Agency Management System

[Team1]

Why not have Quomation on the list? IT rocks!!!

REAL TIME QUOTES! No waiting or pesky downloads every two weeks! Quomation does it all!
$99/mo Rrater up to 10 Users!
$99/mo Mgmt software for 10 users!
It integrates with Netquote and other lead systems.
YES IT IS RECOGNIZED BY THE MAJOR CARRIERS! Do not believe the crap that FSC and Hawksoft have the best relationships with the carriers. I did my homework and found out it was not true!

$198 is my total cost for REAL time rating! I had FSC and Hawksoft it was a pain in the @%%$# for us to to use . The service at FSC was lacking to say the least. Hawksoft charged me $2000 to get out of the contract! (read the fine print)FSC was much more understanding. I was told by my IT guy it was the best out there. Now that we have switched he is pitching Quomation!

It is amazing the arrogance of having a monopoly changes when you get some competition! I had a pager and a brick cell phone I even had a Daytimer (remember those?) Now I have an PDA (I phone ). Times is a changing!

I looked at other companies and Quomation had just opened in CA! They are the premier rater in AZ and Utah, not to mention 38 other States. I was so frustrated my staff was struggling! We had a meeting with a major carrier we had just been appointed with and to our suprise they said Quomation is becoming the little software that could!
It has all the features you need for an agency management system with a punch! You can't beat the price! It was a third less than the FSC /Hawksoft combo. I was able to teach my staff the rater and the mangement system in 2 hours!
Do not beleive what you hear Quomtion DOES have the relationships with the Insurance companies and does have the acord apps as well. More productivity means more money! Stop wasting time on old out dated software that has had change after change added to it. I took a test drive for two weeks for free and I ate the $2000 Hawksoft had in its so called software agreement and I the made the switch . I will make it up in over all cost and productivity in a month! Quomation is the only company that has both a rater and a mgmt for under 200.00 bucks that gets the job done easily and quickly!

Did I tell you how much I like it! Try it at WWW.quomation.com call and ask for Luke Ray and ask him to download a copy on your PC for two weeks.

No I am not a software sales guy nor do I have any profit to gain directly or indirectly from this. Yes I am an independant agent in CA. Nice try...

[meytai]

Choosing the right management software can be a tough choice, whatever you do though, take your time, because like someone mentioned before.. you become "married" to it.. i am currenlty with Hawksoft.. and it is deficient in many ways.. however, to make the transition would be a big PIA and expensive and time consuming. I checked out Record Guardian, and they are a lateral move to Hawksoft.. ecxept they are hosted online, which is a great benefit. I also checked out AMS360, it's the coolest thing ever.. it can measure how much money you are making off of an account.. it calculates how much an employee has spent on an account versus how much money the actual policy is generating in revenue.. this is one of the features that it has.. but wow is that system expensive. You get what you pay for, but for a small agency like mine, i am a little ways away from being able to comfortably afford an AMS360 type

[gc144]

I have looked at Hawksoft and was ready to switch, but I just haven't pulled the trigger. I am with Applied - TAM Online - and while it is good, it is really overkill for my small agency. I don't need their accounting because I use Quickbooks, which Hawksoft can integrate with, but that doesn't really matter to me either.

Hawksoft is appealing to me because of the cost savings - about $5,000 per year after the first year. The only reason I haven't switched is that I have a couple other projects going on and I didn't want to invest more time in the software switch.

Any insights you can give about their deficiencies would be great to know. The references they gave me were all good (I wouldn't have expected anything else), so it would be nice to hear some of the negatives. Who knows, perhaps your negatives won't affect me.

[Russmann]

I attend a lot of shows and have heard very good things from their customers. Customer service seems to be one of their better attributes.

In the bigger picture, there are limitations around a system / company built around an individual ... just as there are with agencies. History shows that most of the independent systems (Leader, Mtn. States, Instar, Agency One, CISGEM, Redshaw to name a few) end up selling out to a big-name automation vendor when the owner decides it's time to do so. Of course we see this all the time in the agency community when a 'personality' owns the agency. Frequently, this is either to put the vendor out of business, milk their support fees, or corral their users to join the collective. The users try to mitigage this by forming strong Users Groups, Escrowing Software sourcecode, etc. but in the end resistance is futile.

My suggestion would be to talk to Paul Hawkins and voice this concern to him and see what kind of answer you get. Would enjoy hearing the answer - again I don't mean this specific to him as I have no inside knowlege of his operation. It's just a characteristic of that kind / size of business and the history is pretty poor. You don't want to make this investment in your time, conversion, training, and then have to go back to TAM after your vendor is sold.

