Insight: An AgencyPort Blog

Perspectives on Insurance Technology

Perception equals Reality

February 8th, 2010 by Mason Power. Posted In: Agent Portals, News and Events

Marketing teams care about their brands – asking if they are widely known and correctly understood in the marketplace.

Being a marketing guy, I was happy to see the following one-sentence explanation about us from an AgencyPortal client:

“AgencyPort provides software products and services to carriers to improve agency experiences through process automation.”

It succinctly notes that we provide software (4 products) and services (delivery teams that get the job done right), that we do so for carriers (and since the time of their writing, now brokers) and that improved agency experience = revenue/market share lift for our clients.

Process automation isn’t currently in our marketing parlance, but perhaps it should be – we’re still working on eliminating trading by paper and re-keying into multiple systems and these archaic processes are automated through proper implementation of our software, so yes, we’re in the world of process automation.

harford mutual logoThanks to our client Harford Mutual for validating in their recent client newsletter that our brand is well understood.

Agency Interface: Why AgencyConnect?

February 4th, 2010 by Mason Power. Posted In: Agency Interface, Agency Management Systems, Book Roll

Today we presented our AgencyConnect solution at an industry event about real-time agency interface.

The upside of the presentation format was explaining to 170 people how we are the most experienced provider in the space with over 40 implementations of AgencyConnect – our software handles multiple formats of inbound messages across disparate systems (e.g. agency management systems, comparative raters) for multiple transaction types (quote, bridging) for many coverage types in many states via all of the transport vehicles (TransactNow, Transformation Station). We do this for individual transactions and for bulk transfer such as for book rolling.

The downside was trying to cram this story into a 6-minute speaking slot.

The result is the slide show below which shows the challenges facing carrier CIOs in navigating a complicated space. AgencyConnect insulates carriers from the current chaos and the inevitable changes coming by normalizing this traffic into one standard ACORD XML output to be integrated with carrier systems such as point of sale, policy administration or rating engines.

Contact us if you would like to leverage our experience and be a leading carrier in the minds of agents who are dying for efficient upload and real-time interface.

170 People talking Insurance Technology

February 4th, 2010 by Mason Power. Posted In: ACORD, Agency Interface

AUGIE is the ACORD-User Group Information Exchange (from the website: a forum for ACORD, agents, brokers, insurers, solution providers, and associations to gather information, share ideas and actively shape the future of the insurance industry). AUGIE is holding a regional meeting today.

There is a big crowd here in Tampa to discuss what agents and carriers want from each other (real-time quoting and download). I’ll be tweeting about it for interested parties.

AgencyPort adds new client: Aon Benfield

January 28th, 2010 by Mason Power. Posted In: Agent Portals, London Market, News and Events, Program Automation

aon_logo
We’re pleased to announce that we’ve signed with Aon Benfield. Our press release is here.

Yesterday Aon announced that they’ve launched a transaction portal for facultative reinsurance. See their press release here. There’s lots of press coverage here.

The business need was to enable Aon Benfield to serve ceding insurance carriers for smaller facultative placements where the cost of placing these transactions in person was prohibitive. Aon Benfield adopted AgencyPortal to drive down placement costs and allow these cedants to use Aon’s advisory services and Aon’s help to tap into a complex marketplace.

The business requirement for a portal was to bring placement straight to the desktop of these cedants – Aon’s clients and to give them an easy-to-use interface where a facultative reinsurance placement could be completed in 5 minutes or less. Aon arranges for multiple reinsurers to provide pre-negotiated facilities for cedants to choose from.

To demonstrate AgencyPort’s ability to get to market quickly, we built a Proof of Concept in a few weeks after which Aon announced the platform in September at the Monte Carlo Rendezvous. The production portal is called FAConnect and it went live this week.

The platform is built entirely on our AgencyPortal application framework and the deal is significant for AgencyPort’s market position for reasons including:

-It further demonstrates our capabilities for rapid deployment
-It is for a new type of transaction – facility or automatic placement and our first implementation in the reinsurance market
-It is for specialty lines of business for which we didn’t have templates ready; it’s the first large-scale use of our ToolKit to build new content and it went much more quickly than in the days before ToolKit
-It’s our first broker client
-It is a global product and the future build-out will be in multi-currency, multi-region, multi-language

For further information please get in touch.

All,

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve signed with Aon Benfield.

