FirstBest Systems, Inc.,FirstBest Front Office Suite

The suite brings together agents and underwriters in acollaborative underwritingprocess that helps them to quote and close business. The suiteenables carriers and their distribution channels to increaseefficiencies, grow their books of business, and cast a wider net tobring in new business.

"In today's challenging environment, insurers are demanding anew approach that not only increases efficiency for the carrier,but also creates a stronger connection with the distribution channel in a way that's optimal for both," saysJohn Belizaire, co-founder and CEO of FirstBest Systems, Inc."Insurers want to go beyond the back office to drive greaterrevenue from the distribution channel. The only way to do that isto weave a seamless collaborative process from agent tounderwriting to back-end systems."

The suite brings agents, brokers, MGAs, MGUs, and underwriterstogether in a collaborative underwriting process that incorporatesbusiness rules, collaboration and knowledge management tools,activities, predictive analytics, and all of the information neededto submit, evaluate, quote and close business. In addition, theapplications enable carriers to:

• Increase efficiency - Withstraight-through processing (STP), automated workflow, businessrules and more.
• Become the "carrier ofchoice" - And grow the book of business by providingagents with true ease of doing business (EODB), faster and moreefficient quoting, and real-time collaboration between agents,brokers, MGAs, MGUs, and underwriters.
• Cast a wider net and bring in newbusiness - By broadening market appeal and supportingdifferent distribution and process models for different marketsegments (e.g., STP for lower-margin business).
• Lower the loss ratio with greaterunderwriting discipline - Foster underwriting disciplineand best practices by automating underwriting rules, workflows,letters of authority, and referrals to streamline and driveconsistency throughout the process.
• Scale the business with greateragility - Increase business without a correspondingincrease in expense, bring products to market faster and gainreal-time visibility.

"We've designed the new FirstBest Front Office Suite to meet andexceed the needs of carriers and agents," says Joseph Pilkerton,co-founder and COO of FirstBest Systems. "With the suite's modularapplications, shared Web services, and proven deploymentmethodology, FirstBest and our partners can rapidly deploy thesuite at a much lower TCO."

The Suite includes three collaborative underwritingapplications:

• FirstBest Underwriting Management System(UMS)
• FirstBest Agent .
• FirstBest AppReader