In May 2025 I joined David Hand on stage at the Society of Insurance Research (SIR) 2025 Annual Conference at the Fairmont in Chicago. Our session was called Agents of Tomorrow: Unlocking the Value of Independent Agencies Through a Customer-Centric Experience.
David is National Director at LAAIA and works with Pini (Preferred Insurance Network). He brought the carrier and industry view. I brought the view from inside a growing multi-office agency. We set it up as a conversation rather than a lecture, because the most useful answers in our industry come from agencies and carriers comparing notes.
Why we built the talk around the customer
The independent agency channel is changing. Customers research online, ask friends, compare prices on their phones, and still want to talk to a person before they commit. An agency that only works one of those ways leaves customers behind.
Our premise was simple: the agencies that grow will be the ones designed around how customers actually want to buy. That means technology and human touchpoints working together across the whole journey, and it means carriers, vendors, and agents working on that journey together instead of separately.
Three takeaways
- Carriers and agents have to co-create the experience. Neither side can build a smooth digital and in-person journey alone. The agent owns the relationship; the carrier owns much of the technology behind the quote, the bind, and the policy.
- Agencies have to attract, convert, and retain across platforms. A customer might find you on social media, get a quote by text, and sign in the office. Every one of those steps has to work.
- There is a real gap between traditional retail and fully digital models. Most customers live in that gap. They want digital speed and a person they can call.
What I shared from ALPA
At ALPA Insurance we scaled with a hybrid customer experience. The tools that made the biggest difference were text bots, 100% electronic signatures, and a CRM integrated with our phone system. We serve three kinds of customers: people who walk into an office, people who never do, and people who come to us through referral networks.
The goal is a seamless merge of digital and retail. The barriers are real, though: limited carrier technology, capital, and capacity. I go deeper on this in Building a hybrid insurance agency.
David's view from the industry side
David walked through how fragmented the industry's models have become, and why carrier-agency collaboration is still hard. He described the shift from legacy models to hybrid models and on to embedded insurance, and how social shopping and digital onboarding are changing what customers expect from the first click.
The question we left the room with
How can carriers, agencies, and insurtechs work together to serve tomorrow's customer better, without losing the personal touch that built the independent agency channel?
I don't think anyone has fully answered it yet. My own thinking on what closing the gap looks like is in Bridging the gap between retail and digital insurance.
The full slides are published by the Society of Insurance Research: View the SIR 2025 slides (PDF).