When is two minutes faster than one? When the time is spent making use of real-time technology in an insurance agency. Does this sound confusing?

Consider these scenarios: Mr. Smith calls and asks if his payment was received by the carrier or wants to know how much is due and when. Without real time, you simply jot down the questions, and the call is done—for the time being. Maybe it took a minute. Then, you place a call to the carrier, get the information, and call Mr. Smith back, or even e-mail him. The one-minute call probably took five minutes or more to handle when all was said and done.

With real-time billing inquiry, the same call comes in. You chat Mr. Smith up. Talk about the weather. Ask how the kids are doing. Ask about the business. Meanwhile, you click away in the background, pull up the billing statement in real time and, before you know it, Mr. Smith has his answer.

It’s a “once and done” conversation, one that’s certainly faster than the one-minute call, since the matter’s resolved. It might even be more profitable. That conversation could easily have resulted in offering better coverage for Mr. Smith and maybe even an extra sale.

Taking it to the Next Level

But real-time is more than just inquiry. “Many agencies are at a crossroads,” says Lisa Parry Becker, a fifth-generation family member at William B. Parry & Son in Langhorne, Penn., where she is responsible for sales and marketing. These agencies have tasted the benefits of real-time functionality. They are moving toward it—even using it with a few carriers. But they’re stalled because the ideal workflow—accessing all carriers through the agency management system—is not yet a reality.

Parry Becker says it’s time to rethink that notion. She says it’s possible to save time, and pick up some added benefits, by quoting and issuing coverage in real time, even when it involves multiple workflows. “That’s the next level in making things more efficient,” Parry Becker says. She should know, and not just because she happens to be ASCnet’s Interface Committee Chair.

She knows because her agency just completed a study of real time setup by AUGIE, the ACORD User Groups Information Exchange. AUGIE brings together user group leaders, including ASCnet’s, to work with each other, ACORD, vendors, carriers, and other associations to drive better workflows through technology. The recent real-time study, which took place in just a handful of agencies across the country, yielded remarkable data.

“I saw that it was taking my CSRs an hour and 20 minutes to quote a piece of new business—an hour with the comparative raters alone,” Parry Becker says. The first hour was spent zeroing in on rates in all of the markets, but it didn’t include developing the final quote. That came in the second hour, either by using a real-time round-trip transaction, by bridging or by going directly to proprietary carrier Web sites.

“So we looked at our workflow and asked what would happen if we first used the real time, Web bridging and proprietary Web sites, instead of going to the comparative rater first,” she says. They tried it and cut the time from 80 minutes to 40 minutes. “That’s huge,” she says.

Understanding Workflows and Processes

The real-time, round-trip quote—a five-minute process—works like this. All application information is entered into the Applied system and then sent to the carrier, where it is checked for necessary edits—additions, clarifications or corrections, generally—and those edits, if warranted, are requested. When data is complete, the other leg of the “round trip” takes place, and a quote is sent back to the management system, along with a PDF or other document the agency can deliver to the client. The Parry agency currently has this round-trip functionality for personal lines with one carrier.

Bridging works a little differently. Instead of doing a direct round trip, data goes from the management system and “bridges” to the carrier Web site, populating information into the site, which eliminates redundant data entry. Screens on the carrier Web site ask additional questions, if needed. Then a quote is generated. Right now, two carriers offer this capability in Parry Becker’s agency.

If the agency wants to look at more markets, the final step is to go, one by one, to other carrier Web sites. The process is more time-consuming. However, in the end, it still works better for Parry Becker’s staff than the previous workflow. “My thinking before was, ‘Not all of my carriers have cut over to real-time, so that workflow doesn’t apply to me,’” she says. “Until I looked at the amount of time it was taking, I didn’t realize how much we could save.”

Employ What’s Available

Parry Becker says her experience should encourage other agencies to review their own processes. “Agencies really need to take a look at it because even with a combination of real-time quoting, Web bridging and proprietary Web sites, they may be able to save time, particularly in the personal lines quoting arena,” she says.

While a single workflow—starting and ending at the agency management system—is the ultimate goal, a few workflows are better than many. Look at what your agency does now, Parry Becker says, and move toward real-time.

At the same time, she says, take another look at commercial lines download. “There’s been a lot of improvement thanks to the work of ACT (Agents Council for Technology) and AUGIE working groups,” she says. A new commercial lines download and implementation guide was released in March, and agents are now involved in the certification process.

“Agencies might have tried commercial lines download three years ago, gotten a little frustrated and turned it off,” Parry Becker says. “Things have gotten a lot better. Download can offer a big-time savings to agents.”

Rethinking workflows—and even commercial lines download—can yield benefits, Parry Becker believes. Moving toward real-time quote and issue cuts processing time, sometimes dramatically. This translates into happier clients and, quite often, happier employees. It also improves quality, since data is not handled as often.

But perhaps the most important effect is the validation it gives carriers that have invested in technology. “You reward those that offer the round-trip or Web bridge,” she says. “They see their technology being used and, whether or not they get the business, they have data to work with.”

Agencies also need to let carriers know how important ease of doing business is and how this technology can help. “Getting carriers on board is just a matter of continuing to show them what this technology does,” she says. Work is under way at the user-group level. This should be augmented by agency efforts. “Invite carriers into your office and show them how it’s working,” she says, “because it does work.”

Agents can take an active role in driving a better future by reviewing their own workflows, advocating broader carrier implementation and even demonstrating round trip workflows to their carriers. It’s not a huge undertaking. It might only take one minute here or there—or shorter yet, two minutes.

Dave Willis, a New Hampshire-based freelance business writer, is a regular contributor to ASCnet Quarterly.

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