[Russmann]

Team1, could you post the text of the fine print you're talking about? I'd be interested in seeing this.

[mclureins]

I found this company here called www.paulmargroup.com and they have this service where you can outsource all of your production and they manage all of it for you. It's sounds crazy but it's absolutely amazing. I had to go through some training on financial management but it was definitely worth it! I fill out the same form on each sale and then I save it to a drive and by the next day I can print all kinds of reports. I can't believe it. On top of it all I am paying less to have my commission and premiums managed than what it cost to have a receptionist working for me. I am not trying to sell anything here but I think that many agents who are having to spend so much time and money to manage their books can really benefit from this. I have used other systems and they are great for managing my renewals and documents and forms and they are also great for marketing. But when it comes to managing premium dollars I can honestly say I feel truly successful in finding this company.

[Calpirin]

I would like to learn more about the Quomation Power Manage. So I have learned that the monthly cost is $99 per month. What about the initial set up cost or any other fee involves, if there are any.

Does anyone know, I like to hear more about it. Please let us know.

[insureme]

Hi there,
Does anyone have any idea about ABS ( Agency Business Systems) ? Their web address : www.agencybusys.com
They seem so affordable for the very small agency ( 1or 2 producers) like us. Would you have any comment or sugestion to go with them as far as budjet concerning. Your respond is very appreciate. Thanks so much!
insureme!!!

[beyert1]

I have read so many of the responses here and after looking at all of the systems I just went with InsurancePro about a year ago. I will be honest it is a limited system. For the price it is good but for the monthly cost it is just not worth it. (InsurancePro is made by the same people who do Turborater, which is a good product.) I have looked at all of the other systems and since I have a small office and with the way things are, I wanted to cut costs. I finally started to use ACT! and let me tell you, it is so much better. Granted, I can't do downloads but, I never did them before. Please note the following along with all of this, I was in Information Technology for over 15 years as a profession. I was able to make changes to the ACT! software and build it to what I wanted but, it is just part fo the ACT! system I did not do anything outside of the program. Granted, it took me about 4 solid days of planning and programming but I have it the way I want it to be. My sales have actually increased since I started using it and there are so many things I can do within ACT! that it made my life easier. I am actually working less than I was before but, selling more. I transferred my data over from InsurancePro, which was not an easy task, and shortly after I had an audit. I had an audit when I was using InsurancePro and nearly failed because the server was having problems pulling up the documents. My last audit, using ACT!, was done in 15 min!!!!! The guy actually told me it was one of the easiest audits he had ever done. He saw where my notes were, how my documents were stored and everything. The auditor even tried to get a copy of my database. Not that I don't mind sharing it but, it was just not complete yet. Little tweaks are always needed as time goes by.

What have I gained by using ACT! over the other client management software programs? More control of my data, lower cost over all, I don't have any extra costs associated with this except my off-site storage, $5.00 a month, and I can actually load it only my laptop and leave the office. I have also gained the flexibility of being able to make the screens look the way I want them to. And, I can change things right then and not have to wait for other to do it for me. Also the time to get quote information has decreased by several minutes as well as after the sale updating of information. We can actually have the data up to date with documents scanned in about 10 min (avg). Best of all, if my internet is down I can still work because my data is stored locally. I do have a backup drive for local backup and about 2 times a week I copy to a flash drive. I like to make sure my data is backed up at all times.

Just so you guys know, I don't work for Sage software, the makers of ACT! I am a P&C guy just like all of you. But if you are limited on your funds, just starting out or just a control freak like myself ACT! is the best way to go. Now, if I was a large agency I am sure there would be a better product out there. But since I have 3 people total in my office, this is all I need.

So, for about $40.00 for one user license (http://www.buycheapsoftware.com) I can have a machine up and ready to go. By the way, many of my sales reps are happy with the way I have set this up and like it. And best of all my employees love it to death and are making better notes as well as loving how the history is automatically done for you in regards to sending letters, faxes and emails. I even setup an email address just for the ACT! so we can store them with the client's information.

Now you see another side of all of this and not just the route for the gotta pay a great deal every month to manage your clients.

I hope this helps some of you make the right decision.

[LAInsGuy]

I've been following the posts and doing some additional research and was wondering if anyone has any experience with:

1. FSC Manager
2. Insurance Pro
3. GBS

Also, are there any MGA or GA's out there that would recommend a managment system appropriate for wholesale/GA business? I'm currently on Applied's TAM.

