Vertafore Insurance Podcast

How to use demand generation strategies to create opportunities for your agency

Mikaela Dittbrenner, Vertafore's Agency Demand Generation Marketing Manager, brings a diverse background in lead generation, campaign marketing and conversion path optimization for both B2B and B2C programs.  Her relentless drive to boost demand generation and amplify brand visibility through strategic initiatives has propelled Vertafore's Agency Marketing presence to new heights within the industry.

Listen in as Mikaela talks about:

• Her Journey through her marketing career and how she landed at Vertafore
• What suprised her the most about the insurance industry
• What demand generation marketing is and why it is so important
• The importance of having good culture
• How to use demand generation marketing strategies to gather more opportunities for your sales team
• How to deploy a solid marketing campaign in your agency
• What is on the horizon for the Vertafore Demand Generation team through 2024.
  
  
  
  

Leading with compassion, intentionality, and mindfulness

Navigating this hard market takes extreme intentionality. Prioritizing mental health and having a great culture in your organization are just as important as having a solid foundation of process and procedure in your agency. Both lead to finding success in these times and today we have 2 great guests to talk more about this. Scott Howell is more than an insurance agent; he’s an educator, a thought leader, and a trusted advisor. His dedication to the industry and his clients is unmatched, making him a true “insurance guy” in every sense of the word. Scott is owner of iprotect Insurance and financial services and the co-host of the Insurance Guys Podcast. The podcast has become a go-to resource for insurance agents seeking guidance on everything from sales and hiring to the day-to-day operations of running a successful agency. Kenneth Williamson is the Director of Operations at Portal Insurance. He is a breath of fresh air as a voice in our industry. He leads his team with compassion and intentionality. 

Listen in on this conversation as they talk about:
Scott Howell and the Insurance Guys Podcast as they celebrate 1 million downloads and what that means to him
Scott Howell and Kenneth Williamson as they introduce themselves to the audience 
The importance of having a good culture in your agency and leading with compassion and mindfulness
Kenneth's approach to managing a service team during the hard market
Scott discusses his agency's tech stack, and how important it to the success of his agency
How important it is to have a solid foundation build on solid processes and procedures
The creation of their new company Mind Your Agency, and how it came to be.

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Watch out for this when selecting an insurtech partner

Alexis Cierra Vaughn was recently named "Women to Watch in InsurTech 2023', "Insurance Business America" as one of the top 85 trailblazing Elite Women in Insurance for 2022", Litghitco named her a top "Influencer" on the "Top 100 Insurance Innovators" list & ACORD and Alchemy Crew named her "Top 14 Global InsurTech Leaders of 2022 Globally.”  

In other words, if you want a guide to identifying the right insurtech partner, start here.  

Meet Alexis and learn: 

• how she grew Cowbell Cyber agency appointments from a few hundred to 23,000
• the genesis and early successes of her new consulting company, off-course
• the difference between a great insurtech CEO and an ego-driven one
• bleeding-edge technologies to consider when building your tech stack
• questions to ask in your insurtech interview process 

Insurance loss runs to useable data in seconds

Scott Knowles is a serial entrepreneur in the Insur-Tech industry, recognized for his innovative contributions as the CEO and Co-Founder of Loss Scan. Scott has been instrumental in developing Loss Scan’s one-click tool that imports and extracts detailed information from loss-runs, eliminating manual processes and saving time for carriers and agents, His deep understanding of the insurance industry has allowed him to create technology that not only solves problems but also enhances human capabilities. Loss Scan was created, not to replace humans but to improve and enhance what they are doing. He wanted to provide a tool that could handle the tedious work of data extraction, so his clients could concentrate on interpreting the data and making informed decisions. Loss Scan, has since become a game-changer in the insurance technology space, demonstrating the limitless potential of AI in enhancing human capabilities.

Listen in as Scott talks about:

• His journey from his first successful start-up in Modgic to co-founding Lossscan
• How he came to the idea of Lossscan
• The importance of the technology behind Lossscan Various use cases for the technology
• Artificial Intelligence and how he is taking advantage of it to enhance the customer journey
• A data-driven , AI powered approach to underwriting
• The creation of Lossscan was not to replace humans but to enhance their capabilities.

You may want to bookmark this one, there is a lot of information in this episode.

From Scratch to $36 Million using these sales strategies.

Andrew Filar is the CEO and Managing Partner of Peachy Insurance, the fastest growing Allstate agency in the U.S. Andrew is focused on building the best team in the insurance industry. He has acquired seven Allstate agencies and has organically grown them from $0 to $36,000,000 in annual premiums in just 5 years. Additionally, Andrew is involved with Next Call Club, where he helps businesses turn cold leads into warm leads, close more clients, and improve ROI through effective outbound calling.

