Page 135 - The UnCaptive Agent

108 THE UNCAPTIVE AGENT

on your agency website for clients to serve themselves?
If it does, what are the things clients can do for them-
selves? Can they issue security verification cards? Can
they request or print certificates of insurance? Can
they directly request things like policy changes? These
are important capabilities that consumers are increas-
ingly demanding that agencies provide. It would be
short-sighted to purchase a system that doesn’t allow
you to easily put those capabilities on your website.
Our industry, which is over one hundred years old,
is still mired in the idea that we set the rules. But that
simply isn’t correct anymore. Consumers demand things
to be done the way they want them to be done. One
of the things that consumers, both personal and com-
mercial, have demonstrated conclusively is that they
want the ability to self-serve. Your agency management
system needs to make this possible.
How flexible is the system that you are proposing for
your agency in terms of being able to communicate with
and share data with other computer software systems?
Does your proposed system offer APIs (Application
Programming Interface—a software routine that allows
one software program to communicate data with
another) that can easily be used by other programs?
This is an increasingly important consideration. As
new software capabilities for agencies come online, the
use of APIs make the ability to integrate with existing
systems possible. Some agency management systems
are far advanced in this regard, and it’s a point that you
should be certain to ask about.
The multi-company rating system for personal
insurance, and soon for commercial insurance, is a tre-
mendous time-saver and productivity tool for agents.
Both Vertafore™ (PL Rater™) and EZLynx™ offer per-
sonal lines rating systems that are designed to integrate