Achieving technological sophis-tication is a challenge thatfaces both carriers and agents, particularly when it comes todealing with Web portals and the elusive real time. Both sideswould like to attain a better working relationship, but neither isabsolutely certain the other side has the right idea. Nowhere isthat more true than with the fuzzy phrase ease of doingbusiness.

Marilyn Norman, senior vice president of IT/operations for theThomas Rutherfoord, Inc., agency, has looked at life from bothsides of the industry. She has spent half her working career on theagency front and the other half toiling with carriers. "I know whatit's like to be hamstrung with legacy systems and bandaging themtogether to make them work and deal with all the reinsurance andstorm issues and distribution, particularly in a soft market," shesays.

Norman realizes the relationship between carriers and agents canbe painful. "Here's where it is difficult being on [the agency]side of the equation," she says. "Each carrier wants its ownplatform and its own portal to be easy. Unfortunately, each carrierhas its own view of ease of doing business. [Carriers] may havemade it easier for [themselves] to get material in or forcematerial out, but they haven't done anything that is different forour side."

Angelyn S. Treutel, vice president of Treutel Insurance AgencyInc. and chair of IIABA's Agents Council for Technology (ACT),believes carrier portals have complicated agency workflows."Several years ago, an agent could complete one ACORD applicationand fax it to multiple carriers for quotes," she says. "Today,since many carriers have developed their own unique portals, theagent has more work requiring duplicate and triplicate data entryinto various Web sites along with staff training to learn all thedifferent Web site navigation."

Most carriers provide the capability for quoting and servicingpolicies through their portals, points out Treutel, but the portalsare not as efficient as using real-time interfaces with theagency's management system. Also, she asserts carriers do too muchtinkering with their portals, which places a burden on agencies forstaff training.

Treutel describes real time as the ability to click on a buttonfrom a client file in an agency management system or comparativerater for immediate access to carrier information on that client.The transaction may be a quote, billing inquiry, claim inquiry/lossruns, policy view, endorsements, or a request for information."This approach provides a single workflow for servicing orquoting," she says.

Carriers that are really agent-friendly are utilizing real-timeinterfaces to integrate with an agency's management system,continues Treutel. This allows existing data to be transmittedbetween carriers and agents for quoting and servicing, which savestime, effort, and money for both carriers and agents, she adds.

Jeff Yates, executive director of ACT, agrees the top priorityfor many agencies would be for carriers to adopt real-timecapabilities so agents can work in a consistent way to getinformation, whether it is billing, claims, loss run, or electronicpolicy views. "[Agents] don't want to go searching around the Website," he says.

The real-time campaign and marketing effort that independentagents have conducted is starting to have some impact, according toSteve Anderson, an agency consultant and president of the AndersonNetwork. He claims he is seeing more carriers demonstrate aninterest in developing real-time capabilities. In the past, whathe's observed mainly has been carriers developing their proprietaryWeb site, and that is where agents can go to get the functionalitythey need. The frustration level on the agency side stems fromagents having to do that for five to 10 carriers, creatingsignificant workflow problems. "I call them old problems we'veheard for many years, but I'm starting to see some glimmers of hopeor change on both sides," he says.

"My dream would be somehow–and it may be through an independentthird party–to build a platform to help support end-to-endprocessing," says Norman. Such a plan would put information in aCRM database that would populate her agency system, which should beable to upload an application to a carrier, then allow [thecarrier] to download a quote to her, and then issue a policy intothe agency's paperless environment, she explains. "I may not livelong enough to see that, but to me that would representtransformational ease of doing business," she says.

Such a project would have to be developed by a third party,Norman believes, and she thinks the main impediment is findingsomeone willing to invest in such a plan with confidence it wouldpay off financially at some point in time. She is convinced it isneeded, though. "When I look at our business I think it is terriblyinefficient and riddled with unnecessary, non-value-added expense,"she says. "There is a lot of duplicate entry."

If agents are working on a midsize account and want to send itto The Hartford, Travelers, and Chubb, Norman points out, it has tobe sent in three versions. "If we had a virtual platform where wecould put [the business] and the carriers could pull it in and workon a proposal, I don't think it would be impossible to build," shesays. "The big issue is who is going to pay for it."

On the other side of the fence, Angelica Lopez, vice president,strategic planning, for Tower Group Insurance Companies, claims hercompany's agents–a mix of retail and wholesale–rave about thecarrier's portal. She contends one reason for its success is it wasdeveloped as a collaborative effort with the insurer's brokers. "Wehad a beta group that participated in the development, and itactually was involved in building [the portal]," she says.

