Insurance agency technology leaders are rarely wunderkinds,transforming their operations overnight, as the best and brightestare usually those who make a long-term commitment of money andbrainpower, and constantly upgrade their capabilities to keep aheadof the competition.

The Daly Merritt Insurance Agency is one such committed outfit,earning an Honorable Mention in the “2009 NU Agency TechnologyAchievement Award” program, run in partnership with the ACORD LOMAInsurance Systems Forum, taking place in Orlando thisweek.

The agency's unwavering commitment over the years has meantsubstantial investments in the latest technology, as well asdeveloping a culture that involves everyone from the “bottom up” inplanning and due diligence.

Their mission is to incorporate tech to achieve greaterefficiency while providing an exemplary customer serviceexperience.

“Our overall goal is to enhance our technology so that we have amore efficient office workflow, resulting in more time beingdevoted to our clients,” the Wyandotte, Mich.-based agency said inits award essay.

In technology terms, Daly Merritt's commitment includes keepingup with the latest systems and enhancements. The firm is armed withAMS360 (agency management), CBD Doc (document management), BenefitPoint (benefits management) and Zywave (a software system allowingclients to set up Web pages for participants to review theirbenefits).

The agency–which produced $57 million in premiums last year,comprised of $29.7 million in commercial lines, $3.3 million inpersonal lines, and $24 million in life and health business–employsthe AGENA SQL server for its technology needs, and protects itsdata and systems with Kaspersky Anti-Virus–which updatesdefinitions every 30 minutes.

“Our enhanced hardware and software have given us an advantageover other agencies because we have been able to incorporateelectronic files for all of our client information and policiesstored on our AMS and CBD Doc servers, which can be accessed by anyemployee within our agency,” the essay noted. “We do not spendprecious time searching through paper files to obtain informationto process our clients' requests.”

The agency said it “takes into consideration the return oninvestment on each system we investigate and install. Provided theproposed system allows our employees to work more efficiently,automate everyday processes and devote more time to our clients, weembrace the technology changes with open arms. This, in turn,provides us the competitive edge needed in our marketplace.”

The desire to make a major commitment to technology wasinstilled in the four brothers and principals of Daly Merritt bytheir father, the late Thomas J. Daly.

Martin F. Daly, vice president for commercial insurance,explained that when his father made a commitment to growing theagency decades ago, it was his decision at that time to facilitatethat growth with the best technology available.

The sons–Martin Daly, Joseph S. Daly (president and generalcounsel), James P. Daly (vice chairman) and John L. Daly (vicepresident, life and benefits)–have followed their father'slead.

“[He] was leading technology way back then,” said Martin Daly,relating how their father and his partner, Wally Merritt, wanted toput Wang monitors on every customer service representative's deskback in the 1970s, despite the expense of what at the time wasconsidered a luxury purchase.

“It's a natural progression. We have just continued to alwayswant to be the best in this area–and frankly, to be the best in anyarea we can in this industry,” he explained.

Daly Merritt's commitment to keeping technology current goesbeyond just the financial investment. A decade ago the firm decidedto add brainpower–hiring an agency information technology director,Melissa Armatis, with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science fromthe University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Every commitment to technology has its challenges over theyears. Chief among them, according to Martin Daly, is how to informclients about the investment the firm has made on their behalf andthe resulting tech tools available to them.

Employees are an integral part of tech changes internally andclearly see the difference, he noted, but making clients understandhow tech can distinguish one agency from another is a biggerchallenge that's a critical part of Daly Merritt's salesprocess.

The agency focuses its tech capability marketing onlarge-revenue clients who have grown in technology sophisticationthemselves as their businesses have expanded, Joseph Dalyexplained. These customers are more cognizant of the investmentsthe agency made and appreciate how the upgrades benefit them, headded.

Technology also helps the agencyachieve its biggest goal–to grow the business, said Joseph Daly.Indeed, the agency's tech infrastructure has helped attract newblood to the firm, as with the efficiencies achieved, newlyacquired business can be more easily assimilated, he explained,thus facilitating growth.

When learning new tech applications, Ms. Armatis said DalyMerritt has developed a team approach to educate employees, forminginternal user groups–or “power users,” as she calls them–that makecertain workers experts in an application, and who serve as aresource for others.

“We adopt the 'train the trainer' technique,” the agency said inits essay. “We have converted our largest conference room into atraining room to hold monthly user group meetings that ensure ouremployees are up-to-date on the latest versions of all our softwareprograms.”

These meetings serve as an open forum to evaluate and considercurrent and future tech applications, while also functioning as duediligence to evaluate systems and help decide if they are a goodfit for the agency, noted Ms. Armatis.

“Employees provide ideas,” said Joseph Daly. “It is a bottom-upapproach to know how we can make their job easier.”

Of course, tech upgrades take not just brains but cash. Afterreviewing what the most successful agencies spend on tech, themanagement at Daly Merritt decided it was not investing enough tobe where it wanted to be, according to Joseph Daly.

Thus, the firm devised a plan more than five years ago to devote4 percent of its annual revenue to technology–2 percent forday-to-day expenses, and another 2 percent for capitalinvestments.

Another commitment Daly Merritt has made is to become paperless.Investing in the CBD Document Management System earlier this year,the agency is moving away from paper, in-putting recent documentswhile gradually capturing old documents and shredding them afterthey are copied.

Helping to achieve this goal is the commitment to interactingwith their carriers via “real time” technology, which eventually“eliminates binders of paper,” said Martin Daly. He creditedPhiladelphia Insurance Companies with a significant partnership inthis area, including allowing client access to data on a 24-hourbasis.

“They are an example of what many others are not doing,” heobserved. “It is a slow-moving process at the carrier level.”

Even though the agency is far removed from what one would thinkof as a catastrophe-prone area, Daly Merritt has invested in adisaster recovery system.

Utilizing SMART Mail Defense and Web Defense, and SMART backupand disaster recovery, critical data is backed-up every 15 minutesto an off-site system, dispelling concern with losing a day's workif there is a fire or failure of the electric power grid before theend of the day.

“Our exposure is not extreme, but we still felt after ourresearch of the system that the security far outweighed the cost,”said Joseph Daly.

The system also offers virtual access, allowing employees towork from home if a disaster or some other emergency keeps themaway from the office, Ms. Armatis pointed out.

Reflecting on the agency's culture, Joseph Daly said that “ourgoal is to always overserve the client, because otherwise we cannotdifferentiate ourselves from all the other agencies inMichigan.”

On the technology side, with respect to implementation, hecontinued, “we have adopted the crawl, walk and runapproach–meaning for us, we had to learn it first, we had to walkthrough it, and now we're on the run.”