Agency Management System

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RUinsured
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by RUinsured »

Whatever you do RUN from AMS360 / Vertafore.

- Annual increases every year after the "honeymoon stage". As you can imagine this will get very expensive very quickly as every year that goes by it becomes harder to leave and they know that so they hit you with annual increase. My reduced user count of 6, yes 6 users, bill is currently $1,500 a month and will be $1,600 + by January. Needless to say, I'm finally making the move.
- Every new feature or technology that comes along will always be an option. Of course you'll have to pay them an additional down payment to add the feature and your monthly subscription will increase as well.
- You can add users all you want any day of the week, but when it comes to reducing your user count, they don't allow it until your renewal date.
- When you finally decide you had enough of being taking advantage of, AMS360 / Vertafore will be charge you an Arm & Leg to get your Data from them. It will also take months to get it.

My advice, other than run far away from AMS360 / Vertafore, is that any company you decide to go with make sure you fully understand the exit plan and their procedure upfront. You'll notice some of these company sales reps will be very vague of the details of data backup cost, user delete, cancellation process, etc.
MrD
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by MrD »

Resistencia13 - Sorry for the delayed response - I'm in Houston, TX and if you've been watching the news you know what I'm dealing with. Strategic Software PartnerXE product = www.sisware.com Mr. Tony Gantt 614-219-6555 ext 309 It may be worth a look. It integrates with Outlook, we do commission download and it reconciles very well with their internal full accounting program. We do a lot of surplus business and account current reconciliation is very easy. Just take a look; ask the questions and go from there. Good hunting!
resistencia13
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by resistencia13 »

Hope you and yours are safe!

I do have a few questions (whenever you get chance, I am sure you have a handful):

1. Did you demo Ams360 and Nexsure?
2. How does this system match up to the above systems in your opinion?
MrD
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by MrD »

It will be short answers:
Yes, we did demos on AM360 and Nexsure
We found XE to do the major things that insurance agents need: good datebase, outlook integration, download for almost all of our carriers (personal & commercial), commission download and reconciliation and a very good accounting system (insurance accounting AND general ledger)
AM360 was simply too much for an agency our size
Nexsure spent most of the demo showing me how good they were at social media and texting our client when their bill was due or it was their birthday. They never could present a good presentation of the "nuts & bolts" of their management system as needed by all agencies.
Hope that helps.
resistencia13
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by resistencia13 »

Thanks for the reply. Well, it looks you are a better judge for agency management system than me. I have about 3 demoes and still missing some "nuts and bolts". Also I was promised enhancements and then after 2 months in I was told the enhancements were not being done. I learned my lesson though, as now I am paying for my mistakes. I spent most of my date clicking my mouse and re-entering information already in the system that shall flow to certificates, but it does not.
gstsoftware
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by gstsoftware »

Have you looked at Exlynx?
There's a lot out there about how it's light on the commercial side but what's it's miles ahead on is the ability to actually "manage" your book. We bumped our retention 2% in our first year because it's ease of use and it's superior ability to track cancellations and more importantly allow you to contact your customers quickly and reliably about billing issues, texting is now as common for us as emails, and they track back to the customers file.

None of the Agency Management systems no matter how much they cost help you much in the way of actually creating(and more importantly MANAGE!)commercial applications for all the broker and E&S business, our office has all the major carriers but no matter how hard we try the brokerage and E&S book's growth always outpaces the direct writers business.

We went outside our agency management system to a program called QwikSUBmit, it's cheap like $12.50 a month and in addition to creating applications, generates auto renewals for our non-direct business, has saved us untold hours and is helping us make renewing that book much, much easier. It's automated renewals that you can send to the customer, really lighten the load on our CSR's.
pageltd
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by pageltd »

Do you own that company...QwikSUBmit?
George Page
www.pageins.com
gstsoftware
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by gstsoftware »

No I do not own that company but have worked with them to help design this.

It's a great program and is addressing the issues of managing your application submissions and renewals which no one else is addressing.
pageltd
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by pageltd »

OldIndyAgent wrote: Fri Apr 10, 2015 10:38 am Honestly, if you liked your previous system, you should have stayed with it. AMS has had customers stay on platforms 10+ years and just quit paying support. Not something they really talk about. They have customers on systems they haven't supported since 2000...you just don't get updates.
that would be me.
George Page
www.pageins.com
pageltd
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by pageltd »

gstsoftware wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2017 6:17 am No I do not own that company but have worked with them to help design this.

It's a great program and is addressing the issues of managing your application submissions and renewals which no one else is addressing.
I can purchase an ACORD Advantage Membership for $300, have access to ALL 700+ forms as fillable PDF's. Download and fill them at my leisure, and email them to the brokers that in my CRM. I can add and delete brokers as I see fit. I don't see any advantage to your system...at all.
George Page
www.pageins.com
gstsoftware
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by gstsoftware »

Yes, we looked at them, but they do the same thing all the other "application systems" do, simply fill in the forms and you don't have any real access to the data.

