Tech Enables Agencys Organic Growth

They formed a true partnership, not only in marriage, but also in joining their last names, Thomas (hers) and Mears (his), together.

When it came to business they decided they wanted to first find a niche. That niche was the dental community.

They started from scratch, buying no book of business. Incorporated in May of 1988, they didnt book their first premium dollar until June 1989.

Todaystill just the two of them, not even a customer service representativethey book more than $2 million in premium volume. Their services cover a whole spectrum of risk management to dentists, not only providing the insurance needs for the dental community (professional liability, workers compensation and commercial property) throughout the state, but also other services covering patient, employee and records management.

Mr. Thomas-Mears readily admits, however: "We could not do this job without technology."

In the very beginning they purchased a computer put out by Leading Edge. Their first program, he remembers, was from Ashton-Tate, a product called FrameWork. They started on version one and progressed through version three.

It provided all the programs the agency needed–a word processor, spreadsheet and database, much like versions of Microsoft Works. The program allowed him to create spreadsheets that did the rating for them. They were able to combine this information with their database and word processor to get information out to their customers.

They used this system until 1998, but it required generation of a lot of paper and storage of files. The state, he said, requires all transactions to be kept for five years.

In 1998 the agency moved to Windows, using Microsoft Access with an agency program developed by another producer in another state. But, the agency was still producing paper records.

"We came to a decision in 1999, that for our agency to survive and grow into the next century we needed to go digital," explained Mr. Thomas-Mears.

After a lot of research, the couple decided on using the AMS Sagitta system. It is a system, he noted, that is used mainly by the biggest insurance brokers. Multiple Risk Management is probably one of the smallest agencies using the product, he said.

"It does everything we wanted it to," he said. "It filled all our needs wonderfully and it will grow with us."

The couple likes the program because they can integrate their insurance work off of Sagitta into Outlook and word processing files. All customer transactions can be stored in one file for easy call-up at any time. Data is also replicated up to three times, so it is less likely to be lost.

"[The system we had] was very slow and cumbersome and unreliable," said Mr. Thomas-Mears. "Whereas, now, when a client calls and Im talking to them on the phone, Im [also] pulling up a database."

The agency is now able to pull up information on old accounts or start taking notes on something new. All of the policy data is at their fingertips, and they can get back to their insureds with an instantaneous response.

In the past, issuing certificates of insurance or evidence of property coverage would be an hour-long project, said Mr. Thomas-Mears. Now it takes minutes.

As of this May, another technology hurdle was overcome with the addition of AMS LiveVault backup, the couple said. No longer is all of the agencys data backed up on tapes at the end of the work day. Instead, every keystroke is recorded, encrypted and stored away off-site. There is no more concern with forgetting to record the tape at the end of the day or recording over a previous days work. There are no tapes to be stored off-premises each night, Mr. Thomas-Mears explained.

Should something happen to the office and the data there, CDs can be shipped within two business days.

Mr. Thomas-Mears said after meeting with representatives from AMS and LiveVault, the decision was almost immediate to go to the system. He noted they made their decision based on AMS endorsement and the knowledge that a number of Fortune 500 companies use the product.

The cost is about $11,000 a year for storage of 22 gigabytes (GB) of datamore than the $6,000 a year he was spending to back up data the old way. But he noted that with the worry over the breakdown of machinery, keeping the information on site, service expense and the human factor, plus the time saved in manually backing up the data, the added expense is insignificant.

"Its double the cost, but hundreds of times over the security," Mr. Thomas-Mears explained.

The only other expense, he added, was a doubling in bandwidth because of the increased flow of information for backing up the system, which added about $30 a month.

For the future, the agency is looking to go online with its Sagitta system.

"We do intend to grow, in terms of employees and our customer base, etc.," said Mr. Thomas-Mears. "But we wanted a very firm digital foundation and a workflow into which we could bring additional customers and employees.

The problem now, he noted, will be finding experienced insurance people who are comfortable using "the keyboard and the screen," because many agencies, he felt, still use older methods.

When asked if the agency could have gotten where they are without the advancements they made, Mr. Thomas-Mears replied with a question.

"Could we have done this without technology? We probably could. But could we have done a credible job of it? Probably not. Could we obey our fiduciary responsibilities? No. But we could have done it. But we wanted to do it by following all of the rules. We think credibility is important for our agency and to our customers. Were credible."

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, September 8, 2003. Copyright 2003 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.