40 years of new client installations and counting
Posted by Mason Power - June 23rd, 2010 at 11:06:05 am
Sword Intech was founded in 1968, (and yes, its single system for underwriting, billing & claims has been rearchitected since) and works with over 60 insurers. Known best for being a market leader in policy administration for the Lloyd’s market, Sword Intech also serves companies in Asia and Europe but most of its clients are in London, North America, and Bermuda.
MS Frontier Re (MSFRe), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company, Limited, Japan, has been writing mainly Property Catastrophe reinsurance business out of Bermuda since 2002 covering worldwide risks and needed to move off a legacy environment to a robust, modern and configurable system.
MSFRe chose the Open Co+ single system for complete management of its assumed reinsurance business and in the words of their IT manager running the implementation, “The Sword team was diligent and highly professional in assisting us with this conversion and implementation. Overall I am very pleased with the final result.”
The press has covered the story in Insurance & Technology here and Insurance Business Review here.
Updates from ACORD 2010
Posted by Mason Power - May 23rd, 2010 at 11:05:48 pmFirst, the flight from New York went right over the Grand Canyon. Pretty amazing. 
For the record, Fos thinks it’s Bryce Canyon, I’m not sure. Perhaps a reader can identify it in the comments.
Second, we had some enjoyable client golf in the 55 degree, blistery cold desert – no joke it’s late May and our client said it was warmer in London than Las Vegas.
Third, Novarica published its latest profiles of the policy administration solutions in the market today, with 50 listed in the P&C report, including Sword Intech. For a copy of the report go to Novarica’s site ($$). It’s popular because it’s flexible enough to handle the many specific client requests we’re seeing but also because its tool based configuration makes it client-ready quickly. Stop by our booth at ACORD tomorrow for a demo.
The New Website
Posted by Mason Power - May 20th, 2010 at 01:05:22 amWhen the Sword Group acquired AgencyPort in November 2009 (announced in the press and on this blog), the story
centered around enhancing what AgencyPort had to offer in insurance technology solutions and how AgencyPort could expand into new global markets.
Today we announce our new web site which describes how AgencyPort and other Sword solutions fit together to offer the insurance industry a unique combination of products that can be bought independently as best of breed components or purchased together as a bundled package.
Each of our solutions helps our clients grow their market share, expand into new markets, and improve their producer and policyholder satisfaction. While we offer products that enable a better customer experience throughout more of a customer lifecycle from sales to policy servicing and client support, we are still known for being quick to market with solutions that deliver immediate business value.
In a few months’ time since joining Sword, we have come together with the teams at Sword Intech (provider of the most flexible single system for policy administration, claims and billing used by over 60 P&C carriers in the UK, US, Bermuda, Europe and elsewhere) and Sword Ciboodle (with whom we are building on their leading platform for service center CRM applications and workflow and developing a CRM for insurance) to define this new combination of distribution, policy administration, CRM and business intelligence tools (have you seen our book analytics and risk aggregation service?).
While we are still laser-focused on the U.S. market, we have also begun to leverage what Sword can offer in taking AgencyPort solutions to new markets. I write today from London where we now have Sword AgencyPort staff working full-time on solutions for the Lloyd’s, London and European markets.
We have taken our new and enhanced story on the road to clients, had an independent third party survey our clients and spoken at length with our trusted partners at Novarica, Celent, Forrester and Gartner. Thank you for the help, and from your insight we have enhanced our collective product roadmaps and built demonstration systems combining our products.
We chose to release this new website on the eve of the annual ACORD Forum in Las Vegas because we are ready to show you our products and how they fit together. Please stop by our booth at ACORD (booth #341) and see the new set of solutions from AgencyPort such as a working portal on a mobile device and let us introduce you to the new insurance division at Sword.
Program and Specialty Lines Webinar
Posted by Michael Albert - March 25th, 2010 at 07:03:58 pmFor anyone who didn’t have a chance to catch it live, here’s a recording of the program and specialty lines automation webinar we held this afternoon.
Smarter solutions to scale Program and Specialty business
Posted by Mason Power - March 11th, 2010 at 12:03:57 pmToday we announced an upcoming webinar (March 25th, 2pm ET) conducted by Steve & Eric about our solutions for the program and specialty markets.
Whether you write business through program administrators, MGAs, MGUs or write program business directly through retailers or trade associations, AgencyPort streamlines rate/quote/bind and also normalize inbound data.
It’s not just our Program IQ bordereau processing (awesome as it is), the set of solutions we bring encompass features in portals, policy administration, and book analytic solutions.
AgencyPort solutions are live in production for program and specialty writers in the U.S. and the U.K. supporting multiple lines of business in admitted and non-admitted markets. Our solutions integrate with back-end systems such as rating, claims and/or policy administration systems and even interface with your distribution partner regardless of their IT capabilities.
