How Technology Can Work In The Traditional Agent’s Favor

Technology means clients have more options to seek financial advice and products. But it can also work in the traditional agent’s favor.

Life Happens is just one organization trying to use technology to connect agents with more clients who need their products and services.

A nonprofit company with 12 employees, Life Happens can track what an individual does after watching one of its videos. That isn’t possible with traditional TV and print advertising, said Marv Feldman, president and CEO of Life Happens.

Seventy-five percent of those viewers are “more likely to research for additional information on life insurance, disability or long-term care” products, he added.

Feldman is leading a session Friday at the National Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies (NAILBA) annual conference in Dallas.

The Life Happens videos put viewers “in the frame of mind that they’re more receptive to suggestions on how to solve their particular problem,” Feldman explained. “We try to make the people aware that there is a problem that needs to be solved and there are products within our industry that can do that.”

The financial services industry has been notoriously slow to get active on social media. Compliance departments are not comfortable with the free-wheeling format.

Life Happens has the answer, Feldman said, with thousands of prewritten social media posts that already have been vetted.

“We do more than 3,000-plus social media posts per year and we get reposts and likes and shares in the millions,” he said. “They don’t need to have a social media person on staff because we’ve done the work for them.”

In an industry where the average age of agents is believed to be in the mid-50s, technology can be difficult to master. But Life Happens provides support for those who need it.

“In order to help those people who are technology challenged, we have an individual on our staff whose only job is to reach out to the people and their staff and help them set it up and address any issues they have,” Feldman said.

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at john.hilton@innfeedback.com.

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