CRM in Insurance

Here's a great analysis of typical problems that insurance companies run into when attempting to implement CRM software. The article has been written with Commercial Insurance in mind. However in my experience most of the lessons apply just as much to the personal Life Insurance industry.

In particular, it's important to highlight the difference between a reporting-focused CRM and a sales-oriented system ("1. Built for management, not sales."). Life insurance agents are incredibly protective of their customer information at the best of times, and why not when their income depends entirely on making sales to those customers? So naturally a CRM system that does not give tangible benefits to the agent is not going to have any credibility. The agents need information pushed out to them automatically - warnings of customers' birthdays, contacts from the customer to the insurance company (say surrender request), etc.