and instead focus on standalone websites that are not
integrated. If I’m an agent and my carrier has done a
really bad job of integrating with my management sys-
tem, but has done a good job building out its website,
I might prefer the website too, but it means I prefer a
good website over their crappy interface.”
Johnston points to insurers such as Penn National,
EMC, Cincinnati, Allied Insurance and New York Cen-
tral Mutual as examples of insurers doing it right. “If
you look at some of the integrations they’ve done with
agency management systems, you’d never want to use
a carrier website again—you’d cancel the carriers that
didn’t do that.”
Bruce Winterburn, VP of Industry Relations at Ver-
tafore, would like to change the discussion from an
either/or to the bigger picture. “We keep taking this
tact that it has to be one way or the other,” he says.
“What’s missing in the conversation is the essence of
the market we serve—the independent agent market.
The value that the independent agent brings to the
channel is one of choice, so by definition you must
have multiplicity, because you could have four or five
carriers out there with beautiful technology, but you
still have to enter the data twice.”
HFC’s Smith, a Vertafore client, agrees. “As carri-
ers build out portals, agency management systems
are trying to keep up with various nuances,” she says.
“Agency management systems can bring value by
making all portals look the same to me. They need to
deliver a single solution to end user.”
Smith notes that portal technologies work well
within her agency, especially in personal lines,
where they have the ability to use a personal lines
rating tool.
“We are in New York State, and represent more
than 50 total carriers,” she says. “We can put an auto
set of data in once and see 30 of those carriers’ rat-
ings, but the two (portals and agency management
systems) must work in tandem, because portals re-
ally represent upload. It gets down to understanding
what a portal is.”
Smith says that portal use is easier with personal
auto, but a bit more complicated with the various data
points that funnel into homeowners quotes, and due
to the complexity issues inherent in commercial lines,
is a yet-to-be fully realized goal for the agency. “Every
time a carrier makes a change in their portal, the agen-
cy management system must be made aware and must
make a corresponding change in the system that talks
to the portal,” she notes.
A TECH FIX?
Deb Smallwood, principal at research and consulting
firm SMA, asserts that the solution may be to have both
carriers and agents agree to move to more of a cloud
vs. hard-coded pipeline environment for connectivity
between agents and insurers, where they can share
and collaborate.
“But currently, agency management systems only
work with their own software; it’s proprietary, so their
cloud solution will only work within their cloud solu-
tion.”
Johnston confirms that new Web services commu-
nication technologies were built into Applied Systems’
offerings 10 years ago, giving Applied’s agents the ca-
pability of working in the cloud, and confirms that 60
percent of his clients conduct business there.
Vertafore also has addressed this issue with
the launch of Engage, a cloud-based bolt-on to its
WorkSmart solution that’s designed to provide independent agents with secured workspaces to share
team communications in real-time and collaborate on
client and policy documents.
One thing is certain: The rapid changes that
technology brings will force both insurers and their
agents to make better decisions about how they do
business.
“We are at the tip of the iceberg in terms of effi-
ciencies,” says Vertafore’s Winterburn. “We’ve made
huge strides, and have teams working on hand-held
devices, creating a look and feel that’s more familiar
to people. If you recall the days of green screens, con-
sider that today every agent CSR goes home and com-
municates to their family on Facebook, so we know
where we are headed and we are looking toward a
lot of that.”
Applied’s Johnson also believes technology’s rapid
changes are part of an ongoing evolution. “We have
transactions we do today but didn’t do two years
ago,” he says. “At the end of the day, carriers have to
embrace all of the channels—there won’t be one that
replaces the other.”
As carriers ramp up their technology efforts, X by
2’s Petersmark would like to see the agency manage-
Customer
Ownership Still a
Matter of Debate
INsurers aNd theIr INdepeNde Nt age Nts
agree that improved sales and customer service is
the end game, and that technology is a key to facilitating
a win. But what’s not always clear is the three-way
relationship between carrier, agent and customer.
“In the big picture, the agent owns the custom-
er,” says doug Johnson, Vp of partner relations &
product Innovation at applied systems. “during the
term of the policy, the carrier is responsible for that
customer, but the agent can cancel—with the
customer’s approval—and move that policy mid-
term,” he says. “so the customer has a contractual
relationship with agent and with carrier, but the
entire premise of that system is that the agent owns
the right to renew that policy.”
Yet in a world of channel complexity and
consumer empowerment, the fact that agents are
able to offer those customers a choice of companies
(and coverages) is not the most important thing to
customers, notes research results from The pIa
partnership, an insurer group offshoot of the
National association of professional Insurance
agents. From the customer’s point of view, what’s
important to them is that agents can deliver value.
But it also points to the need for agents to have the
tools and technologies in place to be able to deliver
on their value proposition.
“If your life depends on your independent agent
channel, you are smart to invest more in ease-of-use technology because you want independent
agents to sell, sell, sell. For this, the onus is on the
carrier,” says Frank petersmark, previous CIO of
amerisure and now head of tabula rasa Consulting,
LLC, and CIO advocate for X by 2 Inc.
“The two (portals and agency
management systems) must work
in tandem, because portals really
represent upload.”
—Cyndy Smith, Haylor, Freyer & Coon
ment vendors fundamentally repurpose their plat-
forms. “Agents in some ways are the same way car-
riers were: married to old legacy platforms,” he says.
“I’m not sure where the resolution is, but I think the
industry will keep plodding along the way it has—in
fits and starts.”
Smith, meanwhile, is confident that the industry
will move in the right direction. “From a carrier per-
spective, the independent agent network, in many
cases, is their only sales arm,” she says. “So from a
technology perspective, we know carriers will make
sure they do everything they can to help us remain
successful.”
insurancenetworking.com
march/aPriL 2012 insurance networking news 27
