As technology advances, it’s common to wonder whether AI will replace independent insurance agents. Maybe you are worried about the future of your career or maybe your clients want to know if you will always be around to help them.
AI Will NOT Replace Independent Insurance Agents
The short answer is that artificial intelligence is highly unlikely to replace independent insurance agencies. Some things require a human touch, and insurance is one of those. So, your career is safe.
If you need more reassurance, consider why there will always be a need for human insurance agents.
Agents Are Better at Identifying Customer Needs
Artificial intelligence has made plenty of advances and will continue to do so. But insurance agents still do a much better job at assessing customers’ needs. You can get a fair idea of the client’s needs based on their answers to questions, but you need to know how to interpret those answers. You also need to be able to interpret body language and tone.
Agents Can Recognize Risks Clients Don’t Know About
Think about your discussions with clients about their needs. You likely regularly point out potential risks that they are not aware of. Artificial intelligence can’t do this in the way that a human agent can. They don’t have the knowledge of our culture and lifestyles in addition to the insurance knowledge you have. It is that combination that lets you make appropriate coverage suggestions.
Agents Are Better at Comparing Policies
At a glance, you may assume that AI would do a better job of comparing insurance policies than independent agents. But AI can only compare policies in a few select ways. Yes, it can look at basic elements of coverage and price. But it can’t do much more than this.
Artificial intelligence can’t explain the pricing differences to clients. It can’t explain why one coverage is so much better than another for you. It doesn’t have the type of human reasoning needed to weigh the pros and cons of various policies. As an independent insurance agent, only you can provide that to your clients.
Agents Can Better Explain Things
Whether it is explaining insurance policy options, the claims process, or how insurance works, independent insurance agencies have a big advantage over AI. Yes, AI knows all the relevant information but doesn’t know how to relay it in a way that clients understand.
By contrast, you know the most effective way of explaining things to others. You know what explanations or descriptions helped you understand the concept. You also know how to build connections with your clients and use those connections to explain something.
Agents Can Handle Human Emotions
One area where artificial intelligence falls far behind is emotions. And emotions regularly come into play when dealing with insurance. After all, the same situations that lead to filing an insurance claim tend to be emotionally draining and stressful. For example, your clients are likely stressed after a car accident, even if they weren’t injured. Or a client filing a homeowner’s insurance claim is also dealing with the loss of their important possessions.
Humans are empathetic and caring. We understand the role that emotions play in these situations, which allows us to handle the process more carefully. As an experienced agent, you know how to minimize the emotional impact of filing a claim or simply how to make clients feel better about their emotional state during the process.
Agents Can Build a Relationship and Offer Personalized Attention
Yet another important thing to keep in mind is that, as a human, you can build a relationship with your clients. People won’t want to or can’t build the same type of relationship with artificial intelligence, and this relationship is more important than you may realize.
Having a good relationship with clients helps you offer them more personalized service. You will better understand their needs. Your clients will also feel more comfortable approaching you with questions or doubts or for assistance with claims.
This becomes especially apparent if you ask our current artificial intelligence about insurance. It will just give you general answers or explanations without any specific advice for your situation. AI simply can’t understand clients on the same personal level that agents do. That understanding and relationship are crucial to your ability to deliver good service.
But AI May Streamline Some Tasks for Insurance Agents
While AI will not replace independent insurance agencies, it will likely change how they operate and streamline many tasks. A simple example is using chatbots to offer basic 24/7 customer service. That way, your clients can get some answers even in the middle of the night or on a holiday.
Another example is the use of AI to compare policies. AI excels in comparing the details and prices of policies. So, agencies can use AI to compare the specifics and then combine that with their personal knowledge to recommend a policy. In this case, AI would save your agency a great deal of the time spent comparing policies.
AI will also likely streamline both the underwriting and claims processes. These can be mostly automated but also require a personal touch for some elements. So, independent insurance agencies can let AI handle some parts of the processes and then take care of the rest themselves. This will save agencies time.
Artificial intelligence will also have a significant impact on data analytics and reporting. Insurance agencies already rely on reporting from programs like Jenesis to see what aspects of their strategies they need to change. With AI, those insights can become even more useful. But agencies will still need to use their intuition and industry knowledge to decide if AI’s suggestions are worth trying.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence will not replace independent insurance agencies, at least not without incredibly significant advances. It will, however, supplement the skills of independent agents, helping them work more efficiently and better service clients.
