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.
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).
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.
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
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.
Thanks to our client Harford Mutual for validating in their recent client newsletter that our brand is well understood.
