There are literally hundreds if not thousands of “Client Relationship Management Systems” CRMs in the marketplace. I am selectively going to talk about some of the more popular or industry CRMs, yet not purposely excluding any specific vendor or CRM product. You can identify CRMs in 1 of 3 categories: Generic, Industry Specific, or Home Grown. The CRM companies that are Generic like the big names: SalesForce, Microsoft, and Oracle for example are powerful products. These Fortune 500 companies have figuratively unlimited resources to setup their software to fit your practice. Typically this can be a little more on the expensive side, but makes sense with a larger agency that has many advisors. I would be wary about a generic CRM solution from a small vendor because even though you can license it at a lower cost, you may find them to be problematic for a many reasons like incompatibility for integrating data and limited functionality. There are some new popular generic CRMs from middle size companies like like Zoho and HubSpot that are really easy to use and setup with a lot of functionality. It is easy to gravitate to Industry specific CRMs because they are practically ready to use right out of the box. See information on some industry specific CRMs below.

Selling Life Insurance using a digital platform on your website for consumer direct insurance tools is now the hottest trend! Now more than ever, consumers want to shop, compare, and apply for coverage online and on their terms. The goal is to make the experience of protecting loved ones with life insurance as simple and stress-free as possible. Here are some key reasons why digital life insurance sales has gained momentum: COVID requiring remote sales; 72 million Millennials (25–40-year olds) who would rather shop on their own; massive use of mobile devices averaging 3.8 hours per day; and social media usage 2.5 hours per day for adults in the USA.

NAIFA’s Performance + Purpose virtual conference, Oct. 6-8, will offer a Technology learning track with breakout workshops on ways insurance and financial professionals and their practices can leverage technology to improve their marketing and client communications. In addition to Technology, P+P learning tracks will cover Practice Management, Sales & Prospecting and Advance Practices.

Please help NAIFA and InsuranceNewsNet magazine by taking this brief, 5-minute survey on technology and COVID-19. Has a CRM system or video conferencing platformed helped you serve clients better over the past six months? We'd love to hear from you. Answer a few quick questions at www.surveymonkey.com/r/NAIFA-INN.

NAIFA and InsuranceNewsNet magazine are surveying insurance and financial services professionals to see how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the use of financial technology solutions and the ways producers communicate with clients and prospects.

In a few days, quite a few employees will be  returning to their traditional office work environments after state-imposed, stay-at-home orders. But what will their companies do with the new laptops and other devices they put into employees’ homes in order to keep the business going?

Consumer demand for access across multiple touchpoints is growing, with mobile apps making the biggest jump.