INTERNET-BASED technology continues to revolutionize all aspectsof insurance agency operations. In the past couple of years, it hashad a significant impact on agents' No. 1 job: putting business onthe books.

To get an idea of what's available to assist agents with variousparts of the sales process, we recently contacted a number ofvendors. They market products agents can use to obtain leads,manage them and then acquire data to supplement submissions.Following is a review of some of these online resources.

AgentInsider
(www.agentinsider.com)
This is a lead generation service launched last year by InsWeb, anonline insurance shopping site for consumers that has been aroundfor more than a decade.

InsWeb's assumption, according to Jaimie Pickles, executive vicepresident, was that consumers using the site would be“do-it-yourselfers,” uninterested in the services of insuranceagents. Consequently, the InsWeb site offered them the ability toget instantaneous quotes from several direct writers and then buycoverage from the one providing the most attractive offer.

Research, however, has shown that consumers have not used thesite that way, Pickles said. “We found that about half of theconsumers who came to InsWeb ended up changing their insuranceprovider; that was the good news,” he said. “The bad news was thatonly a fraction of those consumers were switching to the carrierswe partnered with.”

As it turned out, consumers were using the site primarily togather information about insurance, including prevailing rates,Pickles said. Then they'd take it to a local agent–either a captiveor an independent–and use it in negotiating a purchase.

After realizing that the vast majority of their clientsultimately wanted to buy insurance from a local agent, Ins-Webdecided to provide that option, Pickles said. Now, consumersvisiting the site can obtain quotes from one local independentagent and three or four local captive agents, each representing adifferent insurer. They also can continue to get one or two quotesfrom direct-writers.

Independent and captive agents bid for the quote requests viaInsWeb's AgentInsider service. After registering at theAgentInsider site, agents select the ZIP code(s) from which theywant leads. Three types of leads are available, and the minimum bidvaries by state: Homeowners and preferred auto leads are $6 to $9each, and special (nonstandard) auto leads are $3 to $6 each.Agents also can set a maximum number of leads they want to acceptper day or month to ensure they stay within their budgets.

Like buyers on eBay, agents purchasing leads can see the currenthigh bid for a given type of lead in a given ZIP code and top it ifthey wish. Pickles said in the near future, agents will have theoption of setting a maximum price for a lead and then letting thesystem automatically increase their bids as others come in, up tothe maximum price. (Independent agents bid only against otherindependent agents in the one “slot” allocated for them, notagainst the captive agents who separately compete for leads in thethree or four other slots allocated for them.)

Pickles said that InsWeb decided to use a bidding system to sellleads after research indicated that agents' chief complaint withmost online leads services concerned their exclusivity. After oneagent bought leads of a certain type in a particular ZIP code, allother agents were “locked out.” In contrast, Pickles said, AgentInsider gives a lead to the agent willing to pay the most for it.Not that there is that much competition for leads at this point, headded. Pickles said about 2,000 agents currently are using theservice, but they are spread all over the country and often can buyleads at the minimum-bid price. Only in certain ZIP codes in a fewstates, including Arizona, Illinois, Colorado and Washington, doany “bidding wars” seem to be going on, he said.

Agents are notified of their leads instantaneously by e-mail.Then they go to the AgentInsider site to view their leads, whichcontain the X-dates and everything else needed to provide a quote,Pickles said. He added that it's important for agents to respondimmediately, since the consumers typically are ready to buy. Atpresent, agents cannot download the lead data and plug it intotheir rating systems, Pickles said, although the vendor is in theprocess of building that functionality into its system.

Agents pay for leads by providing a credit card number, againstwhich an initial $100 is charged. As agents buy leads, the cost isdeducted from their deposits until they are used up. Then theservice automatically replenishes the deposits via additional $100charges against the credit cards.

About one in 10 consumers visiting InsWeb provides false contactinformation, Pickles said, apparently just to obtain aninstantaneous quote from one of the direct-writer companies. Ifagents receive such leads, they can click a button and get a creditfor them, Pickles said. He said InsWeb also uses certain screeningquestions to weed out personal-auto insurance buyers whose intentis only to “rent” insurance long enough to get license tags, thenlet coverage lapse.

