The use of third-party agency management systems is growingamong participants in the excess and surplus lines sector of theproperty-casualty insurance industry, a recent survey shows.

The National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices,Ltd. in Kansas City, Mo., said its poll of wholesaler broker andMGA members found only 11 percent used in-house systems for agencymanagement and accounting, with the rest using systems purchasedfrom outside vendors.

NAPSLO noted that the in-house figure had dropped since 2003,the year of the last NAPSLO technology survey, when 20 percentreported using in-house systems or custom programs.

Among third-party vendors, San Antonio-based Custom InsuranceSolutions (CIS) was the most popular, with 24 percent of wholesalebroker respondents and 20 percent of MGAs saying their agencysystems were from CIS systems.

The NAPSLO survey, which was conducted in February by theassociation's Communications and Technology Committee, alsocaptured responses from insurance company members on other topicswhere applicable.

For example, company members, responding to a question about thetop priorities of their information technology staffs, listedpolicy issuance and rating as a top priority, with 80 percentchoosing that among a choice of issues.

In contrast, for wholesalers, the top issue was security, with55 percent of wholesalers saying this was a top issue, followed bygoing paperless, which garnered 45 percent of the responses.

For MGAs, the top issue was developing a Web portal, selected by49 percent of MGAs surveyed. Going paperless and tighteningsecurity were also key issues on the minds of MGAs, with 45 percentsaying paper reduction was a top focus of their IT staffs, and 42percent selecting security.

IT budgets were tighter for wholesalers and MGAs than companies,with 63 percent of wholesalers and 46 percent of MGAs saying thattheir 2006 IT budgets comprised 0-3 percent of their net revenues,while only 38 percent of companies fell in that 0-3 percent. Amongcompany respondents, 50 percent said 3-5 percent of 2006 revenueswere budgeted for IT.

In answer to a related question, 40 percent of wholesalers andMGAs reported having no in-house IT employees, while 100 percent ofcompanies have five or more.

Responding to a question about how agents send policyinformation, nearly everyone said they received such informationvia e-mail. Fax and snail-mail are also still popular vehicles forsending information, with nearly 90 percent of wholesalers and MGAsreceiving information via fax, and around 60 getting informationvia postal mail.

The latest survey and the 2003 report, which are available inthe Technology section of NAPSLO's Web site at napslo.org, alsoaddress reliance on ACORD and in-house standards, vendor choicesfor policy management/processing systems among MGAs and carriers,security procedures, data access, imaging systems, and othertechnology-related items.