Agency Management System

Your response to industry hot topics.

Moderators: Josh, independent guy

kaniki
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 10:44 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by kaniki »

Has anyone heard of the managerment system Quomation?
Please let us know your thoughts
Lookcloser
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 12:33 pm

Agency Management System

Post by Lookcloser »

I've spoken to several agencies that went with Quomation as a rater and added the agency mgmt system when it become available (solely because it was dirt cheap). There is no easy way to leave Quomation and next to impossible to get your data. The most recent agency said they have a 90 notice of cancellation - they will automatically charge 3 months support the day you call to cut service AND cut your service immediately. This agency has been trying to get their data since February (it is now almost May). No one returns their calls, reportedly the president would not take a call from the agency and on and on. After many attempts, the agency owner spoke with someone for over 2 hours and ended up with them agreeing to send the data if he paid $500. Plus he had to ship a hard drive to Quomation 3 x the size of their data. Further if the hard drive wasn't 3 x the data size it wouldn't be done. No they were not willing to tell their client the size of his data either. Time will tell if in fact Quomation returns the data, unencrypted and usable. Read the fine print and if it isn't stated just how termination works exactly, get it in writing or move to another vendor. There are lots of great choices out there. Good luck.
kaniki
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 10:44 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by kaniki »

We have been looking into many management systems and realize it might be best to just keep Vertafore system.
We currently on Instar and looking into going with their AMS 360 at about the same price for having additional user.
Can anyone who is on AMS360 give us some advise to this move??
kaniki
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 10:44 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by kaniki »

does anyone know anything about QQ Catalyst management system?
vla01001
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Jun 10, 2015 9:35 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by vla01001 »

We just moved from QQ. Primarily because of our commercial accounts. Personal lines is not a problem with QQ, but commercial is another story. Primarily because of coverages (non existing with QQ for commercial), also commissions. We are paid upfront commissions with some carriers. Where we withhold the commission from the down payment, then we return that commission if the policy cancelled or if coverage was reduced, vehicles and equipment was deleted, etc. But with some carriers we are paid commissions monthly as premium is earned. Well we had a really hard time finding a system that account for all of different ways of receiving commissions. Another issue was certificates. We issue about 150-200 of them each day. Its serious time concern. We definitely wanted to have the ability to all our insureds do their own certs and if we did them, then it needed to be quick and easy. AMS 360 has such option, but the time and clicks it took to send a cert was no different than us doing them by hand on simple Acord forms. Ridiculous actually. So many steps and so many clicks, so much wasted time. Anyway, we are trying out www.nowcerts.com We are on their 30 day free trial. So far its handling what we need it to do. It does not have accounting, but we use Quick Books anyway and theirs connects with our quick books account. I wish it integrated with more raters, we use Semcat, which is integrated, but if we wanted to use Ezy Linx rater we would not be able to integrate it. Which is not a huge concern as we dont plan on changing Semcat. I will update you on how our trial goes. So far so good, we will see.
gforaker
Insurance Journal Addict
Posts: 43
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:58 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by gforaker »

All of the needs you are looking for can be handled by Applied Epic. Yes, it is expensive, but if you are doing that many Certs a day then you are already paying out the money in employee man hours. The accounting is much more flexible than QB which is really just for small agencies. If you really are doing that much business, then put on your big boy pants and visit a large Epic user who is doing a lot of certificates and watch their workflow. You can also set up so the customers can print their own certs within limits you choose. Small and poor agencies don't do 200 certs a day, so stop looking at small agency solutions.
ROI985
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2015 11:50 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by ROI985 »

Just my opinion, but avoid Quomation. I speak from experience. We've been using them for 6 years.....5 years running it locally and 1 year on the cloud. The software, itself, is OK but the cloud version is terribly slow and is costing us valuable productivity. We're constantly getting "not responding" errors, getting logged off the system for no apparent reason (not just due to inactivity) and working with PDF's is agonizingly slow. Sometimes it will take literally minutes to open a simple PDF in a client's file.....something that should be as fast and simple as a mouse click. When you're paperless and need to access client files 50 or 100 times a day, the lost time adds up. Not to mention the frustration factor. It seems like they haven't kept up server capacity as they've added clients. We're a small agency are primarily using it as a data base....no commissions or accounting, so I can't speak about the system capabilities in that regard.
ROI985
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2015 11:50 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by ROI985 »