Pickles said research indicates that about a third of consumersnow start the insurance-buying process online. (Last year, fourmillion filled out, or started to fill out, quote-request forms onInsWeb, he said.) This indicates that such traditional forms ofadvertising as Yellow Pages and billboards are growing lesseffective, he said. “Agents are beginning to learn that having apresence on the Internet is of critical importance, if they want togrow.”

NetQuote
(www.netquote.com)
This is a lead generation service that has been around since thelate 1980s, according to President Scott Striegel. At first, itoperated as a Denver-based regional vendor, selling agents leadsgathered by various means, including radio, TV and Yellow Pagesadvertising. “When the Internet came along, it opened up atremendous opportunity for us to go nationwide,” Striegel said. InSeptember, Net Quote was acquired by two private equity firms,giving it the means to continue expanding operations.

NetQuote uses online advertising, partnerships with majorportals, “paid” search, and relationships with numerous affiliatesto drive consumers to its site. There they can request quotes forpersonal-auto (preferred, standard and nonstandard), homeowners,life and health insurance, as well as for some business-insuranceproducts, including group health. Striegel said the vendor alsosolicits consumers by e-mail but requires them to “opt-in” twice,which helps ensure they reach people really interested in gettingNetQuote's e-mail solicitation. Consumers who decide to visit thesite (whether persuaded by the e-mail solicitation or othermarketing efforts) are required to complete comprehensiveapplications to obtain quotes, Striegel said. While that probablyreduces the number of leads the site receives, he said, it ensuresthe capture of all information agents need to offer accuratequotes.

Agents can purchase leads from desired ZIP codes and forspecific product lines. “We'll give an agent a free trial to makesure they're comfortable with the type of leads we're sendingthem,” he said.

NetQuote e-mails leads to agents (or faxes them, occasionally),and increasingly sends the lead information directly into agents'rating engines. “A large part of their success is based on thespeed of their response to the consumer,” Striegel said. Obviously,insurance agents can provide quotes faster if they don't have tofirst enter prospect information into a rating program, he said.Currently the vendor integrates with five rating engines, Striegelsaid, and is negotiating with several other rating-system vendors.“It's an initiative we've had under way for about ayear-and-a-half, and it has really picked up momentum,” hesaid.

Agents pay from $1 to $15 per lead, depending on product line.Striegel said NetQuote has no cap on the number of agents to whichit sells leads but generally limits distribution of each lead to nomore than five quoting organizations, including independent agents,captive agents and direct-writer insurers.

We Speak Insurance/Hablamos Seguros
(www.wespeakinsurance.com/
www.hablamosseguros.com)
This is a lead-generation service geared to the rapidly growingHispanic market. David Stafford, an Arizona insurance agent,started it in 2004 to gather leads for his own agency. After hissite began drawing leads from all over the country, he decided tostart selling them to other agents as well.

Stafford draws traffic to his site by running banner ads onvarious Spanish language sites and pay-per-click onlineadvertising. Currently, the site draws about 2,000 leads a month,he said.

Initially, the site required consumers to fill out quoteapplications in Spanish. After noticing that many visitors startedbut did not complete the process, Stafford did a little research.As it turned out, many visitors wanted to complete the applicationsin English, because that was the language in which their currentpolicies were written, and they referred to them when filling inthe online forms.

That discovery led Stafford to make the site bilingual. Twoprominently displayed buttons enable visitors to toggle back andforth between Spanish and English at any time. They can readinformation at the site in either language and also switch betweenthem as they complete applications. For example, they can respondto form questions in Spanish, then hit the English button to see ifthe translations match what they see on their existingEnglish-language policies. Stafford noted that since Hispanicconsumers' proficiency with English varies widely, a bilingual siteis ideal for serving them.

