Insurance Agent Web Power

For years now, I have had insurance agent after insurance agent admit – sheepishly – that they were not ‘fully utilizing’ their agency management system.  Don’t feel bad – you have company.  Back in November of 2009 Wired.com noted in their Gadget Lab blog that the iPhone App Store Apps hit six digits.  More recently, the NY Times suggested that the average iPhone owner actually uses only 5 – 10 apps with any regularity.  Out of over 100,000.  Yet no one accuses iPhone users of ‘under utilizing’ their devices because the assumption is that each individual iPhone user gravitates to the apps that are most useful for that individual.

Independent insurance agencies have a wide range of feature options, not only with their agency management systems, but with other technology tools like email, websites, and mobile devices.  So, if there is a shortcoming that insurance agents are guilty of, it probably isn’t under utilizing the technology available to them, but rather, the shortcoming may be not choosing the right five or ten tech features that help achieve agency growth and profit objectives.

Snowpocalypse: When weathermen predict large amounts of snowfall in a short period of time – Urban Dictionary

Snowmageddon: President Barack Obama’s term for the February snowstorm that shut down Washington, D.C.; or End of (school) Days due to an excessive snowfall event.*

What does any of this have to do with insurance?  Surely, if your insurance agency is located in an area experiencing a snowpocalypse, you have an insurance story to tell.  Maybe it’s how your staff were able to work from home to help clients with claims issues, or a heroic trip into the office to be there for your agency customers at a time they might be more likely to need your services.  Making the connection between a weather event and what is going on with your agency, your staff, and your customers is an easy blog or Face Book riff.  You don’t need to write a new chapter for War and Peace every time you post to Social Media.  And who knows what kind of interest your short post might engender, particularly if you can add a photo or video?

*Note:  Snowmageddon was the number 1 trend on Twitter at one point during the February, 2010 snowstorm