Digitizing P&C brokerage: the incremental approach

The digital transformation of a company doesn't happen overnight. Here's how to successfully transition without jeopardizing your business.

Why so many digitalization projects fail

Digitizing a property and casualty insurance portfolio is rarely a smooth journey. After supporting dozens of MGAs, we've identified a clear pattern: the majority of digital transformation projects in the MGA industry experience significant delays or are abandoned mid-course.

Yet the stakes are high. In a market where responsiveness makes all the difference, where clients expect a response within hours rather than days, digitalization is no longer optional. It's essential to remain competitive against insurtechs and large groups investing heavily in their technology platforms.

So why do so many fail? Here are the three most costly mistakes MGAs make when embarking on digitalization.

The three fatal errors of digitalization

Error #1: attempting a full migration at once

This is the most common temptation. The executive committee decides to digitalize operations, the project manager selects a comprehensive solution, and the team decides: "Let's go all in and switch everything at once."

The result? A complete operational standstill for weeks, even months. Teams find themselves lost in a new environment they haven't mastered. Massive training sessions must be organized that immobilize the entire organization. Data entry errors multiply. Clients grow impatient. Carrier partners worry about response times.

After three months, exhausted and under pressure, the organization reverts to old systems. Loss of time, money, and most critically, team confidence in any future transformation project.

What happens in practice: Simultaneous migration of auto, homeowners, commercial lines, fleet, and affinity business. Result: no one knows where to find information, renewals are processed late, and time is spent firefighting instead of managing change.

Error #2: deploying multiple specialized systems that don't communicate

Requirements are precisely identified. For quotes, the market's best rating engine. For billing, a specialized solution recommended by the accounting firm. For claims management, a dedicated software package that works wonders. For CRM, the industry leader.

The result? Effective digitalization... but the creation of new silos, perhaps even more complex than before. Excel has been replaced by five software packages that don't communicate with each other.

Daily reality: A client calls about a claim. You need to open three different screens to retrieve their policy, verify their payment status, and create the claim file. The same information is re-entered in each system. Client data is fragmented, never simultaneously updated everywhere. Chaos has been digitized.

Not to mention hidden costs: maintaining multiple subscriptions, training on several platforms, error risks at each manual information transfer, impossibility of obtaining a consolidated view of operations.

Error #3: failing to involve operational teams from the start

Management or the project manager has the strategic vision. The ideal solution is identified, negotiation with the vendor succeeds, the contract is signed. Then comes the announcement to teams: "Here's the new tool that will revolutionize our work!"

The result? Passive but persistent resistance. Officially, everyone agrees. In practice, dual entry persists for months "while waiting to ensure the new system works properly." Staff find a thousand reasons to continue with their familiar Excel files: "It's just temporary, until everything is verified." "The new system doesn't allow this specific operation." "I'll do it tomorrow, I have an urgent case right now."

What's revealed after several months: The gleaming platform, into which tens of thousands of dollars have been invested, remains half-empty. Data is unreliable because not systematically entered. Impossible to make decisions on incomplete metrics. And most importantly, trust is destroyed: teams feel an unsuitable tool has been imposed without consulting them.

The Right Approach: Walk Before You Run

Facing these pitfalls, what's the approach that works? The progressive method we call "the incremental approach."

Principle #1: Start Small, with One Product or Line of Business

Rather than attempting to digitalize everything simultaneously, identify a limited scope to begin with. Criteria for selection:

• Sufficient volume to test the system under real conditions, but not your core business that tolerates no errors
• Moderate complexity: neither too simple (you wouldn't truly test the solution), nor too complex (you'd accumulate difficulties)
• A motivated team ready to be pioneers on the project

Concrete examples:

• If you're an MGA specializing in affinity insurance, start by digitalizing only your "Mobile Device Insurance" line before extending to other products
• If you manage multiple professional types, begin with building contractors, then extend to retail businesses, then to professional services
• If you have a mixed personal/commercial operation, digitalize the entire chain for personal lines first (more standardized) before addressing commercial business

This approach allows you to encounter and resolve difficulties on a reduced scale, adjust processes, and train teams progressively.

Principle #2: prove value before expanding

The initial project must quickly demonstrate tangible benefits. This is essential for obtaining organization-wide buy-in and justifying scope expansion.