Join us for a webinar on March 25 at 2: 00 pm EST to learn how AgencyPort can help build a foundation from which you can scale program and specialty business through a varied network of distribution partners. AgencyPort’s robust and proven toolkit-based architecture enables rapid deployment for any line of business including specialty coverages.
Register today. It’s free.
You will learn how to interface with your partners regardless of their IT capabilities (some are XML strong, some are only in spreadsheets), and how you can offer quoting to them, even delivering quoting directly to their own sites, plus how you can transform data from many formats to one, clean stream for your back-office processing
“Once You Go Agile, You Never Go Back”
Posted by Mason Power - January 25th, 2010 at 05:01:32 pmOr 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??
User Conference Lessons Learned – Consumer Portal
Posted by Mason Power - October 7th, 2009 at 07:10:15 am
Serve the consumer through your agency distribution channel
AgencyPort leads the way with effective transaction portals for property & casualty insurance.
We start with product definitions and layer in business rules and portal behaviors that are tied to the product definition, all of which is easy to build and maintain. The ToolKit enables quick add / edit / remove of portal pages and every element therein. Every transaction can be integrated with back-office systems such as security, rating or policy administration, content management, e-mail, CRM, etc.
The next solution we are building leverages this mature architecture to deliver portals for carriers to interface with consumers. Today’s consumer grew up in the digital age – are you ready to serve them online 24×7?
Call a Human to Buy Something? Ha
With direct writers eating away at market share (see slide below), with the insurance buyer being more and more tech-savvy and used to working online and through their iPhones without human intermediaries, carriers have to invest in consumer portals to keep marketshare.
Today's Consumer Expects to Conduct Insurance Business Online and Direct Writers Are Serving Them
Attendees at this session at AgencyPort User Conference 2009 all related that it’s not a matter of “if”, but “when” they had to offer consumer quoting and self-service.
Some carriers like The Hartford or Liberty Mutual want to close the consumer lead through their in-house sales force and then hand off the client to a local agent for servicing.
Some carriers have resources to close sales and then hand them to agents for policy servicing (at lower commissions...)
Another facet of AgencyPort’s strategy is to enable carrier interaction with consumers not just on the web but through mobile phones such as the First Notice of Loss application on iPhones:
First Notice of Loss on iPhones
From customer research this summer we identified a set of features desired by most carriers. See the table below for a list and while you consider your needs (have we missed any? Let us know), keep in mind that you need to have the consumer self-register on your site. The question is when? If they are going to check billing or submit a claim, you need to know who they are. If they are going to get a Quick Quote, you don’t.
During the User Conference session there were concerns about offering Quick Quotes to all visitors. Some attendees worried about competitors checking your rates; others worried about the cost of pre-filling data when that data comes from ChoicePoint who charges for every data call.
Attendees at this session also spoke about the chance to use consumer portals to support proactive customer service. If you know who’s late on their bills and you send them e-mail reminders do you have a URL or just phone support? Consumer portals can be used for secure and configurable landing pages for support or for marketing (e.g. up-selling auto policyholders into homeowners).
Customers and Prospects Want these, but Don't All Have the Same Priority for Which to Deliver First or When to Ask for User Authentication
We can launch quote screens right from your home page (imagine your logo instead of the fictional Best Choice carrier logo):
Adapt our Templates for Use by Consumers by Softening the Tone
Or if you have an agency that is looking for quoting capabilities but doesn’t have the resources to provide it:
Agents Want to Offer Quoting - Carriers Can Use AgencyPort to Quote on these Sites
Use AgencyPort to configure your portal to adapt to the look and feel of your agencies’ sites and launch your quote engine from there. It can be attributed to you or not, that’s a business call to make.
AgencyPort's Consumer Portal can be Configured to Fit the Look & Feel of the Agent's Site
Either way, the workflow your agents are used to doesn’t have to change. You can integrate leads generated or sales closed on your site to their CRMs, agency management or lead management systems, and into your agent portal Work in Progress such as the example below:
Wherever the Lead is Sourced Carriers can Integrate Leads with other Agent Work in Progress
The important element is the bridging of the lead to the agent. For auto insurance the carrier may be best off closing the sale themselves but for other products with more complex questions and rating scenarios, carriers are best-served when they quote the consumer and then hand it off to an agent to close it.
Several attendees expressed concern about the accuracy of carrier-generated quotes when not enough questions had been asked. If a consumer lead is handled by an agent and the consumer then discloses a history of losses or other exposure data, the agent would have to tell the consumer that they are going to get a higher premium quote. Agents have told carriers they don’t want to be the bearer of bad news.
Clearly the balance of getting the quote quickly and making it accurate will play out differently by product and by carrier, or perhaps even within one product / one carrier, it will be different by agent. AgencyPort can handle this wide variety of requirements – we’ve done it in AgencyPortal implementations for 7 years.
Many carriers have already put in agreements with agencies to handle consumer quoting and self-service on carrier sites. In play are the service level agreements (e.g. will agents respond promptly) and commission (e.g. if the carrier sources and closes the sale it will hand the policy holder to an agent for servicing but at a reduced commission).
