Good News: The Fundamental Things Apply

If you've been in the insurance business for any length of time, you already know most of the important stuff that you need to know in order to do business effectively in the Digital Age. That's because the fundamental things that underlie the business simply haven't changed. Human nature hasn't changed. How and why people buy hasn't changed. And all of that's good news for you.

Let's deal with human nature first. Human beings are pretty much what they have been since we first crawled out of caves. We do things for our own reasons, not for your reasons. We make choices, based on possibilities, but also on fear of loss. None of that has changed in the Digital Age. In fact, there are several aspects of human nature that are important for you to be aware of.

One of the most important is that people will go to great lengths to avoid embarrassment. You may think that has nothing to do with you and with the insurance business, but it does.

When folks don't know something about a product, they feel powerless and embarrassed. When they don't know what questions to ask or how to frame responses or what language to use, they can feel embarrassed. If they feel embarrassed, they will withdraw from contact.

So, what do you do with that? You structure ways to give people information so that they feel empowered and knowledgeable, and don't feel like they're risking significant embarrassment. If we're talking about insurance, you give them information that helps them understand kinds of insurance, insurance jargon, and how to choose various options.

How you do that varies with your particular style and the needs of your customers. Whatever you do, though, the Web gives you an opportunity to share lots of information, as well as features that help people make wise choices and, at the same time, be comfortable with you.

Another factor about human nature is that we don't change much. All things being equal, we'll choose to stay with the things and people and companies we know. In the insurance business, there's a lot of time between the times that people think about their policies. They tend to think about policies only when three kinds of events happen.

Event number one is when something changes in their life and they know they need a change in coverage. I've already mentioned a son coming to age sixteen and getting a driver's license. A child going off to college would be another event. So would the birth of yet another child. So would the death of a spouse or an upcoming retirement.

The second time people think about insurance and their policy is when they or someone close to them has a loss. That may be close in relationship or close in geography. In that sense, insurance is a bit like the burglar alarms that have their greatest sale after there's been a burglary.

The third time that people think about their insurance is when they get their Policy Notice and Premium Statement. That's when they're likely to slam their palm into their forehead and wonder if they're paying too much.

None of these things has changed simply because we've moved into the Digital Age. Your challenge, in your agency, is to use the available technology to deal with these situations more effectively than you have before.

There have been some changes though. The net has changed some basic dynamics of the marketplace.

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