The site permits visitors to seek quotes for eitherpersonal-lines auto or homeowners insurance. Each lead is sold toup to five agents, two of which could be independent. Beforeforwarding leads to agents, the site e-mails confirmation messagesto the consumers who have provided them. If a message isundeliverable–because a false e-mail address has been provided, forinstance–the corresponding lead is kicked out of the system and notsent to agents.

To receive leads, an agency must have at least oneSpanish-speaking licensed employee on staff during business hours.That is important not only for explaining insurance concepts inSpanish when necessary, but also for establishing rapport, Staffordsaid. Even Hispanics proficient in English often prefer to speakSpanish when chatting about their families or otherwise makingsmall talk, he noted. “It just makes them feel welcome.”

Agents pay $7 for each homeowners lead and $5 for eachpersonal-auto lead. Leads can be viewed in either English orSpanish. The information does not always include applicants' SocialSecurity numbers or driver's license numbers. Stafford said sitevisitors are sometimes hesitant to divulge such personalinformation until they actually get a chance to speak with aperson, so providing it on the forms is optional.

Precisionleads.com
(www.precisionleads.com)
This site, owned by ChoicePoint Precision Marketing, sellsprospecting lists. The leads are compiled from the vendor'sproprietary data as well as from a variety of other leadingpro-viders of data for direct marketing, said Bunny Randall, vicepresident of direct-marketing fulfillment services; they do notinclude people who have just asked for quotes at a Web site, as isthe case with other services profiled in this report.Precisionleads.com also offers turnkey direct-mail services,Randall said.

Five kinds of property-casualty personal-lines prospecting listsare available. Lists for auto and homeowners prospects includeprojected renewal dates. Separate lists identify people who haveobtained a new mortgage within the past four months, people whorecently have moved to an agent's or broker's area, and renters. Asixth prospecting list is available for small businesses (99 orfewer employees).

Leads can be purchased for pros-pects in selected ZIP codes,within a specific radius of a selected ZIP code, for a state ornationwide. Basic information consists of name and address. Phonenumbers (screened for compliance with national “Do Not Call” and“Do Not Solicit” requirements), ages, incomes and other demographicdata can be provided as well, Randall said. Lists generally areavailable to buyers online within minutes.

Agents and brokers also can arrange for direct-mail programs viathe site. The service prints materials, conducts the mailing andprocesses responses. It has standard mailers for use with the auto,homeowners and “new-neighbors” prospect lists. The service also canaccommodate requests for customized materials with logos,client-created copy, etc. A “Knowledge Center” posts articles andother information about lead management and marketingcampaigns.

Net-Lead
(www.net-lead.net)
This company was started about three years ago by a group ofagents, both independent and captive, in Plano, Texas. About 18months ago, it started marketing Agency IQ, an online prospectmanagement system.

According to Teresa Kitchens, who is Net-Lead's sales managerand also the owner of Sterling Insurance Group in Plano, the agentsfound it difficult to keep track of leads with the resources theyhad. “When someone called in, we weren't able to market to themdown the line,” she said. “(The information) was pretty much lost,unless you wrote the business, and that was a point of hugefrustration for all of us.” Consequently, the group hired their ownprogrammers to create an insurance-specific version of popularcustomer relationship management systems like Act! or GoldMine.

Kitchens said agents can submit leads to the program in almostany electronic format, including Excel spreadsheets and CSV(comma-separated values) files. Agency IQ then automatically putsall the information into appropriate fields in the CRM files, shesaid. Net-Lead also has an agreement with NetQuote that allowsleads purchased from that vendor to be automatically loaded intoAgency IQ.

After lead information is entered into the CRM system, itautomatically e-mails a customizable message to prospects, thankingthem for their interest and providing contact information, Kitchenssaid. After that, agents manage the information as they wish. Theycan send and receive e-mail messages out of the system and attachany type of files, including PDFs and JPEGs, to them. The messageis identified as coming from the agent's own server, rather thanNet-Lead's.

The CRM system keeps a chronological log of all contacts withprospects, Kitchens said, and can be used to set reminders. It alsocan be used to run marketing campaigns, using prospect files sortedby X-date or other criteria, she added.

