Best Agency Management System?

[insurancenerd4life]

For someone starting out as an independent agent, P&C only, what is the most afforable agency management system that will get the job done? I would prefer to use a vendor that also offers the customer facing interface with COI capabilities but if it's too much I can get that separately. Any advice?

[BADTROUT]

I will give a shout out for EZLynx. It will cost a little more than the other ones you will find out there, and less than some as well. Having been in the business for a long time, I can say that having the rater integrated with the management system is a really great feature.

There are many, and it boils down to personal preference, but integrated tasks and rating were the key for us.

What stare are you in?

[pageltd]

A couple of things I am pondering while shopping for a new management system:

You can buy software for many different things (Quickbooks is a good example), install it on your computer or network, load it with data and run it for as long as you want. Regardless of whether you purchase support or not, that software is yours to use for as long as it is supported by the operating system.

The current model (for almost all agency management systems) is "software as a service" SAAS. Essentially what this means is that they let you load data into the system OR convert your data, they give you a username and password and then allow you to use all the benefits. If you don't pay the subscription/support fee, accesss is either 1) denied or 2) severely limited (read-only).

Benefits aside, this has never been an attractive model to me. I want to own my own data. Even if you decided you want to switch vendors, that's not an easy or seamless transition. It can be very disruptive.

Then again, the benefits might be worth that "compromise". I'm not sure in the marketplace there are many other options.

[insurancenerd4life]

I will give a shout out for EZLynx. It will cost a little more than the other ones you will find out there, and less than some as well. Having been in the business for a long time, I can say that having the rater integrated with the management system is a really great feature.

There are many, and it boils down to personal preference, but integrated tasks and rating were the key for us.

What stare are you in?

I'm in Florida. I've used EZLynx for personal auto rating. I never even knew they had an agency Management system! They're who I'm leaning towards but trying to get pricing is hard! I'm not getting any response. Do you know roughly what I can expect?

[BADTROUT]

I believe you should be asking for something less than $300 a month for both rater and management. I have heard lower. I do have some contacts that I could have reach out to you. I actually include EZLynx in our aggregator platform but I'm in CO, TX, GA, NM, AZ, WA, and CA so I can't personally help you, unfortunately.

I have used it for years though, and although it's not without its fair share of "I wish's", it is wonderful to have everything integrated. Feel free to reach out and PM me if you would like me to get you with the people I use @ EZ.

[pageltd]

How does it handle prospects and marketing campaigns? Not email campaigns, but business that you may have lost. Business that you want to get back. Business that you want to stay on the radar.

[pageltd]

I'm curious what the wish list is for EZ Lynx? What are the "I wish" items?

[BADTROUT]

Ok in their retention center there is a tab for exipring premiums, and expired policies. I can set an automated email to them, but it will force you to reconcile them so if one comes up and shows expired I have it set for me to look into, then I manually click the email depending on the results to send and it shoots it off then I close the expired instance. If the policies are downloading or if you are manually changing your non-downloading ones to renew in the system they wont show up here so its a true catch-all. So we have caught ones that canceled because the insured didn't read his mail, or ones that we for some reason missed a renewal quote from a broker, it's a great failsafe.

As for what it's missing? Really nothing missing, but I would like the ability to assign a task to two people and have it show up in both task lists or true drag and drop for moving files between folders... it's more gee-whiz stuff than dealbreakers.

As for prospects and such, you create a client file and the opportunity and take it through the lifecycle of the client. Thats the sales center. The rest... I would demo with them

P.S. I feel bad for bogarting the whole thread on this... but happy to help.

[pageltd]

How does it handle submissions to brokers outside of your standard carriers? And does it upload changes to carriers? Any automation with noc's or cancellations?

[pageltd]

Also does it integrate with GSuite, email and calendar, or just Outlook?

[BADTROUT]

Unfortunately not GSuite... I've been using that since I was a Guinea Pig on the alpha and beta releases. Nothing beats free... I dont love outlook so never used the plugin. I email out from it, replies go to my email.

On automation, there definately internal processes you can set up, but as for uploading changes to the carrier I prefer it not to do that.

[pageltd]

Unfortunately not GSuite... I've been using that since I was a Guinea Pig on the alpha and beta releases. Nothing beats free... I dont love outlook so never used the plugin. I email out from it, replies go to my email.

On automation, there definately internal processes you can set up, but as for uploading changes to the carrier I prefer it not to do that.

As with alot of other things in the industry, it sounds less than ideal. Btw, GSuite is definitely not free. It's the business solution side of Gmail. That being said, not to have a plugin / API for arguably THE most popular email service out there seems very short sighted.

[BADTROUT]

It's literally the MOST requested enhancement they have. It certainly isn't a dealbreaker for me though given the comparison to other systems and their cost/benefit.

[pageltd]

Given that most communication these days is through email...

[pageltd]

AND with Google making a significant investment in Applied, plus the statement from Applied that they will pyut the money into enhancements that matter to the users (specifically mentioned was Gmail)...it would seem to me that Gmail integration would be a logical next step. Makes Applied an attractive system to explore.