Anticipating tomorrow today: clients value a partner whose advice can trigger epiphanies in which risk management solutions reveal themselves.

Savvy professionals know that insurance is not just about selling products and settling claims. Risk managers and chief financial officers look to members of our industry for solutions to the evolving challenges they face as they guide their ships of business through shifting waters. By the same token, individuals look to risk management professionals for relevant advice on how to protect themselves, their families and their properties.

Someone wise once said that nothing is as constant as change, and in our digital age with technologies evolving all around at warp speed, this truism has never been truer. Another sage said that the consumer is a moving target. Again, at no time in the history of exchanging one thing for another has this been more on the money than now.

This abundance of new and exciting technologies has made consumers of all products and services hungry for more. The seemingly limitless variety of products available also has produced in them a real appetite for customizing their lives. When in the history of humanity has there been more ability to choose specific products to complement each and every aspect of human lives? Consumers can download personal soundtracks to enjoy via portable digital devices. They can enroll in specific online news feeds to be kept up to the minute on any imaginable topic. They even can customize their lifestyle choices to resonate with a core philosophy, such as a commitment to have as little negative impact on the environment as possible.

Insurance providers have a vital role to play in this pell-mell rush by both business and personal consumers to identify custom solutions to their risk management challenges. The professionals who recognize this and are dedicated to keeping abreast of these changing needs will prosper most in our culture of accelerating change. To remain relevant, they must run beside and even slightly ahead of their clients.

The best in the business are assuming and will continue to assume a posture of innovation to meet customers' needs. This aggressive mental stance is not something that can be held until short-term gains are reached and then abandoned. It must become a way of life, a personal philosophy toward business, a perpetual motion machine bent on knowing customer needs before they even occur to the customer.

Recently, Travelers began to offer a 10% discount on auto insurance to drivers of hybrid vehicles across the country, the first such discount offered on a national level. The decision to address this quickly emerging market was made in the spirit of the forward-looking innovation I've described. The number of U.S. sales of hybrid vehicles has doubled every year since the first model was introduced in 1999. By the year 2016, hybrids could represent 15% of cars on the road.

The interesting thing about this runaway popularity is that hybrids cost more than traditional vehicles, and there are vast differences in fuel economy. Why then are consumers buying them in such numbers? Because driving a hybrid falls into line with their core personal philosophy to minimize their negative impact on the environment, a prime example of the rush by individuals and business owners to customize every aspect of their lives.

To play the most relevant role in the process of meeting these ever-changing needs, insurance agents and brokers continually must educate themselves. They must keep their finger as fastidiously on the pulse of a nation and a world as any advertising executive or television producer. This means not only keeping abreast of emerging trends and the latest product offerings from carriers but also really getting to know their clients, learning how they think and thinking ahead of them.

Clients see great value in a business partner whose advice or up-to-the-minute knowledge can trigger epiphanies, those "ah-ha" moments when risk management solutions reveal themselves as though they had fallen fully formed from the client's forehead. Elevating a client relationship to this level makes it a collaborative, creative process where the real progress is in the thinking of the idea. After that, all that is left is the scribbling.

Contributor Joseph P. Lacber Jr. is executive vice president of Travelers Personal Lines. He can be reached at [e-mail]