By Clare DeNicola, President & CEO, IVANS, Inc.
Insurance agencies and brokers rely on technology to maintain information about their customers, document transactions with carriers and collect data intelligence for marketing purposes. The accuracy of data in these systems has improved significantly because of automated agency-carrier communications, but its value is limited if agents can only streamline a piece of their workflow. Quoting a policy is a classic example of this problem. Agents can get quotes electronically, but they must often manually key data into several different carrier web portals, each with its own unique quoting process.
Fortunately, much of the data shared between carriers and agents can be done electronically and in a manner consistent across multiple companies. As agents look for opportunities to build customer relationships and effectively compete against business done online, using download and real-time automation throughout the agency workflow–widely referred to in the insurance industry as a "round-trip"–can make a significant difference in an agency's ability to profitably serve customers and quickly respond to new business.
If your agency is not already taking full advantage of agency-carrier automation, this is a great time to ask your carriers how they can help you accelerate your business.
Defining download
Download is the process of updating data electronically from a carrier system to an agency management system. Policy download for personal lines has traditionally garnered the most interest from insurers and agents because it's easy to implement and can positively impact a large portion of their businesses. Most insurers implementing download for the first time start with policy download for homeowners or personal auto, then expand into areas like personal package or umbrella. Automating policy transactions helps agents and brokers avoid duplicate data entry, minimize E&O exposure, and reduce the need for paper. Agents also have faster access to policy and billing information, and because the download workflow is consistent across multiple carriers, the agency need not invest as much time training associates on unique carrier operations.
Commercial lines download is a newer growth area in automation, as carriers and agents extend the benefits of download into commercial business. In IVANS' 2010 carrier survey, 85 percent of carriers said they have implemented or plan to implement commercial lines download over the next two years. Nine carriers have added IVANS commercial lines download this year, and transaction volume has increased 20 percent, according to IVANS Automation Reporting. Business owners policy, commercial automobile and commercial package lead the list of transactions being conducted with commercial lines download today.
Insurers and agents are working to automate all areas of their business. For example, agent use of IVANS claims download has increased 308 percent in 2010. Agents use this technology to get claims information more quickly from carriers, and it makes it easier for agencies to closely watch loss ratios for better forecasting and profitability. Today, 27 carriers offer claims download.
Expanding download to include all areas of the insurance business make a carrier easy for an agent to do business with.
Real time accelerating new business
The other half of the "round-trip" is real-time upload, which enables agents to request data from carrier systems through their agency management systems. Real-time accelerates the agency-carrier workflow by giving agents immediate access to carrier data from within, rather than going outside, their existing agency management processes. Based on IVANS Automation Reports, reflecting more than 130 carriers using real time, agents most commonly use real time for billing and policy inquiries, followed by rating requests for personal automobile and homeowner's insurance. More than 70 percent of insurance agents report saving 30 minutes or more per day by conducting personal lines business using real-time, according to the Real-Time/Download campaign.
Some carriers have set up their real-time solution so agents can sign on to the carrier's system, quote and bind policies, all from within their agency management system. Endorsement bridging is another area of real-time growth, because it is fairly simple to implement, provides opportunity to automate a large portion of the agency's day-to-day processing, and is widely available from agency management systems.
By incorporating real-time and download, agents benefit from the speed and simplicity of a more cohesive workflow.
With so much information available online, customer expectations for responsiveness have dramatically increased. Agents and brokers need to keep pace with consumer demands for quicker service and faster quotes.
As Paul Sturgess, president of V.F. McNeil Insurance recently told IVANS, "Policy and direct bill commission statement download are probably the best things our agency has done technologically in the past ten years," said Paul H. Sturgess, CIC, president of V.F. McNeil Insurance in Branford, Conn. "It saves us a lot of administrative time, which we can refocus on growing and responding to new business. My advice to agencies who are thinking about using this type of technology: just do it."
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Clare DeNicola is president and chief executive officer of IVANS, Inc. Established in 1983, IVANS provides agency-carrier automation solutions to over 350 insurance organizations and 30,000 independent agents.
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