By Keith Savino
Carriers, technology vendors and agencies across the industry have ramped up multi-factor authentication (MFA) over the last several years, either for compliance reasons or to enhance their overall cyber security measures beyond passwords and user IDs.
MFA authenticates system or website users through additional ID verification, such as by text message or email.
For agents, sorting through the various carrier and vendor MFA methods and requirements has been like navigating the Wild, Wild West. MFA has created many business challenges for agencies, including extra time, stress, and workflow delays and interruptions, according to a survey of agencies, carriers and insurance technology vendors performed by the Agent Council of Technology (ACT) earlier this year.
Part of the issue for agents has been the industry’s inconsistent rollout of MFA, with some companies and vendors requiring it and others planning to at some point. Nearly half of the agents responding to the ACT survey said their carrier partners required MFA to access agency-carrier portals, while 41% said their carriers did not. Eleven percent of respondents said they weren’t sure if MFA was required by their carriers.
There are huge inconsistencies across the industry on what MFA methods are being used on various platforms. Fewer than half of agent respondents to the survey said their carrier partners are using similar MFA implementations.
Despite its challenges, what is clear is that MFA is not going away. Of the carriers that responded to the ACT survey, 60% said MFA is now part of all independent agent interactions. More than 20% of carriers that haven’t implemented MFA yet said they planned to do so this year.
Agents can play an important role in pushing the industry to improve MFA implementation and employ a more streamlined process. Here’s how:
