Building a technology-driven agency isn’t about adding more technology. It’s about creating a culture where people are willing to question how work gets done, experiment with new tools, share what works, and change processes that may have been in place for years.
The connection between technology and culture isn’t new. PIA’s Winning@Work research found that technology can advance an agency’s culture, professional development, and business growth, while supporting more flexible and productive ways of working. The research also found that technology, culture, growth, flexibility and mentoring aren’t separate workplace issues—they’re interconnected.
The challenge for agency leaders isn’t simply deciding which technology to buy but creating an environment in which people can use technology to make the organization better.
Start With the Work, Not the Technology
The test for any new technology is straightforward, according to Brody Hjelmstad, vice president of Hjelmstad Insurance. “For me, it comes down to two questions when considering new technology: Does it give me time back? Does it make my job easier?” he says.
That’s a useful starting point for any agency. Instead of beginning with what artificial intelligence (AI) should we be using, start with: Where are our people losing time? What are they doing manually? What information is difficult to find? What keeps them from spending more time with clients?
For example, today many agencies are using AI for meeting notes, coverage summaries, policy comparisons, renewal workflows, pre-filling applications and internal knowledge tools, not because they’re looking to implement specific tools, but they see the benefits in improved output.
Joel Dunham, president of Ovation Insurance, sees potential in making an agency’s accumulated knowledge more readily available to employees. “Information about carrier appetite, contacts, commission rates and other institutional knowledge can be placed into an internal knowledge base and accessed by newer employees,” he explains. “It can raise the competency of the staff by giving them much faster access to information that an experienced agent may already know.”
Make Experimentation Part of the Culture
A technology-driven culture also gives people permission to try things. “We’ve been playing around with AI for a couple of years now, and it shifts as you go,” Dunham says. “You ask the question now, and the answer is probably going to be different in two weeks.”
That makes it difficult—and probably unrealistic—for an agency to develop a technology strategy and consider it finished. Instead, agencies can start with a manageable use case, learn from it and expand. That type of approach also gives the team a chance to experiment and build confidence. Technology provides a stronger foundation when someone tests the meeting-notetaking tool, tries a new workflow or figures out whether AI can eliminate steps from an existing process. That creates an environment where employees are encouraged to identify better ways to work.
And that willingness to experiment has value beyond technology. “A lot of what you learn in this business comes from figuring it out in real time,” Hjelmstad says. “You don’t always have a roadmap, you learn by doing.”
Make Technology Easier Than the Work It Replaces
Agency employees aren’t going to embrace technology simply because leadership tells them to. Insurance agencies include people with widely varying levels of comfort with technology. Some will immediately experiment with a new AI application, while others have built successful careers around insurance knowledge and relationships rather than technology.
Ease of use matters. A new application that adds another login, more places to enter information or new disconnected steps may simply create a different kind of work. The same issue exists between agencies and carriers. Even as agency technology improves, employees still may need to leave their agency management systems, go to individual carrier websites and manually complete parts of a transaction.
Eric Horrocks, senior territory sales manager for The Hanover Insurance Group, has seen that issue from several sides. Before joining Hanover, he ran an independent agency and also worked for an insurtech company. Technology has an increasingly important role to play on both sides of the agency-carrier relationship, according to Horrocks. “I don’t think technology is ever going to take over the sale of insurance, but it’s going to help take agencies and carriers to the next level,” he says.
Talk About How Technology Is Being Used
Creating a technology-driven culture also means talking about technology. That may sound obvious, but employees don’t always know why a new tool is being introduced, what problem it is intended to solve, or how technology is being used throughout the insurance transaction.
“There’s definitely an opportunity for greater transparency between agencies and carriers,” says Vonda Copeland, co-owner of Copeland Insurance Agency. Agencies may talk about how they’re using AI, she says, without necessarily knowing how their carrier partners are using it.
Copeland recalls learning how one carrier was using AI to take information from a submission and move it through the process before it reached an underwriter. “I think just explaining how they were using it was really helpful,” she says.
The same principle applies inside an agency. If employees understand why technology is being introduced and how it is intended to help them, adoption becomes less about complying with a new system and more about improving the way work gets done.
Technology can also affect culture in less obvious ways. Winning@Work pointed to collaboration tools, like Slack and Teams, as more than productivity applications: they enable employees to work together on documents, ask and answer questions quickly, and create social channels that help maintain connections among employees.
Set the Rules Without Stopping Innovation
Experimentation doesn’t mean anything goes. As employees begin using generative AI, agencies have to address questions involving confidential information, data security, accuracy, and when AI-generated work needs human review. Even something as straightforward as AI-generated meeting notes requires oversight. AI can save someone from taking notes throughout a meeting, but the resulting transcript or summary still needs to be reviewed. Examples shared by insurance professionals show that AI-generated notes don’t always accurately reflect what was actually said.
The same applies to more sophisticated uses. Employees need to understand which tools the agency has approved and what information can and cannot be entered into them. A technology-driven culture gives people room to experiment, but also makes clear how technology should be used responsibly.
Fix the Process Before You Automate It
There is another temptation as agencies embrace AI and automation: automating whatever process already exists. Before applying technology, it’s important to take a hard look at the workflow. Where are the bottlenecks? Which steps are necessary? Where is information being entered more than once? Who needs the information next?
Process mapping and change management become increasingly important as agencies introduce more automation. New technologies also may be easier to absorb when they are implemented in manageable steps rather than introduced across the organization all at once.
That makes technology adoption a leadership and management issue, not simply an IT decision. It also reinforces the importance of listening to employees. If the people doing the work aren’t involved in changing it, even good technology can struggle to gain traction.
Don’t Let Technology Replace Development
For all the interest in AI and automation, the industry’s human strengths are becoming even more important. PIA’s Winning@Work research found that next-generation insurance professionals are drawn to workplaces where they feel challenged, connected, and able to make a difference. They talked about fulfilling work, community and relationships, not simply the tools they were given to do their jobs.
Technology can make knowledge more accessible, but insurance professionals still develop judgment through experience, observation and interaction with other people. Mentors help newer professionals understand not simply how a process works, but why decisions are made, how to anticipate problems and how to communicate effectively with clients and underwriters.
“Technology can help agencies and carriers do all the work surrounding the relationships between customers, agents and carriers better,” says Horrocks.
The goal isn’t to manage an agency where people simply use more technology, but to build one where people keep looking for better ways to work enabled by technology.
Is Your Agency Building a Technology-Driven Culture?
A technology-driven culture isn’t measured by how many applications you buy.
- Start with the problem, not the technology. Ask where employees are losing time or encountering unnecessary friction.
- Give people room to experiment. Let employees test manageable use cases and share what they learn.
- Map the process before automating it. Don’t use technology simply to make an inefficient process run faster.
- Set clear AI guardrails. Employees should know which tools are approved, what information can be shared and when human review is required.
- Listen to the people doing the work. They often know where the biggest technology opportunities are.
- Share what works. A useful experiment shouldn’t remain with one employee or department.
- Don’t automate away development. Technology can make information easier to find, but people still need opportunities to learn from experienced colleagues and develop judgment.
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