Agency Management System for Ocean Marine

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BRGator
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Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2016 11:11 am

Agency Management System for Ocean Marine

Post by BRGator »

I've been through the forum and seen countless topics concerning Agency Management Systems....which are the best, cost, implementation, ease of data transfer, etc...

However, as an insurance broker who specializes in commercial and recreational ocean marine business I'm interested to know which of the systems adequately address ocean marine business in addition to their P/C capabilities. I'm familiar with Instar and that had a marine module that got the job done but was largely ineffective when it concerned customized reporting. Instar is being phased out next year and doesn't have all the nifty new features of other systems, like being cloud based, mobile abilities, etc..

In my research thus far, it seems most software vendors leave the marine and aviation side of things untouched. Maybe I'm wrong?

Any guidance would be helpful.
gforaker
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Posts: 43
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:58 am

Re: Agency Management System for Ocean Marine

Post by gforaker »

There are way too many unknowns to give you a complete answer.

How many users in your office? Do you currently have a management system? How complicated is your accounting? Do you have to keep track of sub-brokers commissions, split commissions of producers, etc? Do you want to have searchable custom or Accord forms pre-filled or integrated with applications, certificates, claim forms and other forms or are you happy working off scanned policies without special searchable data fields?

At the high end, I am sure Vertifore and Applied both handle complicated niche agencies. I also hear good things about Nexsure. If you want integrated accounting or have more complicated accounting, the choices are limited. If you want to go minimal with ties to accounting on Quickbooks, Hawksoft seems OK.

Don't trust opinions here, too many posts seem to be from Company employees. Talk to and take a look at the above systems and make sure you get a list of specialty agencies (or wholesale agencies if you do that) and visit several without the sales rep. If you don't have a current system it will be very difficult for you to see the differences and know what you really need.

Above all, don't be tempted to go cheap. The system will be more important than almost any single employee and will probably save you at least an employee for less money. A better system will pay for itself in reduced workflow.
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