First Best Systems, Inc., a provider of insurance softwaresolutions for global insurance carriers, announces it has beenawarded two patents by the United States Patent and TrademarkOffice.

The patents include systems and methods delivered in theFirstBest UMS underwriting management system and agent/brokerportal, related to underwriting authority management, automation,and real-time collaboration.

The protected innovations, core to the company's Front OfficeSuite for insurance, are designed to drive revenue growth andincrease profitability across the enterprise, while improving easeof business with the distribution channel.

The FirstBest Front Office Suite combines an underwritingworkstation and a business analyst workstation with a Web 2.0agent/broker portal for commercial- and specialty-linescarriers.

FirstBest UMS helps carriers deploy products to keep up withmarket shifts and customer demand. It streamlines processes,captures the knowledge of experienced underwriters, helps maintainbest practices, and enforces rules. FirstBestAgent provides a transactional agent/broker portal thatfacilitates new business and renewals. The portal speedssubmissions, increases agent/broker productivity, providesvisibility into the book of business, and enables agents andbrokers to provide customer service.

The two patents granted to FirstBest Systems, numbers 8,073,716and 8,073,717, include business-centric systems and methods thatpower the company's Front Office Suite, such as real-timecollaboration, underwriting notes, concurrent editing of theapplication, and managing changes, and the FirstBest Configurator'sability to maintain forms and rules using an intuitive businessanalyst user interface.

Specific patented functionality includes the underwritingdesktop and agent/broker user interface designs in FirstBest UMSand Agent Respectively, as well as:

• Automation of underwriting rules for risk appetite,pre-qualification and risk evaluation
• Underwriting letters of authority management
• Risk- and class-specific underwriting checklists
• Internal and external collaboration for the underwritingprocess
• Automation of the referral process
• Knowledge management

"FirstBest's mission is to innovate and provide our customerswith new, powerful and intuitive solutions for their mostchallenging problems," says Julian Pelenur, CTO and founder ofFirstBest Systems. "Since our founding five years ago, wehave continuously developed technologies and processesthat help our customers to drive growth and excellence across theirbusiness operations. We are proud to be recognized for ourunderwriting inventions and look forward to delivering new andmeaningful solutions for the industry."