Yesterday Aon announced that they’ve launched a transaction portal for facultative reinsurance (to compete with the portals of large reinsurers that use portals to write direct to cedants). See their press release at http://aon.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1840. There’s lots of press coverage at http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=cbG&q=Aon+FAConnect+2010&aq=f&aql=&aqi=&oq=

Aon had the idea in August, we built a Proof of Concept by September (they announced it at Monte Carlo) and the production portal went live this week. The platform is built entirely on our AgencyPortal and the deal is significant for AgencyPort’s market position for reasons including:

· It further demonstrates our capabilities for rapid deployment

· It is for a new type of transaction – facility or automatic placement

· It is for specialty lines of business for which we didn’t have templates ready; it’s the first large-scale use of our ToolKit to build new content and it went much more quickly than in the days before ToolKit

· It’s our first broker client

· It is a global product and the future build-out will be in multi-currency, multi-region, multi-language

The attached press release is going out tomorrow, we wanted to make sure you had it in advance. Can we set up a quick briefing on this, perhaps a call tomorrow afternoon or on Monday?

Regards,
Mason

Mason Power

VP Product & Market Strategy

Sword AgencyPort

+1.646.289.7033 o

+1.917.348.3998 m

mpower@agencyport.com

17 State Street, 26th Floor

New York, NY 10004

Mason Power

VP Product & Market Strategy

Sword AgencyPort

+1.646.289.7033 o

+1.917.348.3998 m

mpower@agencyport.com

17 State Street, 26th Floor

New York, NY 10004

“Once You Go Agile, You Never Go Back”

January 25th, 2010 by Mason Power. Posted In: Agency Interface, Agency Management Systems, Consumer Portals, Insurance Technology, Policy Administration

Or so says a fan on the official Agile Manifesto web site (every revolution, even those in project management, needs a good manifesto). (Find good background on the methodology and its manifesto here).

Listening today to a webinar by Camilion about product configuration being a key driver in staying current in today’s market, we picked up on a side comment made by Novarica’s Martina Conlon who was also speaking on the webinar.

Martina said Novarica has seen an increase in the adoption of the agile methodology by carriers, saying “it proves viability through successes early in the process”. AgencyPort uses the agile method and adds a hefty dose of method tailoring in order to suit the project methodology to the needs of the particular client, including the internal methodology adopted by that client or any third party integrators they might hire.

Because of the rapid deployment capabilities of the AgencyPort framework, the agile methodology suits us well. Since many client projects involve changes to policy administration and other core processing systems (i.e. big projects where production environment milestones can be years out), our clients’ master project plan usually calls for AgencyPort deliverables to front-end the plan, thereby driving business ROI early in the process. Using an iterative approach, AgencyPort and the carrier can prioritize these high value business drivers that will get you to production quickly.

While every RFP we see asks about our methodology (e.g. agile versus waterfall), the success of our project delivery is due to the ideals we hold to be all-important (perhaps we need to write the “AgencyPort delivery manifesto”?).

These ideals include honesty (you get the good, the bad and the ugly – we believe this openness instills trust among all parties to a project and this trust drives everyone to a better result); keeping teams intact; rotating the assignments of delivery staff so they are proficient in several areas; having a team with deep domain knowledge (we know ACORD, real-time rating, upload from agency management systems, what makes portals beloved by agents, integrations, comparative raters, etc.); and importantly, we provide a team of interesting and fun people (have you seen them karaoke yet??).

We won a significant new client in December and our project methodology played a big role in their decision-making. Thanks to Martina for confirming what we have seen: an uptick in client demand for our chosen delivery methodology. Have we mentioned that all of our clients will act as a reference??

It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye

January 25th, 2010 by Michael Albert. Posted In: News and Events

Later this quarter, Gary Brach will be leaving us after the better part of a decade at the helm of AgencyPort as CEO. Last week at a company meeting we presented a video tribute to him, which we now share with you. Thank you for your leadership Gary, you will be missed!!

The Agent Insight Tour: A 2010 Update

January 22nd, 2010 by Mason Power. Posted In: Agency Interface, Consumer Portals, The Agent Insight Tour 2009

INN logoOur friends at Insurance Networking News wrote a feature story about our 2009 Agent Insight Tour in their January issue. It’s in print but you can see it online here, although I warn you that the interface is a bit clunky.

The article covers the salient points that agents made loud and clear and in 2010 the situation is much the same as it was in 2009: a mix of pain and progress.

The pain of serving your client with as many quotes as you can while still making a profit on the transaction – not much has changed in 2010. Yesterday we we showed a new colleague from the U.K. how an agent performs an upload, you should have seen her jaw drop.

But as we noted in our Agent Insight Tour report, there is incremental progress being made on many fronts. For instance, we are completing more real-time integrations for carriers (nobody has done more carrier integrations with comparative raters than AgencyPort), we are working with carriers whose agents send them ACORD applications by e-mail to convert these forms into XML, we are helping carriers use our consumer portal to serve consumers who want 24×7 quoting or self-service, all of these are product ideas that came from the 2009 Agent Insight Tour and are becoming a reality in 2010.

