PIA Connection Online

Agribusiness insurance is a growth engine for many agencies. Overall, 61.5% of independent agents report that their agribusiness book is growing, and another 34.6% say it’s holding steady, according to a survey from AUGIE Group, a leading advocate for innovation and collaboration in the insurance industry. Yet even as agribusiness expands, agents face a fundamental operational barrier: three-quarters say they struggle to get agribusiness policy data into their agency management systems (AMS).

In an era when downloading information from the carrier system directly to the agent’s AMS is standard for most personal and commercial lines, agribusiness remains an outlier. That disconnect has real consequences for efficiency, accuracy, and reporting.

Today, many agribusiness policies are not downloaded as standalone agribusiness policies. Instead, they are bundled into broader commercial package policies or Business Owners Policies. Overall, 40.4% of agencies say agribusiness policies are downloaded alongside other lines, making them difficult to isolate and manage. Another 34.6% report that their AMS does not download any agribusiness policy data at all, according to the survey.

The result? Critical details disappear inside larger commercial files.

“The problem was all of the little stuff that’s important to the farm—the corn crib, the drying racks, the small barn used as the milking shack,” said Jerry Fox, VP of Carrier Relations at HawkSoft. “They could list them as a scheduled item, but there was no detail behind them because there was no place to put it.”

When agribusiness is buried inside a broader commercial policy, agents can’t quickly see what is covered or what might be missing. That makes servicing accounts more difficult, complicates remarketing, and obscures the true size and performance of an agency’s agribusiness book.

As Cal Durland, director of AUGIE Group, explained, “Many agents don’t really know what their true ag book of business is, because half of it’s buried in commercial.”

Without dedicated download, agencies often rely on carrier portals or paper documentation to retrieve policy details. Manual entry consumes staff time and increases the risk of errors or omissions. By contrast, standardized download delivers validated data directly into the AMS, ensuring consistency and improving confidence.

Why Dedicated Download Matters

More than 80% of agents surveyed by AUGIE said they want agribusiness policies to download from the carrier system to their AMS on their own forms rather than being bundled with other commercial coverage.

The benefits extend far beyond convenience:

• Greater accuracy and reduced E&O exposure through standardized, carrier-validated data.
• Improved remarketing because complete policy information resides inside the AMS.
• Stronger analytics and portfolio insight, allowing agencies to track growth, profitability, and niche specialization.
• A better client experience, with agents able to clearly demonstrate what is covered—from silos to specialized equipment.

Dedicated download also transforms renewal workflows.

“When the policy comes up for renewal, since the data is all in the agency management system rather than with the carrier, it’s much easier for the agent to shop the coverage and make sure the client is getting the best coverage for the best rate,” Fox said.

An Industry Slow to Implement

Agribusiness download standards have existed through ACORD for decades. But standards alone do not create adoption. “The standards are only step one,” Durland said. “Getting carriers and agency management systems to implement the capability is critical. Carriers need to provide the data, and the agency management systems have to catch it.”

Historically, that alignment proved difficult. Some AMS providers hesitated to invest development resources without clear carrier participation. Carriers, in turn, were reluctant to build out capabilities without confidence that systems could receive and display the data. The result was stagnation.

Building Momentum Through Collaboration

AUGIE was founded to enable agencies, carriers, and technology providers to solve operational challenges impacting agents. As a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing industry standards and improving connectivity, the organization focuses specifically on practical, system-level improvements that drive efficiency and innovation.

“Agribusiness download requires buy-in from different factions of the industry, and we can bring these factions together to share ideas and figure out how to solve these issues,” explains Durland. Through working groups, direct dialogue, and collective advocacy, AUGIE helped move agribusiness download from a dormant standard to an active initiative.

Momentum followed. A few carriers, including Nationwide and Auto Owners, began offering agribusiness download. Several agency management system providers—including HawkSoft, North American Software Associates (NASA), and Xanatek—configured their platforms to receive and display the data. These early adopters helped fuel more growth as other agency management systems configured systems to catch the information and more carriers began working to add the download.

HawkSoft had long supported rural agents and had programmed the ag standard into its system years ago. “When the ag standard became available, it was immediately programmed into our system,” Fox says. “However, since no insurers were using it, no information was coming in. Now that we have three carriers onboard, our customers started taking advantage of this capability.”

There was initial hesitation among some agents. “We ran into a situation where agents were afraid. But carriers sent them a few policies just to see what they thought. And they were quick to turn it on,” Fox explains.

Brent Sheppard, president of Xantaek, shares a similar experience, “We specifically designed our system to be agile, so it’s pretty easy for us to add new download capabilities. As a strong supporter of AUGIE, when they asked AMS systems to start offering this capability, we were happy to volunteer. We sent out a notice saying we can do ag download—and we had calls right away saying, ‘How do I do it?”

There’s Still More to Do

The impact is measurable. There were 21,000 agribusiness download transactions last year, a 24% year-over-year increase according to Ivans. That growth signals real demand. Still, adoption is not yet universal. Broader carrier participation and additional vendor engagement are needed to make the capability widely available.

Agent advocacy remains essential. “The agents’ voices matter,” Durland says.

“AUGIE was incredibly important in the process. It has the ability to get the word out, which is priceless. There’s no other platform in the space that can do that” says Fox.