Steven Aronson believes there are two levels of productivitythat the use of a single sign-on solution can bring to independentinsurance agencies such as Aronson Insurance, where he serves aspresident.

“One is it is going to save between a half hour to an hour aweek to set or look up staff passwords because single sign-onincludes the self-resetting of passwords,” says Aronson. “Inaddition, while there is no new tool for productivity, it'sallowing the staff to feel more comfortable and make it easier touse Transact Now, the real-time inquiry tool, than it ever wasbefore.”

The Vertafore Single Sign-on solution has quickly demonstratedadvantages for Aronson and other agencies, according to BruceWinterburn, vice president of industry relations for Vertafore.

“It's really just the first step in Vertafore's contribution towhat will be a much larger initiative with the ID Federation.” Hesays. “The Vertafore mechanism is to have a single sign-on withinthe Vertafore suite, but that password is intended and built to thespecs of the federation.”

The ID Federation is an insurance and financial servicesorganization designed to solve the problems many insurance agenciesface with multiple sign-ins and passwords.

“This allows [Vertafore] to participate in the ID Federation,”says Winterburn. “There are several carriers participating and wehave side projects going on with them. Once you are logged on tothat carrier and they are federated we will be able to recognizethat password within our system. Not only would you have a commonpassword within that Vertafore suite of products, but that passwordeventually opens the door for the other carriers that part of thefederation as well.”

Insurance carriers have to retool the way they handle passwordsand the method of validation and identification of users, accordingto Winterburn, and they are still in the early stages of theproject.

“For that to work, all the participants have to adopt afederated ID platform,” he says. “The federation has set a standardof security we all can live by and these are trusted partnerswithin our enterprise. As long as they are a registered partner weare going to be able to use that information to log them into thesystem.”

Winterburn reports that approximately 75percent of the relevant carriers are either participating or are inthe process of joining the federation, but he points out, “Youdon't just sign up, they have to build a product to create afederated ID.”

Karen Love, bookkeeper for Aronson Insurance, agrees with thatestimate. Of the 20 carriers that Aronson normally works with, 15are supporting single sign-on.

“”Those that aren't participating yet are the assigned riskpools and the state fair plans for purchasing homeowners,” shesays. “Their budget constraints are such that they aren't likely toinvest in something like this just yet.”

Winterburn claims he has been preaching for years that the moreinsurers tighten security and the more onerous they make thepasswords, the less secure the industry actually is.

“We got to the point where you can't do without posted notes,”he says. “More than likely, the passwords are written on a piece ofpaper and that's not acceptable. With agencies managing 20 or 30passwords and the passwords expire within 30 or 60 days there is noway to keep track of that.”

Aronson agrees that agencies need to realize security is stillextremely important so in is incumbent on them that networkpasswords expire and they need to be complex enough so they are nottoo simple for anyone to figure out.

“Any account manager in most good agencies can at least remembertheir Windows password and once they are in the system we needtrading partners that trust we have done the right job to allowthem into our systems,” he says. “If they make it too difficultthere will be more cheating [with post-it notes. Single sign-on isa reasonable balance.”

Winterburn believes what will spur single sign-on is theemerging technology such as mobile capabilities, particularly forconsumers.

“If you don't have something like single sign-on and the abilityto manage passwords, you have to be able to move seamlessly carrierto carrier and step by step to enable the consumer to service someof their own policies or have a better look into their policyinformation,” he says. “All of that is contingent on the passwordto get into the system.”

Aronson jumped on the Vertafore solution because his agencyleans toward being an early adopter of technology.

“Not only do we get the benefit of new technology earlier, butwe also get a chance to verbalize our frustrations and that oftenend in tweaks and design changes that make for better tools for theend users,” he says. “We also get a little more hand holding oninstallation time.”