Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a recent panel discussion hosted by PIA’s Technology Council as part of its Technology & Innovation series. The discussion featured independent agency leaders and insurtech executives. The insights below reflect the panelists’ discussion, with quotes lightly edited for clarity and length.
The “DIY insurance client” isn’t new, but the pace of change is. Independent insurance agencies are finding that an increasing number of customers expect self-service options, faster turnaround, and more ways to interact (text, portal, phone, chat). At the same time, many clients still want a trusted advisor when the situation gets complex.
A recent panel discussion hosted by the PIA Tech Council brought together agency leaders and technology providers to discuss what DIY currently means for agencies, and what they should do next.
Below are five practical takeaways for agencies who are considering how technology can fit into the future of service.
1) DIY doesn’t mean “do it alone.” It means clients want options
One of the clearest themes from the discussion was that DIY is not a single customer type or a single “go digital” destination. Instead, it’s a preference spectrum.
For example, some clients want to complete routine tasks in a self-service portal. Others prefer to call, but they expect speed and clarity while talking to a human. In practice, DIY is fluid: clients move back and forth between self-service and human support depending on the task, urgency, and complexity.
Dyad’s Patrick Espeland framed DIY as a “choice model.” That matters because DIY is often interpreted as “clients don’t want to talk to us anymore.”
The panel’s view was more balanced: clients may want self-service for convenience, but they still value expertise when stakes are high or situations are complex. The agency’s job becomes designing service “lanes:” self-service for routine work, plus a fast path to a person when judgment is needed.
Aaron Levine from LG Insurance Agency also pointed out a common risk: when clients self-quote or self-select coverage without guidance, they can end up undervalued, underinsured, or misunderstanding key exclusions—especially in commercial lines and nuanced personal lines.
The panelist’s take: “That’s what the DIY client is really about. They want choices.” — Patrick Espeland, VP of Product, Dyad
Action for Agencies
Use your insurance agency management system (AMS) to support multiple service paths: portal workflows, texting/notifications, and rapid advisor access. If your AMS integrations are strong and your data is reliable, you can offer choice without chaos.
2) Self-service Insurance only works when the experience is truly easy (and consistent)
Agencies can have the right tools and still fail at DIY if the customer experience is clunky. A portal that’s confusing, a process with too many steps, or a document request that doesn’t match what the client expects will cause drop-off. Customers won’t “train” themselves to use a self-service tool if calling feels easier.
Joel Dunham from Ovation Insurance challenged agencies to keep asking the simplest question: are we making things easier for clients? Or are we accidentally making them harder?
He described an “Amazon-like” experience: predictable, quick, and intuitive. Insurance doesn’t need to become e-commerce, but it does need to remove friction and simplify pathways, especially for high-frequency tasks.
One practical reason self-service breaks is inconsistency across systems. If the AMS says one thing, the carrier portal says another, and the client portal shows something different, customers lose confidence quickly. That’s why “duct taping” multiple tools together without a clear data strategy can create DIY experiences that look modern but function poorly.
The panelist’s take: “The question is, are we making things easier for our clients, or are we making them more difficult?” — Joel Dunham, President, Ovation Insurance
Action for Agencies
Prioritize an insurance agency customer portal experience powered by the same source of truth as your agency management system (AMS). Consistency matters more than feature count. Identify a few critical self-service journeys (documents, billing help, COIs, status checks) and make each one reliably simple.
3) Trust and data quality are the real bottlenecks—especially with ACORD and carrier download
Data is key to the DIY experience. If information is missing, out of date, or inconsistent, self-service becomes confusing and untrustworthy. That’s true for routine servicing, but it becomes highly visible in high-volume workflows like certificates of insurance (COIs), endorsements, and billing-related changes.
Patrick Espeland argued that data is one of the biggest shifts happening in the industry right now. The industry has relied on ACORD standards and carrier download for decades, but carrier requirements and market complexity continue to evolve. Carriers are exploring new underwriting data points (often influenced by analytics and AI), and the growth of non-admitted placements can introduce more variation in what data is requested and how it must be presented.
