Industry Progressing With Real Time Technology and Downloads

Independent agents and carriers see gains — in some cases doubling — in real time transactions

Just one year into the making, supporters of the Real Time/Download Campaign (www.getrealtime.org), a campaign to improve the efficiency of communications between independent agents and carriers, say the message is getting out but even so there’s more work to be done.

“The real time campaign is an industry effort where we have brought together a lot of associations to get agents and carriers and vendors to use the technology that has been made available out there,” explained Carolyn “Cal” Durland, AUGIE facilitator manager, forms department, at ACORD. “With the real time campaign, we are getting the word out across the country to agents that carriers are offering this functionality through the agency management systems. But, agents need to use it.”

What is real time exactly? Real time, according to a href=”http://www.getrealtime.org” target=”_blank”>GetRealTime.org, is the ability to click on a button from a client file in an agency management system or comparative rater to get immediate access to carrier information on that client. The transaction may be a quote, billing inquiry, claim inquiry, loss runs, policy view, endorsements or a request for information. This approach provides a single workflow for servicing or quoting and offers agencies increased efficiency.

The Real Time/Download Campaign, supported by independent agents, carriers and technology providers, doesn’t advocate a specific technology, but a workflow approach that frees up more time for agencies to sell, process and service business. Most agents can leverage tools already in their agency management systems or comparative raters, say the experts.

Jeff Yates, of the Agents Council on Technology, says that just after one year into the campaign, several leading national and regional carriers are reporting their real-time rating and policy inquiry transactions have doubled in 2007. “We are starting to see a lot more functionality that’s pretty exciting for agents,” Yates said.

For example, in commercial lines now, Yates says agents have the ability to quote and take whole schedules from their agency management systems, including vehicle and property information and then just automatically insert them into the company program. “So, it really is a great efficiency,” he said.

Other real time functionality coming from carriers includes billing inquiries, quoting, endorsements and download capabilities.

“We are also seeing increases in download,” he noted. “In personalized download we already have a lot of that, but we are seeing commercialized download really take off, too. The industry has done a lot to fix that.”

Download is very important to real time because it ensures all policy numbers and other details match, Yates said. “It makes the real time functionality work better.”

Yates said the campaign has also seen an increase in agents using real time.

“This is definitely the workflow of the future for the independent agency system, and the whole issue is how fast we get to where we need to get,” said Yates.

Overall, supporters of the Real Time campaign, including Yates, have been pleased with the progress.

“On average it takes about half the time to do the same transaction on a carrier Web site when agents use real time,” he said. “So, it is a really big thing.”

Results That Matter

At Chicago-based CNA, usage is up by some 10 to 15 percent a month. The carrier embarked on an implementation program last year, and continues to work with agents to drive increases.

“Our system allows us to see when an agent has a problem using Real Time,” says Barbara Flanigan, CNA vice president, business insurance. “We can then pick up the phone and call to see if we can help.”

Peerless Insurance, a Liberty Mutual Agency Markets company based in Keene, N.H., set a goal of doubling the number of transactions in 2007. “We achieved that,” says Peerless Insurance Agency Interface Manager Dee Dee Forte. “We saw more than 300,000 real-time transactions by the end of the year.”

At Westfield Insurance, usage more than doubled as well. “We saw a 105 percent increase from January 1, 2007 through the end of year,” says Steve Copley from the Westfield, Ohio-based organization. “It’s been a desktop-by-desktop endeavor. One of our objectives for 2008 is to educate our field marketing staff so they better understand the benefits of Real Time and can help move agents and brokers forward.”

These results mean that AUGIE’s Durland is finding more and more companies interested in coming on board. As other insurance companies hear these results, “they say, ‘Why am I not doing this? What do I have to do to get started?’ … Then on the other side of it, the agents are letting us know which companies are not doing it. So, we are going out to talk to those companies to say, ‘What can we do to help you get started?'”

“These preliminary numbers indicate we’re making inroads industry-wide to help agents, brokers, vendors and carriers improve workflows by using Real Time and Download,” says Lisa Parry Becker, the campaign co-chair, and vice president of sales and marketing at William B. Parry Agency in Langhorne, Pa.

But Durland cautioned that in the future, if the carriers want to continue to get quoted, they have to be part of that real time environment. In the end, “it’s a win-win for everybody,” she says. “The carriers are getting more business and the agents are getting more business.”

Topics Carriers Agencies Tech