Lookcloser wrote:I've spoken to several agencies that went with Quomation as a rater and added the agency mgmt system when it become available (solely because it was dirt cheap). There is no easy way to leave Quomation and next to impossible to get your data. The most recent agency said they have a 90 notice of cancellation - they will automatically charge 3 months support the day you call to cut service AND cut your service immediately. This agency has been trying to get their data since February (it is now almost May). No one returns their calls, reportedly the president would not take a call from the agency and on and on. After many attempts, the agency owner spoke with someone for over 2 hours and ended up with them agreeing to send the data if he paid $500. Plus he had to ship a hard drive to Quomation 3 x the size of their data. Further if the hard drive wasn't 3 x the data size it wouldn't be done. No they were not willing to tell their client the size of his data either. Time will tell if in fact Quomation returns the data, unencrypted and usable. Read the fine print and if it isn't stated just how termination works exactly, get it in writing or move to another vendor. There are lots of great choices out there. Good luck.
I can confirm from experience that all of the above is exactly correct. I've been with Quomation for 6 years and I've been trying for a month to get answers regarding getting my data. I've had EXACTLY the same experience as described above. The simply ignore phone calls and emails. Forget about reaching the owner(s)....whoever they may be. With absolute and constant persistence for a month on my part, I finally got them to send me the requirements to get my data. It's a $500 fee and you have to send them a hard drive...or they'll provide one for an additional $150....and they want you to sign an agreement that basically says that even if you pay the fee, etc. they still don't guarantee anything regarding the quality & suitability of the data. Quomation is a RIP OFF. They were fine when we started with them 6 years ago, but their customer service has become pathetic.
James Bond
Insurance Journal Enthusiast
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 1:56 pm

Re: Agency Management System

Post by James Bond »

In another life, I worked with a company that was looking into developing an AMS system. IVANS charges those companies I pretty penny for access to their API. And their picky about it too. OldIndyAgent… from your other posts it seems like you know what you’re talking about but I just don’t see IVANS supporting a system like that. In fact, I’d really doubt that they even have that kind of tier 1 support.

TheInsKid, from what I’ve seen there may be other options other than IVANS but the number of carriers you can download from is drastically reduced (for Independent Agents that just doesn’t work).
Gforaker brought up a great point. Ask the vendor for a list of references in your area that you can go visit without a salesperson in tow. Then you can get the real story.

Fellgoodtyre, I’d reconsider looking into EZLynks. If they don’t offer a demo, see if they’ll give you a reference to a current customer (as Gforaker suggested). I have heard some really good things about their system, although I have never used it personally.

Personally, I hate Hawksoft. It’s been so long, I don’t even remember the specifics of what it was I really didn’t like about their system other than it just felt really cumbersome, but that’s just me.
resistencia13
Insurance Journal Enthusiast
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2016 9:31 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by resistencia13 »

I switched from Instar to AMS360 worst mistake ever. AMS360 is a worthless system. Anyone that thinks otherwise have never used a good system. I have demo many systems: Hawsoft, Nexsure, Techcanary and EZlynx all better choices than AMS360. I am currently looking to switch to either Nexsure or TechCanary, as they are the only system that have a feature that is a deal breaker for my agency. I have not and will not even consider any systems own by Vertafore, as they SOP is to buy good system and turn them into worthless junk.....Instar was a great system (needed improvement, but overall was good). I was sold on AMS360 because on the surface (if you do not pay close attention) it seems the greatest software ever, but once you start training and using, you will discover that it takes 2-3 times as long to complete any task. The salesperson told me it was like adding a new employee....my employee is a very lazy employee who has slowed down the entire office and now we are looking to fire it. My only advice to anyone looking into AMS360 is run for your life before is too late!!!

Also I would appreciate any feedback from Nexsure and Techcanary users.
davidcanary
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2016 12:34 pm
Contact:

Re: Agency Management System

Post by davidcanary »

Hey resistencia,

David with TechCanary here. Appreciate the feedback, good to know we're at the top of your list. When was the last time you had a demonstration with us? The reason I ask is that if it was more than 1 year ago, might be worth a second look? If you're still reviewing system capabilities and need something that tracks close/conversion/retention ratios in a system that allows you to customize all automation in a mobile accessible platform, we are truly second to none when it comes to sales tracking in a cloud-based system, and if you have Salesforce already, even better.