Tower Group is learning as it rolls out the portal in differentstates that the skill level of agents is varied. "Our brokers herein New York were used to Web portals with other companies," shesays. "When we go to other states, sometimes we have to hold thebrokers' hands."

Using the portal for personal lines products has been relativelyeasy for Tower Group's brokers in terms of data capture. Thecarrier held back commercial package policies as the last line toroll out. "We saved the hardest for last," says Lopez. "It'shardest because of all the data input. We're learning along theway."

For its small commercial and personal lines, Rutherfoord workswell with the carriers that are automated, reports Norman. Theagency uses TransactNOW to gain more efficiency. In addition,because Rutherfoord is in a paperless environment, if the carrierissues the policy and puts it on its Web portal, the agency can getaccess to the electronic file. "That's been a huge help," saysNorman. "Unfortunately, most of our revenue doesn't come from smallbusiness and personal lines. We have not seen that same type ofefficiency improvement when we are in middle market."

With commercial lines, files have gotten so large that when theagency attaches loss runs and schedules, it has to create a URL tomake the file available for the underwriters. "We have to create alink and provide that to the underwriters so they can bypass oure-mail system and pull down the submission," says Norman. "We askthem to respond back in like kind. We recognized how slow oure-mail system would run when we sent in a big submission."

Rutherfoord also is working with carriers to minimize the numberof user IDs and passwords to click through to get loss runs oraccess a portal. "The number of user IDs and passwords, just due tothe sheer number of companies we represent, is huge," saysNorman.

Anderson believes comparative rating is at the top of the listof things agencies need from carriers. Some agents prefer to usetheir agency management system to achieve this, and others are fineusing other tools, but the bottom line is they want to enter theinformation once and get quotes from the carriers they represent,he adds. "[Duplicate entry] is a significant time waster both forpersonal lines and small commercial," Anderson says.

Another issue Anderson feels is equally important to agencies isthe delivery of documents from the carrier to the agency. With therise of more sophisticated document management systems andprocesses within an agency, carriers still are using some difficultdelivery mechanisms, claims Anderson. "I've counted at least sixdifferent methods carriers use to deliver those documents," hesays. "That creates workflow issues on the agency side. For thoseagencies not ready to work in that environment, there isfrustration. They get the PDF file and have to print it out."

The brokers who work with Tower Group Insurance Companies wantedfaster service; they wanted to get quotes in real time; and theywanted the ability to bind right away with a policy number, Lopeznotes. The carrier needed a Web front end that would snap on to thefront of a carrier's company management system. The installation ofthe portal product from AgencyPort has proven to be beneficialfinancially to the carrier in that the carrier minimally increasedits staff as business has grown because it was able to push a lotof that work out to the agents, explains Lopez.

Agents log on to Tower Group's front-end Web portal and quicklycan receive a quote for a homeowners policy. "The business rulesalready are in place," she says. "[Agencies] can bid it, get apolicy number, and get the first bill." The system has worked wellfor Tower Group's home-owners, commercial auto, workers'compensation, and commercial auto lines, but the carrier learnedlarger commercial risks are more complicated. "There are so manyadd-on pieces and variables," says Lopez. "We came up with asmaller version of a package policy, and we are in the midst ofrolling that out to our brokers now."

Companies that are less than four years old hardly seem to beprime candidates for redoing their agent-facing Web site, but BarryCordeiro, senior vice president and CIO of SUA Insurance, relatesthe company was in a rush to get open for business and put up a Website without spending much time on its particular pieces.

When SUA began working on the revisions, Cordeiro felt it wasimportant to make the carrier's Web site and those of itsdistribution partners perform well together. "What typically wouldhappen is a retail agent would go to our distribution partner andthere would be a bunch of questions about the carrier–financialstrength and that sort of stuff," says Cordeiro. "There was anatural tie from our distribution partners, what you would callMGAs, back to the carrier."

SUA brought in a PR and marketing firm to help with thecarrier's branding strategy and to discover where SUA could sendthe appropriate message in the marketplace. The marketing peopleinterviewed all of the SUA distribution partners and some retailagents. "It was critical not only to get our brand recognition butto make the partner agent's Web presence more vital and useful tothe retail agents who would be seeking out these opportunities,"says Cordeiro.

As the carrier redesigned its Web site, it became evident someof its partner agents had better Web sites than others. "Weactually launched some joint efforts with our new partner agentswho didn't have a good Web presence, and we helped them design anew Web site for themselves," says Cordeiro. "In doing that, wefelt there was a big advantage to drive our brand into their site.Their sites are controlled by them, but if people found ourprograms, it would be smooth, useful, and informative. We createdgood landing page opportunities on their Web sites."

