The Development of Adviser Technology

Once upon a time a decent set of manila files was considered pretty well-organised. These themselves were an advance on the policy cards that some advisers kept – or not – on their clients. Of course, if you were a tied agent of a single company, then their data was sufficient for your needs.

Then we developed the idea of client relationship management (CRM) systems. These hold two streams of data, client data: names, addresses, children, interests, contact numbers; and specific information: policies owned, premiums paid, and so on.

Efforts to streamline the latter have humbled even the best, so we are still lumbered with duplicate and conflicting information. But advisers that have worked hard on the former have been rewarded with better marketing and engagement with their clients and tidy, sensible, administration systems.

Shortly after that new tools started to arrive: needs analysis tools, quoting tools, and research. Over the years these have continued to improve and get better and better. Of course advisers have different ways of using these tools, and as with CRMs the differences centre on whether the adviser deals with several companies or not.