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Monday
January 12, 2004
NATIONAL
UNDERWRITER - AGENCY TECHNOLOGY on THE
CUTTING EDGE
Contact Management Need Drives Switch In Agency
Management Systems
By Mark E. Ruquet JANUARY 5/12 2004
There are times when waiting for technology’s advancements
can be an independent agency’s best strategy. One case in
point is the insurance broker Seitlin, an Assurex Global
Partner, with offices in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Since 1986, the firm has used the same agency management
system, according to Beth Harris, Seitlin’s Chief
Information Officer. Over the years, she said, the firm
has had to bring in a lot of third party software to keep
that system up and running. But while other agencies had
to abandon their technology in 2000 because it was not Y2K
compliant, Seitlin’s system was. Since Seitlin could
overcome that hurdle, they decided not to jump ship with
what they had and continued using it, patches and all.
“The reason we stayed with this for as long as we have is
because we have not found newer technology that was for
us,” Ms. Harris explained. “We needed something that both
offices could use.
While there are plenty of systems out there that can deal
with the back end of the insurance transaction, they found
nothing satisfying on the front end for prospecting, she
said.
“In the last couple of years we started looking at
different types of contact management systems,” said Ms.
Harris. A contact management system involves a database of
producer client prospects and contacts. “With the systems
we were looking at, we would have been required to put a
whole lot of additional money into it to make it an
insurance related system,” she noted. “They are all very
generic. To make it operate the way we [wanted] would have
required a substantial amount of money for something that
was third party, was not going to integrate into [our
agency management system], and would have been another one
of those third-party patches.”
The concern had become more acute since the organization
had grown to 140 employees with a lot of producers out on
the road. Due to the lack of up-to-date prospecting
information, some of the problems agents run into amount
to some embarrassing situations, Ms. Harris explained.
Without a centralized system for producers to check and
see who is working on what clients, they literally run
into one another at the same prospect account. One agent
writing one line for a customer might not be aware of
another agent handling a different line.
Currently, agents can keep information on potential
clients on either the agency management system or Lotus
Notes. But the systems are so inefficient that in most
cases producers keep the information in their own
notebooks, said Ms. Harris.
This lack of communication also extends itself to
situations where the firm is unable to ascertain if
different divisions have the same customer for different
lines or how much business a customer is doing with the
firm, she noted.
Another headache is that new employees need weeks to learn
the current computer system, which Ms. Harris admitted has
at times proven to be very frustrating for both new and
current employees.
Recognizing the need to coordinate the prospecting end,
Ms. Harris began research into a contact system. During
this period, going back nearly two years, Ms. Harris kept
hearing about XDimensional’s Nexsure agency management
system.
“I was only thinking about contact management system. I
was not thinking about overall change of our agency
management system at that time,” Ms. Harris said.
She saw a demonstration of the system and realized the
potential for changing the entire agency management system
with Nexsure. She brought in representatives from Nexsure
and a group of 13 people from different divisions of
Seitlin for a demonstration of the contact management
system, not telling them about her own opinion that this
system could replace their entire agency management
system.
After witnessing the demonstration, she said there was an
“overall agreement” that this was the technology to
replace their existing system. “Everyone said, ‘Oh my
gosh, this could actually be the system we have been
waiting for,”’ she noted. The contact management portion
is scheduled to go live in February. The remainder will be
up and running in April.
Nexsure is Web-based, which means no new software or
hardware is required, said Ms. Harris. Training is easy,
she noted, requiring three hours for each person. She
added that another advantage is that whatever changes they
have needed to make in the system as it comes together
have been easily assimilated.
“We have a tremendous buy-in into this system,” Ms. Harris
explained about the firm’s confidence in Nexsure
delivering on its promise. “We have had multiple demos
done of this system in multiple departments, and there is
not one person who has seen those demos who is not
thrilled with this system. We cannot wait for this. There
is no one in this office who is not excited about this.”
When asked about making sure producers use the system the
way they should, she told a story about one agent who
could care less about the new system and felt he could
still continue with his notebook.
When she explained to him that by using this system it
would keep the producers from accidentally running into
one another at the same client or inadvertently taking one
another’s business, he understood why it would be to his
advantage to use it.
“He said, ‘I just needed a good reason and you gave me
one,” Ms. Harris said.
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