There's a great article at Insurance Networking News (in which I am quoted) about the rise of agent portal technology. It's been a favorite topic of mine, and I've written multiplereports about it at Celent. As the article explains, there are essentially four ways insurers have gone about providing agent portals.

1. Build it themselves.
2. Leverage a portal technology vendor.
3. Leverage the portal technology in a policy administration system.
4. Utilize a framework from a professional services firm.

The first option has--so far--been the overwhelming choice for insurers, but as technology offerings from vendors have matured, this is changing. Considering that such a high percentage of carriers have an agent portal (according to Celent research, it's between 85 and 95 percent, depending on line of business) It's surprising that it's taken so long for this many viable vendor options to be available. Though, really, many of these vendor technologies have been in the marketplace for a while. I think the real change is that many carriers have completed the build out of proprietary portals and are now stepping back and asking how to take those portals to the next level. For INN's take on it, check out the "Empowering Your Agent" article.