|
Contracts & Codes and Ag Download:
Making Headway with Carriers and Vendors
AUGIE working groups for two of our key initiatives met to discuss the challenges and ways to get carriers and vendors to make the adjustments agents need. Here is a brief summary of the meetings’ takeaways:
Contracts & Codes
Managing contracts & codes is key to the agency and insurance carrier relationship. The agency needs to have a contractual relationship with an insurance carrier or an intermediary to write policies. Agency groups that manage a large number of contractual relationships need a more streamlined process as people’s roles change and agency acquisitions frequently occur. Getting access easily can be difficult. Different codes require different logins, and because of mergers and acquisitions, an agent’s email address might not match what the carrier has.
From the working group discussion a point was made that we don’t understand the carrier issues in this equation. AUGIE Group will try to get input from carriers to see if their systems can accommodate changes to how contracts & codes are handled, if carriers have any bandwidth to prioritize this issue. AUGIE will also look at carriers that are doing a good job managing contracts & codes and see what can be replicated.
Agribusiness Download
The needle is moving in agribusiness download. At our Fall face-to-face meeting, we heard from carriers that were going to start implementing ag download and from agency management systems that currently offer this capability. The AUGIE working group met to discuss how to keep this momentum going. There are a few key challenges:
- Carriers classify agribusiness differently. The delineation between a farm policy and an agribusiness policy is up to the individual carrier, so there needs to be some sort of standardization.
- After the capability is built, how do you get agents to use it? Many agents are hesitant to adopt new solutions for fear it will mess up their data.
- The largest agency management systems providers aren’t offering agribusiness and this issue seems low on their priority list. These solutions need to offer agribusiness to enable significant change in the industry.
The group wants to bring agency management systems providers and carriers in on the discussion to understand their perspective such as what is holding them back? Is it a technology hurdle, a design hurdle, a forms hurdle, etc? The group will also be issuing a survey to agents to gather data on agribusiness within agencies.
| 