Aaron Levine reinforced the operational reality: technology doesn’t fix broken data. If you automate on top of messy inputs, you’re scaling errors, not efficiency. His advice was to sequence your work: get data right, define the process, then add tools.
The panelist’s take: “We’ve got to make sure we have good data first, build the process second, and then add the tool for it third.” — Aaron Levine, President-Elect, PIA of New Jersey; LG Insurance Agency
Action for Agencies
Treat ACORD download and carrier download as part of your data hygiene program. Review what’s reliably flowing into your AMS, where fields are incomplete, and which workflows break when download doesn’t map cleanly. Strong AMS integrations and configurable data handling help agencies maintain trust as requirements change.
4) Phone calls aren’t going away, so workflow automation has to complement humans
A notable theme throughout the discussion was the persistence of phone behavior. Even when self-service portals exist, many clients—and even agency partners—still prefer calling for simple tasks. That doesn’t mean portals are pointless. It means convenience is contextual, and humans often default to the fastest, most familiar channel.
Infer’s Vaib Saxena shared direct observation from agency environments: both policyholders and agents keep picking up the phone for routine items. He also raised the underlying “why,” which may be either habit, convenience, or trust. He suggested that the gap between available portals and actual behavior creates an opportunity for thoughtfully deployed automation.
This is where insurance agency workflow automation can create breathing room. If automation can handle repetitive, low-risk tasks (payments, simple service requests, basic confirmations, after-hours triage), it can free staff to spend time on higher-value work: coverage conversations, consultative selling, complex endorsements, and claims advocacy.
The panel also noted that customer-facing AI must be handled carefully, including AI voice tools. Transparency and expectation-setting matter. Agencies should make it clear when a caller is interacting with AI and provide an easy path to a human when complexity arises.
The panelist’s take: “Agents and policy holders both like calling. It’s just probably much more convenient.” — Vaib Saxena, CEO & Co-Founder, Infer
Action for Agencies
Don’t treat “digital” as “no phone.” Treat it as better triage. Use insurance agency workflow automation (and, where appropriate, voice AI) for low-risk, repeatable workflows—while keeping the human touch for coverage advice, complex endorsements, claims advocacy, and relationship work. The best outcomes happen when automation is integrated with the AMS so it can act on accurate information.
5) Start small, define success, and avoid shiny-object whiplash
Agencies are feeling pressure to adopt new tools quickly, especially with the buzz surrounding AI and digital transformation. However, the panel’s guidance was consistent: don’t try to boil the ocean. Too many initiatives at once can lead to unclear ownership, inconsistent workflows, integration headaches, and an ultimate failure to adopt the tools
Patrick Espeland encouraged agencies to start with clarity. He recommends that agencies know their business, know their customers, and define what they are trying to solve. Pick something narrow and measurable, define the finish line, then implement, measure, adjust, and expand. Examples may include a high-volume call type, a specific servicing bottleneck, or a recurring handoff that frustrates clients.
That approach also helps with internal buy-in. When teams see a small pilot succeed, they’re more likely to support additional automation. Conversely, when a tool is imposed without a clear finish line, adoption often stalls.
The panelist’s take: “Don’t try to take on too much at once because that’ll end up being a disaster all the way around.” — Patrick Espeland, VP of Product, Dyad
Action for Agencies
Choose one workflow and tie it to metrics: cycle time, deflection rate, error rate, staff time saved, and client satisfaction. Make sure your agency management system (AMS) supports the workflow end-to-end, with the right AMS integrations and data handling. Then expand from proven wins.
The bottom line for independent insurance agencies
DIY is not about removing the agent. It’s about meeting modern expectations without sacrificing trust. Agencies win when they offer the right mix of self-service portal convenience and human expertise—powered by accurate data, clean processes, and an insurance agency management system that supports integration and automation.
If you want your DIY strategy to stick, anchor it on three fundamentals:
- Data trust: including ACORD/carrier download hygiene
- Workflow clarity: process first, tools second
- Customer choice: multiple service paths, including easy escalation to a person
That’s how you modernize service and keep the human touch.
Nexsure is Dyad’s AMS that helps independent agencies manage the DIY client by combining flexible data, integrated workflows, and a self-service portal in a single platform. Click here to learn more about Nexsure.
