Raine presented data about how the internet has changed our ecosystem. One set of statistics stood out for the insurance industry and online shopping. Over 50% of the population now has broadband internet access from the home and 1/3 of the population is getting financial information online. But what he sees is a merging of methods for shopping. More and more people are window shopping, performing comparative shopping online. However, after shopping, they expect to go to a physical place and meet with real human beings. Research online, but close the deal in person. He also has determined people researching financial information online are willing to be influenced. This bodes well for the independent insurance sales person. Help people find you online, but then meet with the consumer and convince them to buy your products.

Another strong take away from his research was a listing of ecosystem changes; none of these are profound but taken as a group, it gives a view of how our world is changing. There is an increasing:
• velocity of information
• number of venues to get information (phone, IM, iphone, ipod, lap top, email)
• ability to filter in or out just the information we want
• voice – meaning now everyone has one (for example, blogs like this)
• continuous partial attention (we are always plugged in to everything and rarely give our complete attention to anything)
and
• social networks. I have always thought independent agents would benefit most from an insurance agent social network. We blogged about the Sexy Insurance social network last year, and there are insurance forums springing up. I hope we see more, and in the past, we even thought we could help in this area. Please comment with social networks you are using and we’ll publicize them so more agents can get on board.

Raine is a captivating speaker and he is much younger looking than other bloggers have reported. (can’t trust all bloggers for certain). Previous to joining Pew, Raine was managing editor of U.S. News & World Report.