We have a few forthcoming announcements about extending the use case for AgencyPortal, we’re breaking new ground. Watch this space.

The new ACORD Framework: What does it mean to you?

January 6th, 2010 by Mason Power. Posted In: ACORD, Insurance Technology

acord logoIn the history of ACORD, first came the forms (now some eForms), then the data exchange standards (AL3 and XML), and now the ACORD Framework.

We’ve all been to ACORD conferences or sat in on their calls and heard about the framework which is really a collection of models (e.g. information model, data model, capability model), and I listened to Greg Maciag tell me about this in London in 2007 and had no idea what it meant, so for me to get a proper orientation and to put this new direction into perspective, it took Martina Conlon to write a report. New to Novarica, it’s a great start for Martina and a good read – find the abstract here with links to pay/download the full report.

As ACORD tried to keep up with the evolving XML standards, it became tough to communicate the complicated data relationships such as hierarchy among clients, carriers and intermediaries or how a location or sub-location tag could be found in many places and this led to confusion among those using the standards. Years ago, French firm Prima Solutions donated an object model to ACORD so that ACORD could better maintain their XML and other assets, and to contribute it as the foundation for a standard information model offering. The object model was found to be so helpful that ACORD decided it would benefit the market to publish it to all ACORD members, and the framework project was hatched. Recently IBM have donated further models to the cause (its IAA had been a rival set of standards) and ACORD will be publishing the first version of some models soon.

The Framework is not meant to replace the forms or the XML, instead its purpose according to Novarica is to help the insurance industry with a common definition of relationships between business objects giving the industry a head-start in designing new systems. Martina points out that there is no impact on the XML except that ACORD will be better able to keep it current. There will be no certification for the framework, it’s not a question of compatibility, it’s more of a set of standard resources that ACORD will promulgate in the hopes that they replace the proprietary product data models and object models resident in the marketplace today.

We architected our products on top of the ACORD standards and we support ACORD in this initiative (we might even have some models to donate ourselves). We are a good fit today for any carrier wishing to adopt the framework. Thank you to Novarica for helping us get up to speed – although any of us could conduct some primary research on ACORD’s site where they have plenty about the framework.

Update: Due to my poor research I incorrectly identified Prima Solutions as being Italian whereas they are French. Excusez moi.

2009: The Year in Review (Part 2 of 2)

December 24th, 2009 by Mason Power. Posted In: ACORD, Agency Interface, Agency Management Systems, Agent Portals, Book Roll, Bordereau, Insurance Technology, London Market, News and Events, Sword, The Agent Insight Tour 2009, User Conference

Continuing the previous post, we wanted to highlight some achievements and fun times we’ve had with clients, these from the latter half of the year:

First, we saw a client sign up for software only and rely entirely on their own staff to implement AgencyPortal. With only standard training and 40 hours of “kickstart” services, this project validated the notion that using the ToolKit could empower clients to decide on using our staff, a third party system integrator or their own staff for part or all of the implementation. On the topic of training, we conducted 5 training classes educating over 20 developers who work for clients and partners. Clients have been demanding this form of empowerment and choice and market feedback places us on the bleeding edge in delivering on the toolkit approach.

This summer, in an effort to impress potential acquiring companies, Steve and Eric beefed up the experience level of the team. One of them, with 35 years in insurance technology, still loves to go out with clients. We are glad to have welcomed Bob Dolan to the team in 2009 and enjoyed his visionary leadership, shown here at a company off-site near our Portsmouth, NH office.Dolan2

This summer, Hiscox was the first to go live with our CoverIQ solution to normalize inbound premium and exposure data from coverholders to give Hiscox an edge in modeling North American property faster and with cleaner data and by offering its coverholders a better experience in managing bordereau reporting.

Gary Brach, CEO, upon returning in late September from Jackson Hole in time to address the opening session of the User Conference only to waste everyone’s time with a 25-minute description of how elks mate. Getting in deep about the rut and how males lock horns in order to woo the right female, Gary related this mating ritual to the insurance technology space, asking why all vendors couldn’t all just get along. This speech inspires graphic designers in the audience to adapt a famous image of hope to the Gary Elk story (or “GELK” as it has become known).

gelk hope

Before Gary enlightened the audience, AgencyPort management premiered the “Castoff Video” where Curt Stevenson comes the rescue of Gary, Eric & Steve who were lost at sea. See the team, thinking they were gone forever, discuss their regrets and hopes for the insurance technology industry.

This year’s User Conference featured our clients leading most of the sessions, a change that was well-received. To show our appreciation of General Casualty’s Todd Chesbro for volunteering to lead one of the most popular sessions, we let Todd clean up that night’s after-party. Thanks Todd!

