The group chief marketing officer of a European insurer with operations in 60 countries called brokers the “lifeblood” of the company and said more needed to be done to engage with agents.
Isabelle Conner, group CMO of Italy-based insurer
Generali, told attendees at the Insurance Marketing and Distribution conference in London on Wednesday, that the company had begun the process of creating a web, mobile and social platform to engage with agents.
“Agents are our lifeblood,” Conner said. “So we need to build bridges to them, empower them and give them tools. So we’ve created a web, mobile and social platform for all agents,” she said.
Conner talked about the importance of leveraging digital as a key part of an internal transformation of the 184-year-old company, but was keen to point out that in the B2B sector, and in the consumer sector with regards to insurance, apps are not the answer. “We have a cemetery of apps,” she said. Instead, Generali is communicating with agents over mobile and desktop friendly web and social media portals and is piloting this approach country by country, one salesperson at a time.
“We’re asking agents about their relationship with us,” Conner said. “It’s the agents that have the relationship with the customer, so it’s essential that we engage these agents and love them back.”
