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During the keynote luncheon, newly elected president, Richard Savino, CIC, CPIA, encouraged independent agents to embrace the millennial generation and its way of communicating in order to thrive in today's business environment.

"Independent agents simply must adapt and embrace the tools that will help us to succeed," Savino said to his audience. "We must change our image and we have to stay up-to-date with our business models. We have to deliver 24/7 access; quote online; put ourselves into play and in favorable positions on search engines. We need to put away the paper files … and we need to communicate in a multigenerational way."

Savino noted that, while perpetuation has been an industry concern for more than 50 years, it remains important. He compared insurance's independent agency distribution system to other industries and said it must adapt, or risk becoming outdated and replaced. He asserted that new, young professionals entering the industry are the vanguards of evolution, and enjoy greater possibilities than any other recent generation because of technological, logistical and underwriting and communication changes the industry will undergo.

Newly elected president, Richard Savino, CIC, CPIA, discusses the future of the insurance agency at the Hudson Valley RAP award/keynote luncheon.

"A recent survey found that younger consumers are much more interested in innovations such as mobile services; much more likely to shop around; and are the most promising market segments. And, more than three-quarters (76 percent) of millennials—those below 35 years of age—are interested in conducting business by using their mobile devices," Savino said. "But, most importantly, young customers are the most willing to pay a premium to get products that meet their needs: Almost three-quarters of 18 to 24-year-olds said they were willing to pay more for it, compared to only a third of people over 55 years of age and 38 percent of 45- to 54-year-olds."

"This presents a huge opportunity for young people to enter and grow in our business," he said. "… Young people entering our business now have opportunity we haven"t seen since the 1950s!"

Savino encouraged agents to recognize the skills and learning opportunities young professionals bring to their business and use the benefits PIA membership offers to help them do what they do best: "Independent agents" strength has always been our unique knowledge of our customers and their needs. So, it's only logical that we should embrace the tools that will help us do that," he said. "We"ve always been the most effective distribution system for insurance because of this, and as the world gets smaller, our ability to act locally, using tools that are designed to help us target and focus these efforts, can only make us stronger. And I look forward to our success."

And, a little humor

At the close of the luncheon, Yvonne Conte, motivational humorist, HumorAdvantage Inc., presented "The positive power of humor." Conte lead the audience in belly laughs and entertained them with humorous stories about her family. She also challenged everyone to get to know someone better because: "You can only help people when you know what matters to them." According to Conte, once people know what matters to others, they have the ability to work better with each other.

Conte also noted that changing negative perspectives into positive is how change happens, and that a positive attitude can benefit a person's health, relationships and income: "If you work from a place of joy, you will have to turn business away," said Conte. "If you are good and honest, people will want to do business with you."