Oct 13 min read

InsurTech Ohio Spotlight with Jason Brems

Jason Brems is Strategic Partnerships Program Manager at Bristol West, a Farmer’s Insurance company focused on making auto insurance easy. Jason was interviewed by Michael Fiedel, Co-Founder at InsurTech Ohio and Co-Founder at PolicyFly, Inc.

Jason, in the world of auto insurance, how would you characterize consumer expectations around an end-to-end digital buying experience?

“As with any good or service online, consumers want to go through the quoting experience with the least amount of friction as possible. Ultimately, it's important that they feel like they're getting the best price possible. Providing the best rate for consumers requires digital insurance agencies to have a robust carrier panel with broad underwriting appetite and the ability to deliver end-to-end services.

Consumers are becoming far more hesitant of clicking on partner ads only to get redirected into another website, or worse yet, being presented with a prompt to call in to get a quote. Redirects like that are flow stoppers. They definitely kill the sale. Consumers value being on the same platform from start to finish.”

What does it take to deliver this type of digital journey?

“It's certainly a tremendous amount of work for agencies and carrier partners, but the carrier partner owns the entire digital consumer experience in an end-to-end environment. First, they would have to build out a thoughtful consumer journey that doesn't make the consumer feel as if they're going through a nonstop safari through the jungle.

Carriers need to have quite a bit of information to get a rate in the first place, but not all of that data needs to be first party. That's one way that a digital platform agency can speed up the quote. Successful agencies will find ways to improve the speed to quote by relying on third-party data or establishing assumptions based on the consumer profile. The most important thing is being appointed with multiple carrier partners invested in offering end-to-end rating services.”

How do you see service properly blended into the automation of this buying experience?

“In instances when a consumer needs to leave the digital journey, an agency needs to offer up multiple options to engage the consumer. Those options include a live chat or phone staff who are prepared to take an inbound phone call. Those are two good options. There are agencies who are exploring generative AI as a communication tool with the consumer to help the consumer troubleshoot and find out what's going on. The goal with end-to-end is to automate and keep that consumer in that tight journey from start to finish.”

What advice do you have for carriers evaluating this opportunity and the ability to work with these types of digital platforms?

“Many carriers are heavily burdened with legacy systems, and they often have leadership that might look upon digital platform agencies as lead aggregators or fly-by-night operations. There's a lot of misconceptions about the digital-first agency of today. If a carrier wants to be successful in the channel, they need to set aside some of their biases that they might hold within today's top-tier digital platform agencies. They can curate the ideal flow of business based on establishing filters that can be like a magic wand waving away all of those non-appetite risks.

Ultimately, carriers will have to make investments in creating and exposing APIs to their agency partners. At Bristol West, we're all in on that. It's our goal to make end-to-end rating services a possibility, and we understand the importance of this part of the agency channel. Companies interested in doing the same need to be ready to make an investment in technology and talent. If they don't have that internally, there's a few reputable technology firms out there that can assist.”