A hurdle identified by a customer in the audience:
One attendee said that he felt web traffic wasn’t high enough to generate a return on the investment. Others felt the business case is based more on “survival” than on revenue growth. We talked a lot during the session about search engine optomization as web traffic comes mostly from Google, etc. and how the “search engine ninjas” were the lead generators or aggregators like InsureMe and NetQuote, who invest massively in being atop the native and paid results in Google and claim in excess of 80% market share between them.
Lead generators sell each lead up to 8 times over and mostly to agencies. Carriers who have dabbled in buying leads have found mixed results at best. Our research and analysis says that technology has not been there to support this and at AgencyPort we will offer solutions that integrate leads through carrier workflow to get a quote and bridge it over to the agent as before.
These Search Engine Ninjas Offer Revenue Opportunity when the Workflow is Supported by Transaction Solutions
Wrapping up a lengthy post is the “aha moment” most often experienced by attendees at our User Conference including at this session on AgencyPort’s Consumer Portal: that your existing investment in defining products, transactions, rules, behaviors, data choices, data validation rules, etc. with AgencyPort is all reusable in consumer interaction. As one carrier in the audience said “the product’s the same, it’s just a slightly different user experience that needs to be defined.” Once defined in any AgencyPort solution, your definitions are usable in all AgencyPort solutions.
Product Defnitions Don't Change When the End User Does...
Celent’s new name for our place in the market
Posted by Mason Power - September 21st, 2009 at 11:09:49 amAgencyPort makes it easier for insurance carriers to interact with distribution channels. We enable carriers to offer more product through more sales channels and we help carriers become better ranked in the critical category of “ease of doing business”.
We install software onsite and behind carrier firewalls and/or provide hosted solutions for carriers, but in every case our solutions integrate with core processing systems such as insurance policy administration systems, claims systems, billing systems, etc.
In a recent report, industry analysts Celent defined this space as “new business automation” and this moniker rings true. The report covers a broad list of what’s hot and what’s not in the policy administration space and this definition is the first of two themes I found interesting.
Quoting Celent’s definition from the report:
“The most significant cross-system process in 2009 is ‘new business automation’…{which} follows a business submission from the agent entering new policy information (whether in a portal, through an agency integration link, or via mail) to a set of automated underwriting rules, to human review and approval, to the generation of policy documents, and on to the policy administration and issuance…as well as integration to claims and billing.”
Another theme is the increasing demand by carriers to have current and modern system architecture and user features. For example, Celent predicts that policy administration system vendors will have to spend significantly on product lifecycle management including rapid and flexible product development capabilities (exactly why two years ago we invested in the ToolKit); SaaS and Cloud computing; and upgrading from outdated user interfaces.
Tying these two themes together, I conclude that the marketplace demands that policy administration vendors focus on and improve core processing and the market is buying solutions from new classes of vendors for new business automation (where AgencyPort delivers measurable value to 52 customers) and things like business networking, CRM and cloud computing. We continue to innovate in new business automation – our product development pipeline is full.
The full Celent report is available (at cost) here.
Agents correct data online, carriers see more submissions
Posted by Mason Power - August 12th, 2009 at 09:08:03 amIf you look at our website, we list our products, including their name and some description of their function.
But insurance companies have problems – they need solutions such as “connecting to comparative raters” or “our agent portal ranks poorly with agents, we need a better one”.
That’s why we list a handful of solutions on our website as well – of course they link back to the products that we implement and license to our customers.
Today we hit a milestone in a pilot for a regional workers compensation insurance company – the project is to enable their first upload from agents desktop systems.
The problem our client faced was that upload of policy data for quick quoting doesn’t work without somebody fixing the data from the agent. Some experts we talk to estimate that 80% of all uploads will fail as a result of simple data problems (for auto insurance the agent sends “Chevy” while the carrier knows “Mr. Obama’s Chevrolet”) or of complex data problems such as conditional rules set by the carrier.
The solution to this problem is to pop a page for the agent to fix the data or answer the additional questions. We call this feature “Interview“. The client’s portal wasn’t robust enough to handle the upload nor the data correction. So we implemented AgencyConnect with Interview and were ready to test.
Today the milestone was achieved – the first upload worked. Early feedback from an agent was positive saying that previously her uploads would fail and data errors couldn’t be fixed and the agent didn’t want to submit the paper application so they went to another carrier; but now it’s so easy to complete they’ll send more business to this carrier.
It’s also noteworthy that we have integrated with yet another back-office insurance policy administration system called WCMS by Stone River. We are hooking up WCMS with
- AFW, AMS 360, Sagitta and PRIME via TransactNOW
- Applied TAM and Applied Vision via Transformation Station
Having off-the-shelf software that makes these connections plus enables the agent to correct data errors is a competitive advantage for AgencyPort. Contact us if you’re facing similar issues with agency connectivity.