How AI-Driven Digital Marketplaces Are Transforming Insurance Agent-Carrier Connections
Insurance carriers and agents face new pressures from disasters and rising costs. First Connect’s AI-powered platform speeds connections, streamlining policies and improving market access.
Digital Marketplaces Change Insurance Dynamics as AI Shapes Industry Shifts
The insurance sector is currently undergoing notable shifts caused by natural disasters, inflation, and rising interest rates. These factors have pressured carriers to adjust their traditional business models. InsurTech platform First Connect addresses these challenges by serving as a two-sided digital marketplace, improving how agents and carriers interact through technology such as AI and APIs.
Traditionally, the insurance industry features two main groups: thousands of independent agents on one side and carriers on the other. Despite the perception of the industry as large and slow to change, recent conditions have prompted significant adjustments unseen in decades. Increased costs for replacing homes, vehicles, and personal property have forced carriers to rethink their strategies.
The Perfect Storm
These combined pressures have created a situation that disrupts long-standing practices. Carriers are shifting focus from growing top-line revenue to enhancing profitability. Some have exited certain markets, as seen with the California wildfire aftermath, and have begun applying non-renewals to existing policies. This shake-up leaves agents scrambling as their long-term carrier partners change market presence and business approaches.
Agents now face the challenge of keeping pace with carrier availability, policy changes, and new market entrants. Conversely, carriers require better tools to find agents who can deliver profitable business. This evolving environment demands new solutions that bridge these gaps quickly and effectively.
The Platform Model
First Connect offers a tech-driven platform that efficiently matches carriers with agents, benefiting policyholders who gain access to insurance options that suit their needs without excessive costs. Originating as part of Hippo Insurance, First Connect became independent after securing $60 million in growth capital from Centana Growth Partners.
Leveraging AI and APIs, the platform has transformed from a monoline general agency into a digital marketplace connecting agents to 120 carriers across home, auto, commercial, and life insurance policies. Processes from agent onboarding to policy binding have been reduced from weeks to minutes, streamlining operations significantly.
One key feature, the "Appetite Finder," enables agents to view real-time carrier appetites for specific risk profiles, matching them with carriers seeking clients that fit those criteria. This technology increases marketplace efficiency by connecting both sides at optimal times.
AI is expected to influence all areas of insurance once regulatory issues are addressed. Currently, First Connect uses AI to speed up analysis and approval processes for errors and omissions policies during agent onboarding, minimizing manual review without sacrificing accuracy.
The recent investment provides First Connect with resources to expand partnerships, onboard more carriers, and develop additional tools that improve agent access to carriers, making the overall process more efficient and profitable for all parties involved.