The QwikSUBmit system generates automatic renewals for you, and while lots of systems say they "generate renewals" all they do is update the policy dates and date of the application. The QS system takes the data and prompts you to what items would typically be the important information to renew it also allows you to send a menu driven Q&A to your customer where you choose the data you want them to renew, it then has them sign the application and send it back to you...bam done and you can send it in to your GA. This is so huge because it shifts the process from the agent to the customer and in a format that is so simple it's almost idiot proof. THAT is what makes this system different from the others.

Focusing solely on applications/forms is not seeing the “forest for the trees”, it's the data in those applications that you need to be able to use in meaningful ways. There is no application system in and the industry and I mean NONE that will give you any kind of true data analysis of what you've been sending in to your GA's, would be nice to target customers in the GA/E&S markets rather than just catch the deluge that comes through the door. Want to roll your book, bam run some simple reports and see what class codes you’ve been quoting.

Yes, we looked at the other systems, they’re like using pencils compared to using a computer.
pageltd
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by pageltd »

gstsoftware wrote: Fri Sep 29, 2017 8:54 am Yes, we looked at them, but they do the same thing all the other "application systems" do, simply fill in the forms and you don't have any real access to the data.

The QwikSUBmit system generates automatic renewals for you, and while lots of systems say they "generate renewals" all they do is update the policy dates and date of the application. The QS system takes the data and prompts you to what items would typically be the important information to renew it also allows you to send a menu driven Q&A to your customer where you choose the data you want them to renew, it then has them sign the application and send it back to you...bam done and you can send it in to your GA. This is so huge because it shifts the process from the agent to the customer and in a format that is so simple it's almost idiot proof. THAT is what makes this system different from the others.

Focusing solely on applications/forms is not seeing the “forest for the trees”, it's the data in those applications that you need to be able to use in meaningful ways. There is no application system in and the industry and I mean NONE that will give you any kind of true data analysis of what you've been sending in to your GA's, would be nice to target customers in the GA/E&S markets rather than just catch the deluge that comes through the door. Want to roll your book, bam run some simple reports and see what class codes you’ve been quoting.

Yes, we looked at the other systems, they’re like using pencils compared to using a computer.
I signed up for the trial and totally get the part about data. Given the fact that ACORD will license their e-forms to anyone willing to pay them $5,000=$10,000, combined with the number of agents needing a decent way to track submissions I'm surprised there are not more solutions out there like yours. There are a couple of things that I would call "pain points" with insurance agency management systems that I have seen/used, in general. So...with my QS trial I created a submission, then came up with a couple of questions immediately. I just emailed those questions to GST Software and will wait to hear back.
George Page
www.pageins.com
resistencia13
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by resistencia13 »

gstsoftware wrote: Tue Sep 26, 2017 5:57 am Have you looked at Exlynx?
There's a lot out there about how it's light on the commercial side but what's it's miles ahead on is the ability to actually "manage" your book. We bumped our retention 2% in our first year because it's ease of use and it's superior ability to track cancellations and more importantly allow you to contact your customers quickly and reliably about billing issues, texting is now as common for us as emails, and they track back to the customers file.

None of the Agency Management systems no matter how much they cost help you much in the way of actually creating(and more importantly MANAGE!)commercial applications for all the broker and E&S business, our office has all the major carriers but no matter how hard we try the brokerage and E&S book's growth always outpaces the direct writers business.

We went outside our agency management system to a program called QwikSUBmit, it's cheap like $12.50 a month and in addition to creating applications, generates auto renewals for our non-direct business, has saved us untold hours and is helping us make renewing that book much, much easier. It's automated renewals that you can send to the customer, really lighten the load on our CSR's.


Not I have not, but I will as I need to get out of Nexsure ASAP before my staff quits on me! Thanks
Jedwardnorton
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by Jedwardnorton »

Anyone had success with a new company called NowCerts?
aguarino
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Re: Agency Management System

Post by aguarino »

I saw there was a lot of talk of agency management systems and I just wanted to chime in really quick. We used Tam Applied Online for years and the cost for 3 user names to access the system was in the vicinity of 11K/year. At the time were an agency for 5 employees. They charge an extra $300 or so per user per month that you added. As a smaller agency (5 million premium) this is an expensive recurring cost. We switched to Special Agent about 3-4 years ago and it works great. It was about a 7K fee to transfer all of our data from the old system to theirs. The yearly cost is around 1-2K regardless of how many users you add. Now we have 6 people total in the office and everyone has a log in. It downloads with all our carriers (Safety, Travelers, Vermont Mutual, Norfolk & Dedham, Plymouth Rock, etc.) It does all the necessary things you need to do on a daily basis to run an efficient insurance agency. The only thing it doesn't do is that it is not "online", but, whenever I am at home or on vacation I just bring my laptop and I have GoToMyPC on it which links up directly to my office computer. This way I can access Special Agent and my entire desktop from anywhere on my laptop. That only costs about $100/year as opposed to 10K just so my management system is "online". I also really like their customer service. They are super helpful if you ever have any questions or want to try and run certain reports, marketing, etc.
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