Thoughts on Distribution Management

Carriers have made significant progress in speed-to-market by implementing rules-based systems and tightening their product development capabilities. They have aggressively moved to create more tailored products marketable through more diverse channels. However, their engagement with those channels is remains challenged by the limitations of their existing distribution systems.

A competitive advantage never stays one for very long. Competition causes the bar to rise, never to fall. So it has been with insurers' efforts to provide their distributors with ease-of-doing-business, and so also with the vogue for multi-channel distribution strategies.As insurance carriers operate in the most challenging economic environment in years, if not decades, customer acquisition and retention is more important than ever. That means managing every traditional aspect of distributor interaction better, while increasing the breadth and complexity of one's distribution.

Carriers have made significant progress in speed-to-market by implementing rules-based systems and tightening their product development capabilities. They have aggressively moved to create more tailored products marketable through more diverse channels. However, their engagement with those channels remains challenged by the limitations of their existing distribution systems.

Those systems are, in many cases, antiquated and isolated within separate business units. They are ill-adapted to the demands of a modern multichannel strategy, making it difficult for carriers to rapidly integrate new channels; to onboard new agents and competitively manage compensation; and to track the licenses and qualifications of those agents for compliance purposes.

Carriers that wish to remain competitive need to be able to juggle the complexities of distribution channels and the individual distributors within them; they need to execute their distributor and regulatory transactions in a more timely fashion; and they need to monitor the performance of their distribution strategy through ongoing profitability analysis.Carriers have made significant progress in speed-to-market by implementing rules-based systems and tightening their product development capabilities. They have aggressively moved to create more tailored products marketable through more diverse channels. However, their engagement with those channels is remains challenged by the limitations of their existing distribution systems.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio