More coordination is needed among the panoply of organizations seeking to make insurance industry technology more uniform and user-friendly for agents, James T. Armitage, the new president of the AMS Users Group, declared here at his group's annual meeting.
"It's not enough to dream and dare. We must actually do. Do more than talk. Do more than plan. Do more than debate. Just do more," Mr. Armitage said at the 33rd AMS Users Group National Conference.
Mr. Armitage, a principal at Arroyo Insurance Services in Arcadia, Calif., said he wants to reach out to other "like-minded industry [technology user] groups, such as ACT [the Agents Council for Technology] and AUGIE [the ACORD-User Groups Information Exchange] and the Real Time Campaign, and even with the ASCnet leadership" in order to make improvements for the industry.
"We can achieve far more together than we can on our own," he said, adding that members need to "set aside egos and history" and "trade squabbling for success."
Mr. Armitage's predecessor, who finished his one-year term as president at the conference, also called for better working ties with ASCnet–the Applied agency management system users group–noting they all have the same goals.
"I'm not announcing any grand scheme or asking for any formal partnership," said Michael R. Gray, owner of Lehr Insurance Agency in Pittsfield, Maine. "I just think the results show that we can all benefit from more cooperation. We have enough real competitors out there without creating artificial ones."
The effort to achieve better coordination among the various agency tech support groups has already begun, National Underwriter has learned. NU has obtained an "Open Letter from AMSUG & ASCnet Leadership" dated Jan. 21, 2009, addressed to "Independent Agents/Brokers, Business Partners, and Association Volunteers & Staff," hailing the benefits of cooperation.
"Our two associations represent users of software products covering close to 90 percent of independent agents and brokers in the United States with agency management systems," noted the letter, signed by Mr. Gray and his counterpart, ASCNet Chair Mike Montgomery of Lockton Companies.
"Through AUGIE and ACT we work closely with the other 10 percent of the user groups and their leaders, so we believe we do speak with authority on issues. And we've discovered along this journey that agents do have common goals," the pair wrote.
"Thank you for standing side by side with us in this effort," the letter concluded. "Together–as a distribution channel–we are demonstrating the power of working together."
In his address, Mr. Gray stressed the accomplishments agents have made in the past year by increasing their use of real-time technology and simultaneously boosting their market share.
He said real-time–technology that allows for transactions with carriers in seconds rather than minutes or days–has "proven how effective we can be when we work in conjunction with our industry partners, not in competition with them."
In an interview with NU prior to his speech, Mr. Armitage said the main objective in the coming year will be to work on making his members' business more profitable and efficient, noting that one strategy will be to respond based on the results of a member survey identifying key carriers that have not yet developed real-time technology.
The hope is that the cumulative lobbying power of the agency community will make these carriers realize the necessity to improve their technology offerings.
Mr. Armitage went on to warn that carriers that fail to modernize their technology and make it easier to do business with them will lose market share, and may eventually go out of business.
He said the younger generation of agents will simply not tolerate doing business with antiquated systems and will move away from those maintaining outdated technology.
AMS Users Group Chief Executive Officer Brady Polansky noted that during the current economic crisis, agents and carriers are evaluating every dollar they spend and are more conscious about receiving a return on their technology investments than they ever have in the past.
He added the association needs to do a better job of explaining that "we help your organization to be more efficient," which improves profitability through cost savings.
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