Thanks!

I have had some experience with GBS. All bad. I requested a demo that turned out to be nothing but a program that tried to sell you the $50 'full access' demo by popping up a window every time you clicked on any part of the program stating the feature you are trying to use is disabled. You can purchase a 'full access' demo at, etc. When they started spamming me, I wrote back and expressed my disappointment and asked them not to contact me anymore. I received a response wherein a representative of GBS called me an idiot. Interesting sales strategy...

[treebruiser]

I use Xanatek's software called IMS. They have probably the best tech support in the industry. I have always been able to get help right away except when all their techs were helping other people and that has only happened a couple of times. When that did happen the longest I ever waited was 20 min. for a return phone call.
They are very inexpensive compared to AMS and Applied systems. A 1 user system is $75 per month and a 10 user system is only $200 per month. It is the most user friendly system that I have gotten to look at. It was very easy to learn. Their workflows are very nice and easy to navigate through compared to most of the ones out there. They have full document imaging and scanning so you can be completely paperless as well. I know that they bridge with comparative raters like quomation, ITC, ezlynx, and some others. They have most of the bells and whistles of most of AMS and Applied's systems. The only thing that they do not have as of right now is a full accounting program. Right now all I can do with their accounting is agency bill, reciepts, commision tracking. Of coarse they have various accounting reports that you can run, for ex. outstanding balance reports, payment reports, collection reports, commision reports and others. They also have full reporting capabilities where you can run a report on any field in their software. And if you need any of those reports customized, they will do that for you as well and it is included in the monly support fees. They also offer unlimited free online training on their software and that is after then intial onsite training. That is included in the montly fees as well.
I absolutely love their system. I know that they are currently intergrating their software with quickbooks so they will also have a full accounting program sometime in the near future. You can find them at www.xanatek.com

[hhana]

Any comments on Hawksoft vs AMS 360 for ease of use & functionality?

[PAL]

Is anyone using Quomation's agency management system? If so, please comment.
Thank you.

[mhutch69]

If the mgmt system from Quomation is free, think about what you normally get for free today?

There is a reason it is free. It is not worth any money???

Also, be careful dealing with the Utah folks. My personal experience has been TERRIBLE! Holding entities hostage, intentionally disrupting business to extort monies for work which was NOT asked for but they wanted to collect due to their financial needs?

Quomation is a scary group that I would run the other direction. Their web site says they are in TX? We have ovef 500 producers without ONE using their alleged rater. We do Not UPDATE Quomation any longer in AZ. and have not agreed to provide programs and proprietary information to them in CA. and that is the reason they are playing games with our AZ. program...

Our experience has been entirely unprofessional and unbusiness like compared to FSC and many other raters we work with nationally.

RUN from this vendor. They do not understand their place in the process. A THIRD PARTY VENDOR does not dictate dic.

[Insurance Eagle]

Quomation's rater and management system in my experience has been nothing but helpfull to my agency in every way, I have 3 producers not including myself and have been in the industry for 10 plus years most of which was as an Exclusive agent through 2 different A rated companies. I am now an Independent Agent and have been for just about a year now and have 10 A rated companies 8 of which are preffered and have had no problems from any of them using the rater with their sofware or internet systems including downloads of policy information in to the management system. All three of my employees have no problem rating or accessing information from the systems nor do the companies I work with have any problems from what they tell me with Quomation, in fact some of my carriers are now starting to recomend them as they have witnessed the ease of use to which my people and I use their (Quomation) system. We are a newer agency to the independent side but in no way new to the industry or to other companies raters or management systems and as such their system (Quomation) has been noting but a blessing in our office in every way and for the price you can't go wrong, whether your a new agency or one that been around for a while watching your bottom line should always be a concern so why not get the best of both worlds for one price which usually cuts the competitions in half if not more. As far as start up price from what I recall the cost to start the rater was just the monthly price and for the management system their was an intial fee around $ 1K but after that to have both systems for under $200.00 is a bargain which can't be beat and the best part is that you can grow into it for no additional price under 10 Users after which they can accomadte you for a fee. Now just for the record this is my opinion and do with it what you like but to try something out for free, a test run of sorts cost you nothing but what does it cost you not to try it out should be the question? As for me posting this I have no financial ties to Quomation what so ever but I am an avid user of the system and a happy one at that, so if it shows, good...it was meant to, also their tech people are the best I've seen by phone or live chat in resolving problems or just questions and believe me I've seen my share of tech people.