Snap Poll on Data Provided to Agents

Snap polls reflect questions posed by members of the Celent Executive Research Panel, a group of C level executives in the insurance industry. This question came about from a member who is looking at the level of data being provided to independent agents. Thirteen insurers responded to this survey over the course of three days, May 24 - May 26, 2021.

The question that was posed was:

Background:

An insurer is looking for insights on managing the data provided to agents. Their agents are increasing their requests for data. They’re looking for data on policies and claims that includes the demographics of the claimants such as personal information like DOB, SSN, phone, email etc. They want data about the insured for when they are the agent of record and also want data from the time prior to them becoming the agent of record. Most times agents can't show or don't show any data sharing agreements between the policyholders and the agent. There is also limited data sharing language in the agency contract. The aggregators are also increasing their requests for data. They're looking for data about the agencies that work with the insurer and the aggregator. They’d like to understand how others are responding to these kinds of requests.

Questions:

Do you share summarized data to agents or detailed data?

Do you provide agents with policy or claims data only for the time period after they became the agent of record, or do you provide agents with the data prior to them being agent of record?

Do you share insured and claimant's demographic data?

• If yes, do you share personal and sensitive information such as details of injury, comorbidity, claim notes, DOB, SSN or last 4 of SSN, phone numbers etc.?

If detailed data with personal information is provided:

• Do you have a standard format to give agents or do you customize formats as demanded by various agents or is it a hybrid?
• Do you have any data agreement in place to protect such personal data?
• Do you audit agents to ensure they can protect data?
• Do the agents come to your website to pull data or do you send the data to agents via email/SFTP/API/other means or hybrid?
• Do you provide data about your agents to aggregators if they currently work with that aggregator? Any limitations?

About Celent’s Research Panel

The Celent Research Panel is a free knowledge sharing resource for senior technology and operations executives at insurers in North America.It provides an easy way for executives to share information, obtain quantitative data, and learn from each otherthrough regular ongoing surveys, snap polls, round tables, and webinars.If you are interested in joining the Celent research panel, you can reach out to Karlyn Carnahan kcarnahan@celent.comor Dan McCoach dmccoach@celent.com