AMS Seeks Interface Leadership

"Our goal is interface leadership," AMS President Dave Shea told an estimated 2,600 agents in attendance.

He reported that over the past year, 35 carriers have become TransactNOW partners. (TransactNOW is the AMS platform for interface between agencies and carriers.) He added that some 60,000 transactions per month are being processed by those carriersincluding billing, claims and policy viewing.

The newest 11 TransactNOW carriers announced by Windsor, Conn.-based AMS at the conference are:

ACUITY

Central Mutual Insurance Company

Donegal Insurance Companies

First Insurance Company of Hawaii, Ltd.

General Casualty Insurance Companies

New York Central Mutual Fire Insurance Company

Penn National Insurance

Selective Insurance Group

United Fire & Casualty Company

Wausau Insurance

Westfield Insurance Companies

Meanwhile, AMS Services announced the release of version 1.5 of AMS 360an agency management system for its AfW product users that employs Microsofts .NET technology and takes advantage of XML, Web services and the Internet to provide workflow tools and enable better customer relationship management for agents.

Features of the new version include:

Alert!360, which notifies users when pre-defined conditions occursuch as policies about to expire, renewals with premium increases over an agency defined percentage, or bank balances dropping below a pre-set threshold.

CRM Campaign Management, which puts sales and retention campaigns on "auto-pilot," allowing users to concentrate on sales activities.

Email360, which automatically attaches a copy of all outbound e-mails, including attachments, to the AMS 360 activity log with a mouse click.

Document360, which embeds document management functionality into the agency's workflow, allowing users to can, view, route, attach and retrieve documents electronically.

o Real-time Endorsements, which offer "a seamless, single-entry endorsement workflow."

The new version also includes automated software that enables current AfW Online and AfW in-house users to migrate while preserving their existing data, and without any software license upgrade fees, said AMS.

AMS also introduced Service 24/7, a suite of software products "that enables agencies to provide 24-hour service to their policyholders."

Using 24/7, when an agency service representative is not available, policyholders can get information about their insurance directly through the agency Web site or from the AMS Call Center, the vendor said. Information collected is fully integrated into the AMS management system.

Using 24/7 in the Call Center to answer "overflow" calls, agencies can have the phone answered "as if it were your agency," said Mr. Shea. "You control what they get."

According to AMS, the product's screens can be easily customized by the agency to fit its service needs. "Internet screens are designed to look like the agency's Web site, and Call Center representatives use the agency's name when they answer the phone," the company said.

Mr. Shea also announced the release of Sagitta 6.0the latest version of the AMS agency management system for large agents and brokers. The new release combines a revised user interface with new features, including expanded customer relationship management capabilities, Web services for integration with third-party products, XML reporting, and a new customizable workflow management toolset.

The new product's CRM capabilities give agents "a global view of their customers," Mr. Shea asserted. He added, however, that agents must implement IBM UniVerse in order to use the upgraded product. He noted that UniVersean extended relational databasecan be implemented "over a weekend."

In other news, AMS-Rackley, a division of AMS Holding Group, announced SETWrite, which enables agents to "enter information once into a single Web interface and receive real-time rates and related information directly from participating carriers."

According to Mr. Shea, the product enables agents to get "real-time, accurate rates in a comparative way." This means that agents could get rates from all of the participating carriers, he noted.

Carriers available in SETWrite at the time of the conference were the Hartford Financial Services Group, Progressive Insurance and Travelers. AMS-Rackley added that several other companiesPenn National Insurance, Hanover Insurance, Citizens Insurance, and Kemper Auto & Homehave agreed to participate.

"The most important thing," said Mr. Shea, "is implementation of the updated systems." He added that agents must "learn what they need to learn" in order to take advantage of the new technology.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, May 14, 2004. Copyright 2004 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.