We were lucky to have WR Berkley lead conference sessions (and some rousing Bon Jovi karaoke later) and Hartford leading a session about implementing distribution technology in a large enterprise (and dancing lessons that night).

We’re proud to have helped Kemper achieve a Top 10 ranking in INN’s recently-published list of the Top 10 innovations in the use of insurance technology (our BookSmart) for reducing the costs of book rolling by 25%.

This fall we achieved the Gold Ranking for Novarica ACE Rankings for both AgencyPortal (ranking here) and AgencyConnect (ranking here), which are based on client feedback and validate the impact our technology has on driving efficient trading for our clients.

After 9 years of building a business from scratch to having implemented 70+ projects across 53 clients (all of whom still stay with us, buy our other products, come to our conferences and act as references) and building a team of colleagues you’d love to work with, AgencyPort proudly sold itself and the team stays intact as part of the Sword Group.
sword buys ap
At our year-end holiday party, four members of the team celebrated their 5-year anniversary with the company, all four are great at their jobs, but also have personal hobbies and interests. In typical AgencyPort fashion, we celebrated these personal interests with the attached magazine covers (were they expecting a gold watch instead?). Marcia Berner was so grateful for her gift that she decided to leave the company. We wish her the best in her new job. Coincidentally to the investigative journalists who published her magazine cover, she’s joining ACORD and yet she denies the allegations implied in her magazine cover…

Thank you for 5 years Marcia, Patrick, Dennis & Norm

Thank you for 5 years Marcia, Patrick, Dennis & Norm

Among the many projects with a successful conclusion this year (e.g. Tower Insurance went live for workers comp on our newest product, ProgramIQ), we completed a four-year project for ACIC to transform point of sale for Homeowners and Personal Auto.

Rounding out a strong year for Steve Hauck, where Steve was tapped by Sword to lead all of Sword’s insurance activities in the Americas, was his getting kicked out of his own New York office Christmas party by a bouncer.

2009: The Year in Review (Part 1 of 2)

December 23rd, 2009 by Mason Power. Posted In: ACORD, Agency Interface, Agency Management Systems, Agent Portals, Book Roll, Insurance Technology, London Market, News and Events, Sword, The Agent Insight Tour 2009, User Conference

Looking back on 2009, it’s been a year packed with highlights, none bigger than adding more clients to our roster, introducing innovative new products and closing out some significant implementations. Oh yeah, we also sold the business after 9 years.

This post hopefully comes before you’re tired of the retrospective “2009 year in review” specials on tv, and focuses on the achievements we’ve made for our clients and the fun we’ve had with them along the way. Happy Holidays to all.

New clients we added in 2009 include MiddleOak, LUBA, Fireman’s Fund, Lexington, The Hartford, Berkley FinSecure, Harleysville, Safety, Hortica, Western Reserve Group, CompSource and Chubb Specialty. We work for our clients every day and are honored to be chosen by these reputable firms.

2009 new clients

In January, an existing client, General Casualty, won a prestigious award judged by analysts Celent. In naming the components of a model carrier based on effective use of technology, General Casualty’s use of AgencyPortal won for “Personal Lines Agency Point of Sale Enhancements”. We were also recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies and Boston Business Journal for its Pacesetter Award.

ACORD’s annual conference in May is our biggest industry event of the year and there were a series of highlights:

ACORD was the end of the Agent Insight Tour where we interviewed 66 independent agencies about using technology to conduct business with carriers. The team of folks on staff who pulled off this feat should be very proud, it was a strategy/R&D home run for us. The tour was also the official launch of this blog.ait van

Penn National won the ACORD innovative implementation award for using the Interview module with AgencyConnect. Continental Western Group won another ACORD award for “Real Time Implementation & Download Implementations” (same link).

Have you seen our matrix of AgencyConnect support for comparative raters, agency management systems etc? Call us, we’ll be happy to show you how far you can reach using one product and one knowledgeable team.

Commerce won INN’s VIP award honorable mention published around the ACORD conference for implementing our AgencyPortal and AgencyConnect for their homeowners’ book.

ACORD was also the official release of AgencyPortal 4.0 which, among other terrific product enhancements, delivered version 1 of our ToolKit. Now clients can build and maintain their web portals easily and without hard-coding. The ToolKit demonstrates our commitment to staying ahead of the competition in delivering multi-channel product distribution solutions to P&C carriers.

dwight-howard

You think this is impressive? You should've seen Dennis Fosberg on the dance floor that night.

Later in the week at ACORD we had a client outing to a nearby nightclub where we rubbed shoulders with Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic. Interesting as this was, our clients seemed to talk more about the trip back that night and the exposure they got to our partner Edgewater.