WASHINGTON--A coalition of insurance industry interests haslaunched a marketing campaign to convince independent agents toincrease their use of single sign-on software programs.

The effort was announced by Jeffrey M. Yates, ACT's (AgentsCouncil for Technology) executive director, at a press conferenceheld here during the Independent Agents & Brokers of America'sLegislative Conference and Convention last week.

Mr. Yates said a coalition of vendor software groups,independent agents and carriers have joined to promote Real Time,agency software programs systems aimed at allowing agents to accesscarrier Web sites using a single sign-on. Through theseapplications, they can interact with the carrier's Web site andtheir agency management system.

Mr. Yates said the aim of the campaign is to double the use ofprograms usage within the next two years from the current 20,000transactions per business day, a very small percentage of the dailytransactions. He said that today's usage is a 41 percent increaseover recent usage. The figure does not include transactions withcomparative rating systems.

Mr. Yates was joined at the news conference by Cal Durland, afacilitator of the ACORD-User Group Information Exchange (AUGIE)and a campaign leader; Brady Polansky, agency operations directorat Westfield Insurance; and Bob Slocum, principal of the SlocumAgency in Warwick, R.I., and chairman of ACT.

"We are pushing this as a priority," said Mr. Yates, "but thebiggest problem is getting the attention of agency principals torealize that by using Real Time it will free up time to do otherthings in the agency."

What agents will gain, said Ms. Durland, is the freedom to workat increasing sales and pursuing customer contacts instead ofspending time navigating proprietary Web sites to do business.

"They should not have to think twice about using Real Time," shesaid. "Our aim is to make it part of the normal workflow."

Using Real Time agents can realize the efficiency in theirworkflow that they have always desired, said Mr. Slocum. Thesoftware program is there; now agents and their staff need to betrained to use.

"Needing to input your ID and password continually intoproprietary systems is a major pain," said Mr. Slocum. "With RealTime that goes away."

Many have lost sight of the fact "that technology is a businessprocess and should not be a differentiator," noted Mr. Polansky. Hesaid the efficiency in technology is like plumbing--everythingshould move in one direction with the turn of a handle. In thiscase, that handle is the Real Time program within the agencymanagement system.

About 200 carriers currently participate in providing Real Timeprograms, making various degrees of applications available throughthe program, said Mr. Polansky.

There is no charge to agents for the use of the software.

Another advantage to using Real Time, said Mr. Yates, is thatthe errors and omissions exposure is reduced because the programskeep a record of transactions that proprietary systems lack.

Ms. Durland explained that all current major agency managementsystems support Real Time and that icons within these systems areavailable to access the program.

Additional information about the Real Time campaign is availableat www.getrealtime.org.