Agency IQ is compatible with some online rating products andNet-Lead is working to make it compatible with others, Kitchens,said. It also plans an upgrade this year that would enable AgencyIQ to pre-fill commercial-lines ACORD forms for use in submissionpreparation, she said.
Net-Lead maintains backups for its servers in four states toenhance reliability, Kitchens said. It also employs a security teamand uses appropriate firewalls, she said.

Agents using Agency IQ pay a $500 deposit, Kitchens said, then amonthly per-user fee that averages about $40 for small agencies anddecreases to about $20 as the number of users rises. (Prices aresubject to change.) Agents own the data maintained in the system,she said, and have it returned to them in an Excel spreadsheet ifthey stop using the service.

Insurance Information Exchange (iiX)
(www.iix.com)
Agents not only can obtain and manage leads online these days; theyalso can use the Internet to access information to underwrite them.This is where organizations like iiX come in. For more than 20years, iiX has provided a variety of underwriting services toagents, brokers, carriers and employers. Since 2002, it has beenowned by the Insurance Services Office. According to StefanieHaggerty, sales and marketing manager, it has some 9,000 agent andbroker clients.

Agents and brokers most often use iiX's nationwide motor vehiclereport service, Haggerty said. Most obtain the MVRs via iiX'sExpressNet online service, she added. Clients are given accountnumbers and passwords to order, view and print MVRs at the vendor'ssecured site. MVRs for most states are available instantaneously.State charges for MVRs vary from $1.25 to $18 each, Haggerty said,to which iiX adds a service fee.

For customers who not only desire the current MVRs but also wantto monitor drivers, iiX offers DriverAdvisor. This service,available in certain states, notifies users whenever new activityis reported on a person's MVR. Haggerty said the service mostlyappeals to insurers, who use it in the renewal process. Some largeragents and brokers use it as well, she said.

There are several other underwriting services that agents andbrokers can access at iiX through what it calls its “Point of Sale”program. But to do so, agents must be sponsored by one or moreinsurers, Haggerty said. Also, they can access the information onlyfor anticipated business with the sponsoring carriers, she added.One such product is the A-PLUS claims history database, maintainedby ISO's American Insurance Services Group unit. The databasecontains information on property and liability claims, for bothcommercial and personal lines, submitted by insurers representing alarge majority of the marketplace. Another product identifiesundisclosed drivers in a household, as well as vehicleidentification numbers associated with a particular address.Carrier-sponsored agents and brokers also can access TransUnioncredit scores via iiX. In working with these and other services,agents and brokers can use an online chat option that enables iiXemployees to answer questions and provide other information withinseconds.

ChoicePoint
(www.choicepoint.com)
This information-services provider operates a Web-based servicecalled ChoicePointLink, which authorized agents can use to accessrisk assessment information for use in personal-lines insurancepolicy rating and issuance. To access the service, an insuranceagent must first be sponsored by a licensed insurance company, saidBill Agee, assistant vice president, and undergo credentialing toverify that the agency is valid and has been licensed by therelevant state insurance department. Typically, individual agentsare sponsored by multiple insurance companies, he said, and canaccess information for business conducted on behalf of thosecarriers. Currently, the service is used by more than 50,000agents, Agee said.

Agents can use the online service to view and print motorvehicle reports as well as reports identifying additional driversin a household. They also can access reports from the ComprehensiveLoss Underwriting Exchange (C.L.U.E.), a claims database insurersuse for underwriting and rating. Sponsored agents also can obtaincredit information that identifies a “tier” into which a prospectfalls. Actual credit scores and the report data supporting them arenot disclosed to agents, however, Agee said.

ChoicePointLink also provides direct access to PriorityRate.com.This rating product, developed and maintained by anotherChoicePoint company, integrates credit scores, motor vehicle recorddata and C.L.U.E. data from participating companies directly intothe rating process. It also provides dual sets of rates, automaticsymbol territory and protection class look-up, and automatictiering, based on company-specific criteria, Agee said. It alsoprovides access to real-time rates from participating carriers, hesaid, which are displayed in a comparative environment.