Agents Embrace Web For Client Service, But Still Have A Long Way To Go Online

However, agents do appear to be positioning themselves to handle simple customer service applications online to provide continuous access to information for clients, observed Rick Gilman, vice president, corporate communications for Pearl River, N.Y.-based ACORD, a standards organization focusing on the insurance industry. Technology, he said, is allowing the independent agent to provide a type of customer service that was never available before the Web.

Some agents are already putting that concept to work.

After struggling for close to four years with what they wanted their Web site content to be, the Cheney Insurance Agency in Damariscotta, Maine, found an answer, said Dennis Hilton, its operations manager. They turned to Web provider idNET (www.goidnet.com) headquartered in Simsbury, Conn., to get them there.

What the agency decided upon was a Web site that enables customers to access basic information about the agency, its location and the staff, said Mr. Hilton. Personal lines clients have access to a customer service center to obtain policy information, make limited changes to their policies, and print out insurance identification cards, he explained.

What drew the agency to idNET was that the site also serves a community function, Mr. Hilton noted. Among the benefits for site visitors are finding a registered hunting or fishing guide in Maine, viewing the local weather forecast, finding news on local and national events, or locating Web links and information about the local school board.

"The key for us was coming to the realization that it was more important to farm out [Web site management] than to do it in house," Mr. Hilton observed. "Coming to that decision was an important turning point for us."

Making life easier for their commercial clients was the motivation behind the drive by David Schuppler and Associates to make customer service available over the Web.

Three years ago, Mr. Schuppler, president and principal of the Milwaukee-based agency, decided he would put together an Internet business plan with the emphasis on providing customer service. His customers today can submit claims online, change the auto or driver on their policies, review group medical accounts, or submit applications online for performance bonds and more.

Clients, explained Mr. Schuppler, fill out an online ACORD form, which is transmitted to the agencys server. A transmission log is made so the agency will later know to review the submission. The agency, again with the help of idNET, is working to build a hyper-link to companies that would accept the ACORD forms directly.

To make customers aware of what the agency was making available to them, clients were invited to attend a seminar where the agency explained the convenience it was offering. The customers were given a live presentation on how they could access their accounts, using their individual passwords, and go about using the Internet to their advantage.

While a few customers have taken advantage of the Web facility since it became available in August of last year, said Mr. Schuppler, there are some telling indications about how and when customers use the service.

Tracking customers e-mails, of the approximate 50 to 60 messages sent on a daily basis, the greatest number arrives at about 7:15 p.m., with some coming in as late as 11 p.m., Mr. Schuppler said. Commercial accounts often use the service on Saturday between 7:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m., after agency office hours, he observed.

The times that clients use the service indicate that the agencys customers, especially small-business customers, need to do their insurance transactions at times when the office is closed, Mr. Schuppler said. He added that he expects that as his clients become more familiar with the Internet, the number of users will grow.

"Not all of our customers want to do this, but there is a clear market segment that do [want to] and feel it is important," said Mr. Schuppler. "It is necessary to give them the choice. The whole point of this is to give [the customer] the opportunity to determine how they want to be served and that is important."

A group of independent agents looking to leverage technology to help one another with hard-to-place insurance business is named InsureHelp. The Warwick, N.Y.-based business-to-business program helps independent agents throughout the country, said Keith Savino, president of InsureHelp and partner in Warwick Resource Group, also in Warwick.

Using the Internet, a group of independent wholesale agents and brokers work together placing specialty business amongst themselves–creating a virtual agency, as Mr. Savino called it.

The unique types of risk the site places include such products as hole-in-one insurance (insuring payment of a prize in a golf tournament should a contestant make a hole-in-one), fine wine collection, and jewelry exhibitors.

The plan, said Mr. Savino, is to grow the site slowly, attracting new agents and brokers with unique programs. "We have rolled out slowly by design for all of our principals to give them time to do it right," Mr. Savino said.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, August 20, 2001. Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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