Listen in as Andrew talks about:

His journey and how he got to be the fastest-growing Allstate agency
His training for unlicensed callers, and the steps to take before passing them to a licensed sales agent
A live role-play with Heath to demonstrate an outbound call process
The importance of understanding the client journey and the tools he uses for follow-up
The lead scoring model and how he optimizes his process using this model qualification and verification for lead sources 
A data-driven approach to not only optimize the funnel but also leverage the digital footprint
A closer look at how the cost moves through the process as opposed to the sticker price
A playbook for implementing an outbound calling strategy in your agency

The myth that online leads don’t stick around and how he shares his retention rate to respond to the judgmental bias
Next Call Club works and how to learn more about the service.

The Accelerate 2024 Keynote Panel

The highlighted main stage session on Wednesday was a panel discussion led by Vertafore’s CFO, Teresa Chia. We dove into topics that ranged from the current state of the market for independent agents, carriers, and MGA’s to current technology trends such as Artificial Intelligence. Let’s just say….there weren’t any quiet moments!

Hear the leaders below challenge each other and the industry:

• Charles Symington, CEO of Big I
• Bobby Reagan, Executive Chairman of Reagan Consulting
• Stephanie Bush, Former Head of Small Commercial & Personal Lines at The Hartford
• Drew Aldrich, Managing Partner at Viewpoint

 

Accelerate Main Stage Featuring Amy Zupon & James Thom

Accelerate by Netvu in 2024 was hosted by the great city of New Orleans, and widely attended by independent agents and vendors from all over the country. With over 85 thousand hours of learning across those in attendance, over 250 techhub appointments, over 100 exhibitors, and so much more. This year's mainstage sessions were highlighted by two of our executives, CEO, Amy Zupon, and Chief Product officer, James Thom. They had the audience on the edge of their seats as they discussed 5 exciting product enhancements, gave away some amazing door prizes, and so much more.

Listen in as Amy and James talk about:

• How proud they are to be a part of the Netvu community 
• Vertafore’s commitment to the indie channel by Investing record amounts back into our products
• Amy’s top 3 trends insurance industry as she sees it – Security, Data, Artificial Intelligence
• James discusses our desire to give back time empower to success by streamline process, eliminate manual tasks, equipping agents with the tools they need
• 5 product highlights that exemplifies our relentless pursuit of innovation and excellence
• Project impact, a project that shadows 72 agents and how we are identifying tons of opportunities to improve day to day processes
• James talks about the launch of the bind button on PL Rating
• Amy addresses the misconception that AZ is only for the small agency

All this and so much more…

We built bind

We have a big announcement to make here at Vertafore! We made a promise 6 months ago and we are making good on our promise. The buy button is here. This is a story of passion and persistence that peaked at our Sales Kick-off Meeting.  The buy button is not just about efficiency, it’s about giving the power back to the agency.  With this new feature, your account managers, producers, and all other staff in your agencies, have the power to start and end a quote process without leaving the system of their choice.

It is about building trust. We built this buy button with both the agency and the carrier in mind.  This is a big milestone for the industry, but we aren’t done yet. We will continue to evolve and continue to enhance this technology with you in mind.

In this special episode, we discuss: 

• The history of this project and the impact it will have on our industry 
• How important it is to build trust with your clients and how important it is for us to build that same trust with you
• The idea that this button goes far beyond efficiency. 
• We also acknowledge that, while this is a big announcement, there is still more work to do, more enhancements and more to evolve.

There's a lot to unpack in this episode.

Click below to dig in.

Data is a journey, not a destination.

Brian Comerford is an accomplished digital transformation strategist with a diverse background who began his journey in tv and radio. Brian’s specialties include innovation strategy, enterprise technology, and creativity. His work involves staying at the forefront of digital transformation and driving innovative solutions. Brian Comerford’s expertise and contributions play a significant role in shaping the insurance technology sector,and his, and work at Vertafore reflects a commitment to advancing the industry through technology and creative thinking.

Listen in as Brian sheds light on:

• The necessary mindset change that needs to take place in many agencies
• The reason he returned to Vertafore
• The evolution our industry has taken, from an order-taking mentality to one centered on consumer demand
• A strategic plan to cleanse your agency’s data
• Data Maturity and quality begins with self-awareness
• Navigating the challenges of change management in an agency.

Orange Partner Feature Episode

Episode 11 of Season 3 on the VIP Podcast is now LIVE! 

Each agency, carrier, and MGA has unique tech needs. That’s why we created the Vertafore Orange Partner Program—leveraging our open platform and APIs to create integrations with best-in-class solutions that complement your Vertafore suite of products. In this episode of the VIP Podcast, we went live at our annual Sales Kickoff meeting to meet some of our Orange Partners. 

 

Listen in as we: 

• Introduce our Orange Partner Vendors 
• Discuss what being anOrange Parner program means to them 
• Showcase their products and solutions  
• Find out how to contact each vendor 

There's a lot to unpack in this episode. Click below to dig in.