Posts - March 2009

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Recently, the Sircon team joined their Vertafore counterparts at the AMS Users’ Group National Conference in Washington D.C., for a weekend filled with seminars, great speakers, classroom how-to’s, and booth time on the showroom floor. Topics we presented included:

• Are You as Compliant as You Need to Be? – which focused on making daily compliance tasks more efficient
• Removing Roadblocks to Revenue – which explained the benefits of moving from paper-based licensing and renewal processing, as well as effective web-based producer management
• Producer Lifecycle Management Explained – This presentation gave an overview of how to convert the often manual processes associated with every step from producer on-boarding to eventual agent termination into streamlined processes that work for you!

In addition to presenting at AMS Users’ Group, we also had a booth in the Vertafore pavilion, where we spoke with many of you, heard about the issues you’re facing in regards to efficient license and renewal processing, and answered questions about streamlining day-to-day compliance transactions, offered a few best practice ideas for managing producer data, and more.

If you can, try to save the date for next year’s conference at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, TN, currently scheduled for March 25-28, 2010. We’ll be there, and would love to see you in Nashville!

Not sure? You would have remembered this! Check it out here. Periodically throughout the year, we write an insurance industry newsletter called the Sirconnect, which gets sent to subscribers, and is then, published it to our site. In the newsletter, you’ll find things like full articles on relevant industry news regarding agencies and brokerages, carriers, education providers, and the states themselves; as well as product tips and tricks, and customer spotlights. To subscribe to Sirconnect and remain up-to-date on even more industry news, send us a note at: sirconnectsignup@sircon.com to begin receiving our newsletter.

I’ve gotten a good deal of emails from many of you asking, “So what’s the deal with Vertafore, anyway?” Well, here’s the deal: As you may already know, Sircon has joined the Vertafore family of businesses, which is one heck of a great thing for you! With that union comes a strong backbone of established sister companies – united as one business – One Vertafore – that provides solutions to various facets of the insurance industry. What exactly does this mean for you? Simple. It means access to the widest variety of premium solutions from one company, dedicated to making sure your firm gains a competitive advantage in any economy.

Whether you’re a current AMS Sagitta customer or have your eye on PL Rating, taking a look at Sircon’s premium web-based tools now means the promise of full integration in the not-so-distant future. For you, this means that choosing a Vertafore product will give your firm unlimited access to the widest variety of innovative solutions on the market today, that will soon all be able to seamlessly communicate with each other. For you, this means no more exporting and importing flat files and definitely no more double data entry, EVER AGAIN. So take a look at all Vertafore has to offer, if you’re thinking of upgrading your core technologies. You’ll be glad you did!

I know, I know, it sounds like one of those web seminars, doesn’t it? Well, you’ve got me there. On the plus side, I think it’s a topic that quite a few of us in the insurance industry aren’t taking time for, and I think it could do all of us some good.

What spurred this you ask? Get ready to laugh. Over the weekend, I picked up a Cosmopolitan, and then quickly put it down, realizing that I’m in fact too old for the Love Quiz to yield accurate results. Nonetheless, it got me thinking about other quizzes I’ve seen online - quizzes like those from MindTools.com – and made me wonder would happen if my insurance industry colleagues conducted an assessment of personal effectiveness, as it pertains to their jobs. Now, don’t panic, I’m not here to point fingers. There’s probably a day in recent memory where all of us would have been better off, had we just stayed in bed. That day is not what I’m referring to. I’m talking overall, how effective are you in your job?

Take a licensing coordinator I crossed paths with about a month ago, for example. She was disheveled, exhausted, and literally wading through paper at work. Now, had she been honest with herself, she probably wasn’t doing anyone any justice. Paper processes and trying to maintain order with an ever-growing producer pool was driving her to the edge. Her boss knew she was buried, but she didn’t complain very loud and he couldn’t afford to hire additional help anyway. Sad, huh?

Unfortunately, some form of this same scenario is playing out in firms across the country every day. And it’s more likely than not, that it’s happening in your business as well. Well guess what. It doesn’t have to.

Today, there are countless solutions on the market that take the paper out of the equation and put you in the driver’s seat. Adding additional producers or agents (to increase revenue) does not have to mean more work for your licensing or compliance department. Seriously. Do yourself a favor and walk through this quiz to determine if you could benefit from a more streamlined process and in turn, become more effective.

1. Are the majority of the license and renewal applications your firm submits to states done so via paper and U.S. Mail?
2. If you are using electronic submission processes, are you doing so by navigating to each state’s site individually and walking through the same interview-style questionnaire multiple times for the same producer?
3. Do you feel overworked, yet no matter how many hours you put in, you never seem to get caught up?
4. Has your boss discussed adding another licensing or compliance staff member in recent history?

And remember, if you answered “yes” to the majority of the questions and in turn find out that you could indeed be more effective, don’t be afraid to tell your boss. The lightweight, low-cost tools to make your job easier are available now can easily pay for themselves within months.

Okay, admittedly, there are quite a few magazine publications for agencies and brokerages and some fairly informative websites out there. But for some time now, we’ve heard from a great deal of you in firms of all sizes that a blog which provided industry and technology snippets, specifically for agencies and brokerages, just wasn’t available. Well, we listened.

Firm Alchemy aims to transform your firm into a more nimble, more profitable business, by providing quick hits of super-relevant industry information pertaining to your firm, in a one-stop shop, but we need your help!

While Firm Alchemy’s main goal is to provide you with important industry and technology updates, perhaps even more importantly is your voice in the matter. At Firm Alchemy, Sircon’s for Agencies and Brokers blog, we’d like to hear from you. Send us a quick line when you would like more information on a topic, have questions, have praise to laud, and especially when you disagree. While we’ll handle the writing, we aim to represent your voice. Let us know what you think, and let the transformation begin! Send all inquiries or comments to: firmalchemyfeedback@sircon.com