Where brokerages are spending on operational improvements

When it comes to investments that strengthen their brokerages, 74% of owners tell Canadian Underwriter’s 2024 National Broker Survey that money spent on product training and education produces results.

That’s a substantial jump from 66% who called the practice beneficial in 2023’s survey.

In 2024’s survey, product training was most popular with women brokers (77%) and newer brokers (77%), compared with men (72%). It also gets a strong nod of approval from senior team members at firms with 100 or more employees (84%), compared with those at smaller brokerages (67%).

In this year’s survey, fielded in January and February 2024, more than 200 brokers nationwide shared their views about challenges and opportunities for the broker distribution channel. The CU survey is sponsored by Sovereign Insurance.

Respondents also give a nod to sales training. Sixty two per cent rate sales training and education as highly beneficial or beneficial. That’s higher than 2023’s 53% result. Again, availability of the training was most popular with senior execs at larger brokerages (71%) than with those at smaller firms (52%). And 63% of women brokerage executives say sales training is a good investment, against 58% of men.

More broker principals are also seeing value in customer service training — 57% say it’s beneficial or highly beneficial in 2024, compared to 50% in 2023. Large firms in particular see it as key to strengthening brokerage operations (70%).

Investments in customer service technology also gain ground in 2024’s survey, reaching 54%. That’s five percentage points ahead of 2023 and more in line with levels seen in 2021 (52%) and 2020 (56%).

Brokers’ view

Views from brokers on these training options track similarly to those of their owner counterparts. Seventy-five percent of respondents to 2024’s survey said product training and education are beneficial, compared with 67% in 2023.

Employees at large firms are particularly enthused (80%). Further, 63% indicated that customer service technologies benefit them, against 59% last year. And 62% are keen on sales training and education – nine percentage points up from 2023.

Customer service training and education proves popular with 61% of brokers. That’s 10 percentage points ahead of 2023 and on par with 2020’s survey (60%). The training’s more popular with men (65%) than women (53%), and most popular with respondents at large firms (70)%.

Looking at technology investments, 65% of brokers say they get the biggest boost from digitized documentation (a.k.a. eDocs), followed by changes in carriers their brokerages works with (40%). Not surprisingly, eDocs gets strongest uptake at large firms (74%) compared with those at smaller firms (56%).

Less popular tech offerings include Application Program Interfaces at 36%, installing or changing the broker management system (35%), changing product offerings, including types of coverage (29%) and use of artificial intelligence tools (21%).

Feature image courtesy of iStock/z_wei