If you need references, no problem lmk; we work with medium-sized and enterprise level agencies/brokers/MGAs/carriers all across the country. The companies that see the most value with us have at least 2 locations and at least 1 in-house IT staff. We deal with the integration so you don't have to, any comparative rater of your choosing, thought I should throw that out there ;)

Wishing everyone a great 4th of July weekend!
resistencia13
Insurance Journal Enthusiast
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2016 9:31 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by resistencia13 »

David,

I am currently demoing it again working with Kyle. Thanks for the reply and I would love to get some references.
kbitzer9
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 11:53 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by kbitzer9 »

Hi, resistencia,

My name is Karen Bitzer and RHSB has been a Nexsure agency since 2005. A few years ago we prepared an RFP and looked at all of the major systems that are in the agency management system marketplace to be sure that our Nexsure system was still the best choice for our agency. After many months of demos and proposal discussions, we made the decision to stay with Nexsure. The only area of Nexsure that we felt needed improved was the document management system.

Instead of spending crazy amounts of money to transition to a new system that could not convert any of our data, monthly user licenses fees that were double what we were currently paying with Nexsure with a double-digit percentage increase expected every year and two years of disruption to our employees to make the change, we decided to partner with XDTI to make some changes to the document management system. We were able to do this very quickly (within months) with very positive results for our agency.

With the introduction of Nexsure v3 a few months ago, I believe that Nexsure is the most technically advanced system in the marketplace. The things that I think sets this system apart from the rest of the pack include:

Dashboard Interface with alerts
One click access to actions, email inbox, expirations
Web Requests access and management - certificate requests, quote requests, etc.
Workload Analysis
ImpactSuite - automated notifications to clients via a combination of email, text, voicemail or fax
Pending cancellations, reinstatements
Automatic creation and delivery of Lost Policy Release forms
Birthday greetings
New customer campaigns
Document Management Suite
Nexsure Attachment Manager - access to Nexsure documents from any computer with internet access
Drag and drop attachments to clients, policies, certificates, action items
Ability to scan directly to a Nexsure client or an employee inbox
Integrated PDF editor - highlighting, bookmarking, page insertion, etc., without a full version of Acrobat
Outlook Email Authentication
Nexsure listens to my Outlook inbox for emails from clients/underwriters that may be client related
Cloud based connection to my Exchange server
Interactive Message Inbox with the ability to automatically attach email/attachments to Nexsure clients
Other new features include:
eSignature - Docusign integration
Nexsure Client Access portal
Lead Management System

Every Nexsure user is on the same version of the product. While some agencies may be using some features of the product that other agencies are not using, all of the company's development and support team are focused on one set of challenges and enhancements. The monthly user license fees are very stable. We have not had to pay an increase in user licenses since we first contracted with Nexsure in 2005. We have purchased additional features, i.e, ImpactSuite and v3 Productivity Plus within the past 18 months and we still pay considerably less than we were quoted by any of the other systems.

I believe Nexsure is probably the best kept secret in the agency management system arena. Let me know if you have any questions or if I can be of assistance. Good luck!
Last edited by kbitzer9 on Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
resistencia13
Insurance Journal Enthusiast
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2016 9:31 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by resistencia13 »

kbitzer9 Thanks for the feedback I really appreciated as I am seriously considering Nexsure along with Techcanary and want to make sure I make the right decision this time as last year I switched to AMS360 thinking it was going to make my agency productive and instead it has slowed down our productivity. I do have some questions on the following topics.

1. How is the certificate/evidence of insurance work flow? Is it easy to track certificates for multiple projects, certificate holders within one client? We work with lots of contractors and issue hundreds of certificate within a months for the same certificate holder and contractor and want to make sure I can easily locate certificates without having to open each certificate.

2. How do you handle emails sent to client. I notice when emails are sent you need to manually type the insured's name on the email subject as it does not auto populate the insured's name nor it has the ability to create email template, which contain insured's location within the template's text.
kbitzer9
Insurance Journal Fan
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 11:53 am

Re: Agency Management System

Post by kbitzer9 »

We write large accounts with multiple certificates and many cert holders. Managing the information has not been a problem for us. Each certificate is assigned a specific ID and when you view the cert holders for a client, the certificate ID(s) are displayed for each holder. The search filter for certificates and certificate holders is also very good.

We use email templates extensively in Nexsure. Many Nexsure fields are available to be pulled in to an email template, but I'm not sure a specific property location is one of the available fields. The address book in Nexsure contains all of the email addresses for that client. You can also view all of email addresses for the carriers that write policies for that client If you have populated Nexsure with the underwriter's email address. The template development is easy and can be copied and edited quite easily as well.
Post Reply