Survey reveals brokers' expectations of the year to come

Authored by ARAG

We conducted a survey of brokers at the recent Broker Connect virtual conference run by Insurance Business publisher Key Media, which produced some interesting results.

Better communication topped the list of what brokers most want to see from insurers over the next few months for almost half of those surveyed, whereas roughly a quarter wanted to see insurers providing more information online.

We also asked about how they expect the way they do business to permanently change in the wake of the pandemic, with over two thirds saying that staff would be working remotely more. Just 21 per cent said that they expected their operations would return to normal.

In the shorter term, just a quarter of brokers surveyed said that they foresee meeting clients face-to-face by September this year, while nearly 15 per cent told us that it would be next year before they can see their clients in person again.

Turning to legal matters, nearly 85 per cent identified a type of legal issue that they had to deal with during the first few months of the lockdown, with employment disputes, property and contract matters representing almost three quarters of all responses.

When asked, roughly 80 per cent said that having access to a legal advice helpline would have been useful in dealing with the legal issues that they had been faced with during the pandemic and subsequent lockdown.

Back in April, we made our commercial legal advice helpline freely available to our brokers and members of the MGAA, to help them to manage legal issues during the lockdown.