Is Your Tech Stack Ready for CAT Season?

• August 20, 2025

By Michael Streit

Summer and early fall are peak seasons for catastrophic (CAT) events—and this brings a wave of challenges for independent insurance agents. From hurricanes and severe storms to wildfires and floods, these months often bring a dramatic rise in property damage, urgent insurance claims and policy questions.

It’s also a busy renewal season for many lines of coverage, adding another layer of responsibility for agencies that are already stretched thin.

The result? A rapidly growing workload that can quickly become overwhelming without the proper support. In these high-stress periods, the right tech stack isn’t just a luxury, it’s a lifeline.

CAT season can stretch even the most experienced insurance professionals to their limits. Between managing claims and fielding urgent questions, staying organized and efficient becomes key to success. Today’s modern agency tools are designed to help you work smarter, respond faster and maintain excellent service when it matters most.

Here are three ways to improve your tech stack to cope with CAT season:

1) Avoid coverage gaps with automated renewals. When CAT events hit, the last thing any agent or client can afford is a missed renewal. But with dozens or even hundreds of clients, each with unique policies and expiration dates, staying on top of everything can quickly become overwhelming. Missed renewals create headaches and can lead to lost revenue and weakened client relationships.

Given that it costs significantly more to acquire a new client than to retain an existing one, it is crucial to have a reliable system to manage your renewals. Automated renewal tools track policy expiration dates across your entire book of business, flag clients who are experiencing significant premium changes at renewal, and even help you retrieve remarketed rates. This allows you to present better options before clients start looking elsewhere or risk letting their policies lapse.

Instead of manually managing renewals with static spreadsheets and flipping back and forth between carrier websites, you can use automated renewal tools to gather and organize all the necessary information in one place. This significantly reduces the chances of missed deadlines, incorrect premium calculations or overlooked policy details.

Automating your renewal process enables a more proactive approach to client service, which can help improve your retention. By reaching out to clients about their policies before they inquire, you position yourself as a trusted advisor—not just a reactive service provider.

2) Keep service handoffs smooth with AI summarization. Summer is a peak time not just for CAT events but also for staff vacations, which often leads to workload handoffs. Without the right tools in your tech stack, it can be challenging to maintain a consistent level of client service when things get busy.

What happens if your colleague fails to properly brief you on a client before heading out on vacation? You could end up spending hours digging through emails in an attempt to piece things together or even delaying service while you wait for your colleague to return. Clients get frustrated and your agency looks disorganized or unprofessional.

AI-driven account summarization tools can automatically compile key client information—including emails, texts and agent notes—to provide an immediate summary of your agency’s communication history with a client. Some agency management systems (AMS) even allow you to filter and view client activity over specific time periods, such as the past week, month, three months or even a full year.

3) Cross-sell smarter with the power of data. One of the biggest lessons of every CAT event? Many clients discover they were underinsured after the fact. That’s why the ability to identify and address coverage gaps proactively is especially important during storm and wildfire season.

A modern AMS should include smart tools that analyze your existing book of business to flag relevant cross-selling opportunities to clients. By leveraging client data, these platforms can suggest timely add-on coverages that clients may not have considered, such as flood insurance, personal articles or umbrella policies.

Instead of spending hours combing through files or relying on memory, agents get a prioritized view of how to protect clients better. That’s a win for clients, and a major time-saver for agents navigating a high-volume season.

Michael Streit is president of EZLynx. With nearly a decade of experience in private equity operations and an MBA from Harvard Business School, Streit has become well-versed in the mechanics of deals and integrations, offering invaluable insights and contributions to the insurance industry.