It’s more fun than ever these days to be an insurance agent orbroker—and more productive to boot. Thanks to a wealth ofinnovative apps, agents have at their disposals new and morerefined ways to better serve their customers, enhance theirmarketing messages and reduce operational costs.

One of the more enterprising agents who puts significant stockin the value presented by apps is Mark Mischenko, chief operatingofficer at the Bedford, N.Y.-based agency Lloyd Bedford Cox. Healways has been at the leading edge of the next big technologymovement, and these days he is especially excited about apps.

Related: Read the article "App Attck" by MelissaHillebrand.

"I remember the first time I really got excited abouttechnology," Mischenko said. "I was sitting at an Applied Systemsuser conference, and saw these dual monitors. I had just gone to aBlackBerry phone and it hit me—we can become paperless if we want.Today, we have three monitors on nearly everyone’s desks, not two.We’re great believers in leveraging technology to maximize ourefficiency. And lately we’re doing just that through several appswe’ve downloaded."

Lloyd Bedford Cox’s mainstay business is personal lines forhigh-net-worth families. Less than 50 miles north of Manhattan, theagency offers personal risk management and insurance services andproducts to hedge funds, private equity firms, securities firms andinvestment banks, among others. "These are highly sophisticatedbusinesses whose employees use a vast amount of technology in theirdaily work," said Mischenko, an agent for the past 12 years. "Weneed to ensure that our agency is not behind the eight ball withour own technology solutions, and this applies to our current wideuse of apps."

Growing Appetite

The agency began experimenting with different softwareapplications in 2007, when Mischenko purchased Apple’s firstiPhone. He has since upgraded to the latest iPhone, the 4S, and isusing the iPad 2, along with others in the firm. Although theagency’s desktops are 100 percent Windows-based, one of the keytools he relies on is the Apple Mail mobile application, whichallows him to sync his Microsoft Exchange email, calendars,contacts and folders. For mobile employees and the sales team, thismeans that their computer workstations, phones, laptops, and otherdevices are all on the same page—literally.

Related: See the slideshow "An Agent's Guide to Insuring ClassicCars."

The only fly in the ointment was the agency’s email. "Prior tohaving a Microsoft Exchange server, if we deleted something on oneof our mobile devices we’d have to then delete it on theworkstations—not the most productive way to conduct business,"Mischenko said. All of that has changed in recent months, however."Now everything is synced up perfectly and is available in realtime no matter the technology and no matter where I am—in theoffice or on the train."

Another app Mischenko uses is MotionX-GPSDrive. Available in the iTunes App Store for download, it’s areal-time navigation app that offers live voice directions. "It’s agreat utility when I’m traveling from one account to another," hesaid. "No matter where I am there’s somebody telling me where to gonext."

Apple did not develop GPS Drive, but it did create two otherapps on which the agent relies. The first is Numbers, which hasversion for the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. It allows agents tocreate and edit spreadsheets whenever they may be. Even on a smalldevice like an iPhone, the data is clear and easy to use.

The same applies to Pages, an Apple product that lets Mischenkocreate sharp-looking letters, reports, invitations and evenadvertising flyers on his phone or tablet. "It’s still amazing tome that I can open and edit Word or create an Excel spreadsheet onmy phone," Mischenko said. "Before, I’d have to lug around a laptopand find a WiFi hot spot, which ate up a lot of time. I’d belooking around for the nearest Starbucks to plug in."

Related: Read the article "Weathering the Storm" byJeffrey R. Wyrsch.

More recently, he added two new tools to his arsenal ofapps—Dropbox and Box. The former, also downloadable from the iTunesApp Store is a free service that lets users download their photos,documents and videos, which are then automatically saved on boththe Dropbox website and across all of the user’s Windows and Mac OScomputers and a variety of mobile devices. "Dropbox even savesstuff to my wife’s iMac," Mischenko said. "And you don’t just see asaved file, it is truly downloaded, meaning you can access it,change it, save it again—whatever is needed."

There is a drawback to the app, however. "If, for example, Ihave my admin upload a client proposal to me, I can only access itif I’m in a WiFi hot spot or have 3G service," he said.

That’s where Box for both the iPhone and iPad comes in. The appallows simple and secure sharing from anywhere, permitting users tosend big files quickly and store them easily online. Users canaccess the content on the go and collaborate with others. "Itreally changed the client meetings for me," Mischenko said. "I nolonger have to print out and carry a `tree’ of paper with me. Itupped my game."

Also upping the game for other agents like Mischenko is a newapp for the iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry called ClassicCar Guide. The app helps agents servicing classic car collectors toperuse recent sales figures on a particular vintage car and topinpoint an appropriate value for insurance purposes. This isup-to-the-minute data, since thousands of recent collectible carsales are recorded regularly in the app. A client will know all theinformation he or she needs to establish the car’s worth, prior tosale or afterwards.

A Workforce of One

In the course of a given workday, Mischenko might tap into allthe apps crowding his iPhone and iPad. "Say I need to go to aclient’s new home under construction," he said. "I get voicedirections there and then notice they have fire extinguishers onthe site, which I didn’t know about. I can snap a photo or make avideo, have the client’s insurance proposal sent to me, make anadjustment to it that references the fire extinguishers, and thensend it all off to the carrier. Everything that has just happenedin my iPhone has now happened in all our computers. It’s prettyremarkable."