May 05, 2015

Maintaining Your Reputation as The Agent's Carrier of Choice

By: Joanna Hagelberger

For avid Sircon® blog readers, you may have seen Patrick Masi's The Secret to Becoming the Agent's Carrier of Choice. If not, spoiler alert: carrier's today are attracting agents and getting agents selling faster through improving agents' first experience: onboarding. 

Learn more from Joanna Hagelberger, Senior Account Manager for Vertafore's Sircon® Solutions, about how you can improve your agent experience with the next step in the process: retention.

The Sales Authorization Time Sink

We're all aware of the significant time getting and keeping agents authorized to sell consumes. Before an agent is even authorized to sell, they are required to manually fill out what seems like stacks of paperwork; a few weeks later, they then receive either confirmation or denial on their authorization to sell. If the paperwork wasn't completed properly or was illegible, it could further extend the timeline of the process. Then, on an ongoing basis, not only are there regulatory, continuing education, licensing and registration requirements, but also various carrier-specific requirements such as annual background investigations, re-contracting, etc.

All carriers want to be easier to do business with, but getting and staying authorized is a big game of hot potato from agent, to carrier, to state, and back again. How many times do you have to go back and forth before the agent decides to find other carriers to work with?

Automated Producer Lifecycle Management

In a recent survey that we conducted, we found that automation of manual tasks was a top goal for 44% of carriers. What some carriers may not be aware of is that other industry leaders are currently leveraging automation and electronic systems to submit their forms and data. A smarter approach to producer lifecycle management includes using these electronic, automated systems to help ensure that all information is correct and fully completed the first time. In fact, we found in our survey that only 6% rate their producer lifecycles practices as leading edge.

The 6% of carriers that are implementing best practices in producer lifecycle management today have been able to achieve the operational efficiency goals they've been looking for. Not only does automation in producer lifecycle management allow carriers to save time, but money as well. These carriers have confidence that their agents are licensed and compliant at all stages of the sales process, ensuring agents trust in their carrier of choice.

Click here to discover how to avoid the insecurities of compliance management by utilizing streamlined automated producer lifecycle management solutions.

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Joanna Hagelberger

Joanna Hagelberger is Vertafore's Senior Account Manager for sales and works specifically with our carrier customers. Joanna has her bachelors and masters degrees in communication from Florida State University. When she's not in the office, you can find her enjoying time with her family, hand-in-hand with her husband of 20 years along with her two daughters and two dogs.