Define clear metrics from the start:

• Average quote processing time: from 45 minutes to 15 minutes
• Data entry error rate: reduced by 3x
• Client response time: from 24h to 4h
• Number of back-and-forth exchanges with carriers: reduced by 40%
• Client satisfaction: measured before/after on the test scope

Communicate these results. Organize regular meetings where you share metrics with the entire organization. Let project users share their experiences. Nothing is more convincing than a colleague explaining how they gained half a day of work per week thanks to the new tool.

Principle #3: expand scope progressively with rapid migration

Once the initial project succeeds, expansion must happen quickly to capitalize on positive momentum and prevent teams from falling back into old habits.

Plan a tight 8-week rollout:

Weeks 1-3 - launch phase: one product, one small volunteer team. Initial 3-hour training, daily support, rapid process adjustments.

Weeks 4-5 - rapid extension: same product, deployment to entire concerned team. Express 2-hour training based on initial project learnings.

Weeks 6-8 - full rollout: extension to all products and teams. Complete migration with reinforced support.

The objective is to create rapid transformation momentum that prevents prolonged dual-system situations from becoming entrenched. The faster the migration, the less time resistance has to develop.

Key Success Factors for Progressive Digitalization

Beyond the phased approach, several elements determine your digital transformation success.

Involve Teams from the Design Phase

From the project planning phase, establish a working group representative of your various functions. Account managers, client service representatives, claims technicians: each must be able to express their needs and constraints.

This working group will help you:

• Identify genuine daily pain points (which aren't always what management imagines)
• Prioritize truly useful functionalities
• Anticipate potential blocking points
• Design digital processes that correspond to field realities

These staff members will then become your internal champions, able to explain to colleagues why certain decisions were made and how to work around specific difficulties.

Choose an integrated platform rather than an assembly of tools

To avoid error #2 (silo multiplication), prioritize a platform covering your entire value chain, even if you only activate it progressively.

Essential criteria for a good platform:

• Complete functional coverage: from rating to claims management through billing
• Modular architecture: ability to activate functions as you go
• Unified database: each piece of information entered once, available everywhere
• Open APIs: for integration with existing tools you wish to retain (accounting, e-signature...)
• Single client repository: 360° view of each client and all their policies

Better to have a platform that handles 80% of your needs in an integrated manner than an assembly of specialized solutions that each do 100% but don't communicate.

Train on-the-go, then maintain long-term support

Forget the three-day initial training where you attempt to explain everything. Your staff will retain 20%, and will have forgotten everything a week later.

Favor a just-in-time approach:

• Brief training (2-3h) on immediately used functionalities
• Field support during the first days of use
• Supplementary sessions as usage expands
• Accessible documentation for occasional questions
• Identified reference person to ask questions without judgment

Then maintain a continuous training cycle:

• Monthly 2-hour sessions for the first 3 months to deepen functionalities and share best practices
• Then biweekly sessions to support skill development
• These sessions also gather field feedback and adjust processes

This approach enables more effective learning, less anxiety-inducing, and better anchored in daily practice. It also prevents users from developing bad habits through lack of functionality knowledge.

Maintain both systems in parallel temporarily

During your initial project phase, maintaining a period of dual operation is normal and even desirable. This reassures teams and allows verification of the new system's reliability.

But beware: establish a definitive switchover date from the start. "We're trying the new system while keeping the old one" must not become a permanent state. After 2 to 3 weeks of parallel operation, you must make the call and completely switch to the new system for the initial scope.

Communicate this deadline clearly from the beginning: "We're testing until March 31, then we switch definitively." This prevents the provisional situation from becoming permanently established.

How to Choose Your Initial Scope?

Selecting your first scope is critical. Too ambitious, you'll repeat error #1. Too timid, you'll prove nothing.

Analyze Your Book of Business Along Three Dimensions

Dimension 1 - Volume: How many accounts per month? You want sufficient volume to truly test the system (at least 50-100 accounts), but not your largest production.

Dimension 2 - complexity: what variety of scenarios? Avoid ultra-simple products (you wouldn't test much) and hyper-complex products with 50 special cases.

Dimension 3 - criticality: what risk in case of problems? Don't start with your largest or most demanding client. Save them for when you've perfectly mastered the tool.

Decision matrix

Create a simple table to evaluate each potential product line:

ProductVolume/monthComplexityCriticalityScoreMobile Device Insurance150ModerateLow⭐⭐⭐ ExcellentHomeowners400LowModerate⭐⭐ AcceptableAuto800HighHigh⭐ Too riskyCommercial Lines100HighHigh⭐ Too complex

In this example, Mobile Device Insurance is the ideal candidate to start.

