenges that their policyholders face today. People need agents, they need risk experts, and they need someone to turn to when the worst happens. They need someone on their side. And agents need technology that helps them adjust and adapt to these new challenges.
Agents have been the cornerstone of insurance for a long, long time, and they’re not going anywhere any time soon. Technologists and entrepreneurs like me are here to build industrial strength technology and new platforms that will far outlast the challenges of 2020, and we’re aligning our business models with agents’ long-term success–even when it’s not convenient.
This is the moment when agents and their key partners need to band together and become more than the sum of our parts. This is when we’re needed most, and out of these trials and tribulations will rise the next generation of leaders, the ones who will set the pace for the future and help rebuild our country.
Together, we will not just survive, but thrive.
