Administrative simplification for brokers: is it really happening?

At the 2026 Feprabel congress, held on 2-3 April at the Aula Magna in Louvain-la-Neuve under the theme "The augmented human bond", one question kept coming up in conversations between brokers: is administrative simplification, discussed for years, finally becoming reality?

What is actually progressing

Tangible progress exists. Artificial intelligence tools are beginning to integrate into the daily life of brokerages. Paperbox, a solution negotiated by Feprabel, analyses incoming emails, automatically creates tasks in Brio, and classifies documents. Automations in business software reduce encoding and sorting time. The intermediary change process, simplified since July 2025, has reduced paperwork on the client side.

The online insurance tax declaration became mandatory via MyMinfin since July 2025. One less paper form, one more online, but at least the process is standardised.

What adds weight in parallel

The problem is that every year brings its own set of new obligations. Professional recycling requirements. The AI Act requirements, with its 2 August 2026 deadline for transparency obligations. The DORA regulation, applicable to insurance intermediaries, imposing digital operational resilience requirements. New anti-money laundering rules, with FSMA suspensions for non-response. The expanded right to be forgotten. New intermediary change rules.

Every new regulation, however justified, adds a form, a procedure, an additional verification.

Are we simplifying or digitalising complexity?

The honest answer is somewhere in between. The tools are better. The processes are faster. But the overall workload does not decrease, because obligations increase at the same pace as the tools to manage them.

The broker who does not equip themselves today falls behind. While they handle new obligations manually, their peers automate. The gap widens every year and becomes increasingly costly to bridge.

The real gain: better use of time

The true benefit of digitalisation is not having less work. It is spending less time on what does not create value (encoding, sorting, administrative follow-up) to spend more on what does: personalised advice, client relationships, fieldwork.

This is precisely the meaning of the 2026 Feprabel congress theme. The "augmented human bond" does not mean less work. It means better-placed work. The broker who automates administration frees up time for what makes them irreplaceable: presence, listening, advice.

Solutions like the NextMove ecosystem, which integrates website, email marketing, and satisfaction measurement into a coherent whole, allow repetitive tasks to be handled centrally. The goal is not to replace the broker, but to give them back the time that administration takes away.