The introduction of AWS was so revolutionary that The Atlantic wrote, "AWS is the piece of infrastructure that has enabled the current tech boom. The only single technology which might come close to it is the smartphone." 

AWS is based on the access economy model of business, relying on temporarily renting goods and services rather than buying and owning them, and over the last decade, we've seen a phenomenal growth of this model. Behemoths like Uber, Airbnb, Le Tote, and Zipcar are just a few of the companies leveraging the idea that access can be more powerful than ownership. These companies didn't eliminate the fundamental needs of services like software development, property, car, clothing rental, or transportation — they equalized them in a way that hadn't been done before. 

So what does this have to do with brokers? We're getting there.

Applying the access economy to brokers and HR 

Just as developers stopped managing their own servers in house once they migrated to AWS, insurance brokers will soon be able to stop manually gathering census data, collecting physical health risk assessment questionnaires, processing eligibility transactions, creating ERISA compliance docs, doing ACA compliance look backs and reporting, and completing open enrollment submissions. That's right, why build that capability and those operations when you can rent it? Instead, you'll be able to spend your time honing your local expertise to help your customers better understand their options and ensure they are getting the best coverage and best service at the very best price, while plugging into a technology solution that takes care of work that isn't strategic for you. 

But why has this not happened yet with existing benefits administration technology? Because the technology to date has still required you to do all this work. Most benefits administration products are just front-end solutions for employers and employees to send information to you. But this is changing. The future isn't software as a service; it's software and a service. 

And this is precisely why another fundamental shift is happening — this time in the benefits industry. Like a tech company that's come to depend on AWS, an independent insurance broker won't need to hire a large team of people to handle servicing issues — the technology will do a lot of this for you. And you won't need to join a big old brokerage firm to build up your business — you can build and scale your own. 

These days, you're probably bogged down trying to help customers add and remove people from plans, answering plan questions, and trying to help vet and suggest HR solutions that suit your customers' needs. But current technological trends will enable you to have more time to get better versed with alternate plan designs, be able to stay competitive, and to keep your customers from jumping ship and going to a bigger firm because ultimately, you'll be able to provide better service — both on a strategic and tactical level. If you're new to the profession, you should feel more energized and empowered than ever to strike out on your own.