Friendly Agent Bot (Broker)

Independent agents have had good reason to be worried about InsurTech, and major carriers going direct to consumers.  Luckily though, companies like Friendly Agent Bot are coming to the rescue!

With AI bots assisting local brokers, just like the major carriers would, they're allowing the little guys to play like the big boys.  With these bots handling simpler tasks and conversation, it frees up time for agents to connect with customers on a deeper level.

Here's what they had to say in their "about" on their own website:

Insurance Agents/Agencies/Brokers

• We have ready to install Chatbots for multiple lines of businesses which can be configured based on your business need
• We can create Chatbot specific to your business needs
• Run marketing campaigns using online channels like Facebook Ads/ Google ads.

Insurance Buyers

• We can connect you to Insurance Agent who can help you in finding insurance which meet your need at best price.

Here's their website:

friendlyagentbot.com

Broker Lift (Broker)

Broker Lift wants to enable brokers to digitally sell insurance online.  They are carrier agnostic and want to help brokers compete with the Lemonades and MetroMiles of the world, through their rented online quoting and binding portals for lower cost policies (renters, events, small BOPs, etc.).  If a carrier will let you bind online, Broker Lift wants to make it easier for your customers to buy online.  Brokers and insurance commentators were scared "InsurTech" was going to come along and eat their lunch, BrokerLift is a company in the space that'll help brokers fight back.

The founders have insurance and consulting background.  They saw that their original offering for a tech enabled insurance sales product was going to be too bulky for most shops to implement, so they've created a Swiss Army Knife to enable all types of polices to be white labeled and sold online, allowing brokers to stay in the forefront of their policy sales.  The core of the team is a Canadian based start-up, they have joined a Bay Area incubator.  It will be fun to watch their growth in 2018.

Here's their website:

brokerlift.com

@BrokerLift

Here's their about us from LinkedIn:

BrokerLift provides a turnkey eCommerce platform for insurance brokers to instantly enable online sales and service to their customers. As a purpose-built managed Software as a Service (SaaS) solution for the insurance industry, the BrokerLift platform features both highly secure and completely flexible technology.  BrokerLift is fast becoming the eCommerce partner of choice for Insurance Companies.

Ask Kodiak (Broker)

I had heard of Ask Kodiak a while ago, loved the name, but was never entirely clear on what they did.  Once I get their value proposition it seemed so simple and helpful, Ask Kodiac helps brokers realize carrier risk appetites.  The bear made so much more sense too!

The value of a broker should be that they have multiple companies they can place policies through.  Through human nature though, they often connect with a few houses, and send business through the channels where they have relationships or know the system.

In my humble opinion, Ask Kodiac helps brokers get back to their job, by empowering them to realize who wants to work with their clients policies and truly find the best fit.  There was a lot of fear around the insurance industry that tech was going to replace independent brokers, this is one tool that will help them add more value than ever.

Here's their website and twitter handle for more info:

askkodiac.com

@askkodiak

Here is Ask Kodiak's about us from LinkedIn:

AskKodiak is organizing commercial insurance. Brokers get a really simple (and totally free) way to search for eligible carrier markets. Carriers get a digital marketing platform that gives them some unique analytics about what agents and brokers are searching for and some easy-to-use tools to feature their products. It's way better than the Sharepoint portals, territory manager visits, and email blasts of the past. 

Risk Genius (Broker)

Based out of Overland Park Kansas, Risk Genius is examining policies through machine learning (artificial intelligence) for comparison. 

No more cutting docs and placing similar portions on a desk to examine risk, or pouring over policies for hours with tabs and highlighters looking for similarities, since there isn't a standard form.  And document review is just the beginning for risk genius, they want to become a source of doc creation, analytics and compliance.

This technology will help break through the vagueness that's been built into the industry over the years.  It's help brokers really get down to the meat and potatoes of what matters to clients.  Please checkout their site and follow them on twitter below:

RiskGenius.com

@riskgenius

Here's is RiskGenius's about us from LinkedIn:

Nearly instant policy analysis.

RiskGenius leverages patent pending Policy Analytics technology. Each insurance policy is separated into clauses, which are then categorized based on common industry terminology. Users can then instantly locate key clauses across one or more policies, streamlining the review process.

Broker Buddah (Broker)

I was introduced to Broker Buddha by Ryan Hanley's Agency Nation podcast, easily one of the top podcast on insurance and marketing.

RightSignature is a great app for getting docs signed, I've loved using it.  Broker Buddha takes that, or Doc U Sign, to the next level.  They allow you to be able to pre-populate insurance forms, take out un-needed sections, or repeat (reminds me of TaxAct) forms from a year before but make needed headcount or revenue edits.

Apart from the direct form features themselves, BrokerBuddha will have reminders to your clients for the docs, and integrate to your agency management system to avoid double entries. This technology sounds like it'll help cut out the last generation motions (driving to a customer, entering in data manually) and enable deep connections  and more thorough work.

Here's their website for a deeper dive:

brokerbuddha.com

@brokerbuddha

It tells the state of the company more thna anything, but here's their LinkedIn about us:

We're in private beta at the moment. Stay tuned for more news from us later this year. Get in touch with cyrus@brokerbuddha.com if you'd like to learn more.