The SUA site educates people on market segments, what the risksare, and what the carrier is providing. Since SUA manages theclaims, there is a link from the partner agent sites to SUA's claimservicing operations where policyholders can pick up first reportof loss and other forms. SUA also provides marketing material forthe partner agents to use. "We put it in a form they can print andtake with them, so we aren't constantly in the business ofproducing brochures and sending them out," says Cordeiro.

The soft market has made life difficult for carriers and agentsalike, reports Yates. "It's tough for both sides to grow," he says."More carriers are seeing the importance of ease of doing businesswith agents as a way for them to grow." He claims there is muchmore interest from carriers these days in determining what agentswant, including: What are the agents' business requirements? How dothe agents want certain workflows to work? What are the pain pointsagents currently have?

Yates contends the nub of the issue is the different levels oftechnology used by both sides. "A number of agents say [only] someof their carriers have real time, so why should they adopt it untilall carriers have it," he says. "The reality is even if only someof your companies have it, you save a lot of time by using it. Youwork better when you work in a real-time mode to do atransaction."

Yates would like the management system vendors to move faster onthe technology they make available to their agents, but thevendors, like carriers, are dealing with legacy systems they haveto convert to a real-time world. "From an agency standpoint, we'dlike to see vendors and carriers move faster," he says. "Infairness, they come back and say the agents aren't moving fastenough in adopting new technologies."

Doug Johnston, vice president of partner relations and productinnovation for Applied Systems, doesn't agree his company is notdoing enough to facilitate better communications between agenciesand vendors. A recent survey of Applied customers showedapproximately 65 percent were utilizing real time on a daily basiswith their insurance companies. "People always say they want more,and we try to develop everything we can, but the problem is wemight see one agency with six people using it and one person notusing it," he says. "Part of the work we are doing is to createmore awareness in the agencies about what is available. We were theoriginators of the whole [real-time] concept. There is no barrierto it in our products. There are 118 carriers that offer real timethrough Applied products."

Anderson agrees some of the agency management system vendors aredealing with the same issues as the carriers. "If you look atApplied, its flagship system is 25 years old," he says. "For a lotof agencies, it works great, but for others, it's just not workinganymore. There are too many things they can't do or take advantageof. [Other major providers] have similar issues. There are a coupleof new vendors bringing out Web-based platforms to take advantageof new technology, but it's taking time to get a foothold. Vendorshave a difficult balancing act, similar to the carriers."

Johnston explains the real-time services really are Webservices, and they sit externally to the agency management system."We realized if we had to imbed the Web services that communicateACORD messages within our agency management systems it would be aburgeoning control nightmare," he says. "If you look at all thedifferent ACORD messages and all the different versions, you wouldspend all your time trying to manage that."

That led to the decision to externalize it as a Web service andthen allow each of Applied's management systems to attach to thoseWeb services at the time of communication. "From that respect, ouragency management system is a very modern service," he says.

The use of Web services has erased any concerns about legacysystems, according to Johnston. "Our systems are very modern andup-to-date," he says. "We externalized the Web servicescommunication so we could do rapid deployment. That way, when thereis a new ACORD format available for real-time communication, it canget posted up to the central Web service without having to go backand reprogram any of the back-end agency systems. The insurancecarriers can specify which version of ACORD real time they want toreceive from the Web service so they're not as volatile,either."

Anderson admits to being prejudiced toward the agencies, but hebelieves many agencies are more advanced technologically thancarriers. "They are ready, willing, and able to do things carrierswon't allow yet," he says, pointing out agencies typically aresmaller organizations, so they can move faster. Also, carriers havethe legacy system issue. "I certainly understand their viewpointthat if the systems work, why change them," he says. But Andersonalso suggests what carriers are running into is the aging IT workforce. "They know COBOL, but they don't understand Web 2.0 or AJAXand the other technologies that really help streamlinecommunication," he says. "You have an older IT work force who justdoesn't get it."

Norman describes herself as an eternal optimist. She feels thatway because of what she has seen accomplished through the use ofservice centers and ACORD standards and forms. "When I see peoplehave recognized the use of ACORD forms makes better sense thaneveryone having proprietary applications, that's a huge step," shesays. "The next step is to take the innovative products andprocesses they are using in the service centers and move them upmarket. I think we will be able to start exchanging data and thenspend our time on negotiation of price and coverage."

She believes pressure from analysts and shareholders to makeeveryone more efficient will force that type of innovation. "Ithink we'll have exponential improvement over the next five years,"she says. "It's a pain in the neck right now when [the technology]is not there. It's right around the corner, but it's a heck of abend."