Overcoming the Adversity of the Online Insurance Tidal Wave
As a motivational sales speaker in the insurance and financial services industries, whenever I am asked to deliver a keynote address on overcoming adversity, I always feel like I have come home.
After an accident that left me diagnosed as a quadriplegic, I was encouraged by some incredible people to join the insurance and financial services industries. I found a new mindset and developed the resolve to thrive in this highly competitive market. Within five years, I was awarded entrance into the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT). After a second car accident, I was once again challenged to reinvent my life and was inspired to share my story with others as a motivational keynote business speaker. My mission is to inspire insurance and financial services agents, brokers and organizations to overcome the adversity they face in the marketplace.
Fighting the Tidal Wave
Like it or not, the internet is becoming the primary enabler for how people get their insurance information. While the independent or exclusive agent has been the main channel of distribution, each year our industry is seeing a greater influence of direct sales.
According to Techcrunch.com, “While many factors are driving the tipping point in the online distribution of insurance, the thread that ties it all together is actually a simple one: changing demographics. The millennial generation has tremendous buying power, and will soon become the industry’s primary customer, whether in consumer or commercial lines.”
At the same time that the demographic is shifting to be more favorably inclined to a nameless, faceless method of buying insurance, the average age of brokers has been increasing. Insurance companies must understand that new buyers have different purchasing patterns. To quantify this pattern, let’s go back to March 2015 when the Gallup organization compared how different generations are engaged with their insurance companies.
Gallup found in comparing Millennials to Baby Boomers, 31 percent of Millennials were “Fully Engaged” with their insurance providers as opposed to 41 percent of Baby Boomers. At the other end of the spectrum, 27 percent of Millennials were “Actively Disengaged”, i.e., they couldn’t care less where they get their coverage as long as they are covered, as opposed to 23 percent of Baby Boomers.
Writer Jason Fisher in a piece entitled, “2018 Life Insurance Statistics And Facts” concluded that in 2018: “Roughly 50% of adults admitted to searching for life insurance online last year, and about a third even tried to make their purchase online.” Agents and brokers believing that internet insurance purchases are a passing trend need to reconsider their position.
Overcoming the Online Adversity
In study after study, experts found that Millennials and Gen-Xers value interaction with brokers and agents, if not in sit-down meetings, then by email, personalized text messages and correspondence through agency websites. The key is engagement.
The Gallup Poll surveyed 18,000 adults and concluded: “Insurance companies see substantial business gains when they engage customers of any generation. Engaged insurance customers are less sensitive about pricing…they spend more and buy a wider variety of products, including financial offerings.”
You can overcome challenge of the internet but it will take determination to engage your customers one way or another. Customers still want to hear from you. Do you have the grit to reach them?
Contact Scott Burrows, Insurance and Financial Services Sales Motivational Speaker through this website or call us at: (520) 548-1169