Validate with concerned teams

Once you've made your choice, present it to the teams who will be involved and listen to their reactions. Do they have legitimate concerns? Is there an element that wasn't anticipated?

This discussion has two benefits: refining the decision and beginning to create buy-in for the project.

Managing change management

Technology is just a tool. The real digitalization challenge is human. Regular and transparent communication is essential to bring teams along.

Before launch:

• Explain the why: what problems you want to solve
• Present the progressive approach: you're not overhauling everything at once
• Identify who will be affected by the initial project and according to what timeline

During:

• Weekly meetings with the initial team to address difficulties
• Monthly communication to other teams on progress
• Transparency about what's working AND problems encountered

After launch:

• Quantified results report
• User testimonials
• Rollout calendar for subsequent teams

Each milestone reached should be celebrated. First quote generated on the new platform? First full month without dual entry? Successful extension to the second product? Communicate, congratulate teams, mark the occasion. These celebrations create positive momentum and reinforce motivation for subsequent stages.

Measuring and Managing Your Transformation

Successful digitalization relies on precise metrics that measure progress and adjust trajectory.

Key Metrics to Track

Adoption metrics:

• Platform usage rate by concerned teams
• Number of accounts processed in the new system vs. the old
• Average time spent on the platform per user

Operational efficiency metrics:

• Average processing time by file type (quote, binding, endorsement, claim)
• Data entry error rate
• Number of back-and-forth exchanges with carrier partners
• Client response time

Quality metrics:

• Client satisfaction score (NPS)
• Number of complaints related to file processing
• Completeness of entered data

Business metrics:

• Quote-to-policy conversion rate
• Retention rate at renewal
• Production per staff member

Implement a dashboard

Create a simple dashboard, shared with all teams, displaying these metrics and their evolution. The objective is twofold: manage the project and demonstrate value created.

Update it monthly and comment on results. Be transparent about difficulties as well as successes.

Expected Benefits of Successful Digitalization

Beyond immediate time savings, well-executed digitalization permanently transforms your business model.

Short Term

• Productivity gains: 30 to 50% time saved on administrative tasks
• Error reduction: data entry and submission errors reduced by 2 or 3x
• Improved responsiveness: response times cut in half
• Better traceability: complete and accessible history of each file

Medium term

• Enhanced advisory services: time saved on administrative work is reinvested in client support
• Facilitated business development: capacity to absorb new volumes without proportional hiring
• Improved client satisfaction: responsiveness, reliability, information availability
• Strategic oversight: consolidated view of your operations for better decision-making

Long term

• Competitive differentiation: you offer a service level traditional brokers cannot match
• Scalability: your organization can grow without structural costs exploding
• Employer attractiveness: you attract talent who want to work with modern tools
• Resilience: your business can rapidly adapt to market changes

Pitfalls to Avoid During Deployment

Even with a progressive approach, certain mistakes can compromise your project.

Neglecting Integration with Existing Ecosystem

Your new platform doesn't operate in a vacuum. It must integrate with your accounting software, e-signature tools, your carrier partner portals.

Anticipate these integrations from the solution selection phase. Verify API availability, test them during the initial phase, don't discover them during large-scale deployment.

Underestimating required support time

Implementing a technical platform takes a few days. Changing your teams' work habits takes months. Don't underestimate this dimension.

Plan support time, identify champions, be patient. Results will come, but not instantly.

Freezing processes too early

During the first months, remain agile. Your processes will evolve as you discover the platform's capabilities and as your teams develop competency.

What seemed optimal at the start may prove improvable. Accept adjustment and continuous improvement. Digitalization isn't a project with an end, it's a continuous improvement journey.

Forgetting the regulatory dimension

Insurance is a highly regulated sector. Your platform must enable you to meet all your obligations: traceability of advice given, document retention, GDPR compliance, transmission of mandatory information to carriers...

Verify these aspects from solution selection and throughout deployment. A regulatory shortfall can be very costly.

Conclusion: digitalization as sustainable competitive advantage

The P&C MGA industry is at a turning point. Organizations that successfully execute their digital transformation will have a decisive competitive advantage: capacity to process more volume with the same team, superior responsiveness, improved service quality, informed strategic oversight.

But this transformation cannot be decreed, it must be built. Step by step, product by product, team by team. By involving your staff, proving value at each stage, celebrating victories.

The incremental approach isn't the most spectacular. It won't allow you to announce "complete digital transformation" in three months. But it guarantees you'll reach your destination, with motivated teams and your business preserved.

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