A View From The Press Box

With single-entry, multi-company interface, basically we’re talking about the ability of agents to shop and service accounts via one management system, without having to re-enter data or cope with a multitude of proprietary insurer Web sites.

Perhaps SEMCI has yet to be unearthed in one piece, as there are still far too many technical hurdles to overcome—most of them artificial--for agents to truly have open access to all carriers. But many of the fragments have been discovered. All you must do is put the pieces to work.

Agents right now have at their fingertips the opportunity to conduct much of their routine business in so-called “real time,” which the Agents Council for Technology defines as follows:

“’Real Time’ is the ability to click on a button from a client file in your agency management system or comparative rater for immediate access to carrier information on that client. The transaction may be a quote, billing inquiry, claim inquiry/loss runs, policy view, endorsements or a request for information. This approach provides a single workflow for servicing or quoting.”

This isn’t some hypothetical concept. In fact, most agents can now perform many common transactions and functions in “real time,” but either don’t know they can, don’t know how to do so, or—even worse—don’t care to learn how.

Whether the problem is ignorance or inertia, the burden has shifted away from insurers lambasted for slowing down the system and adding unnecessary costs with customized, password-protected Web sites. The spotlight is now being trained on those who have complained the loudest about the need for SEMCI—agents themselves.

A wakeup call is being delivered by a coalition of insurance industry interests, who last month launched a marketing campaign to alert agents about the real-time opportunities available today.

The Real Time/Download Campaign was unveiled last month during the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America annual conference in Washington, and was pushed again at this week's ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Orlando. It is being led by ACT (an IIABA creation) and AUGIE (the ACORD-User Group Information Exchange), with support from a multitude of tech providers, carriers and agent groups.

Their goal sounds ambitious—to double over the next year the number of real-time transactions from the current 20,000 or so each business day (not counting those through comparative rating systems). But agents have so much catching up to do, a hurry-up campaign is long overdue.

All agents should check out the campaign’s Web site—www.getrealtime.org—and take advantage of the many resources available through ACT, AUGIE and this new initiative. The site offers numerous reports, guides, links, advice on implementation and installation information.

The industry's holy grail is staring you right in the face, but instead of using it to boost productivity, save time and cut overhead, many agents are using it as a pot for their favorite office plant.

If agents can’t be bothered learning how to capitalize on their own technology, they have no one but themselves to blame for the high cost and frustrations they must endure to do business.

What are you waiting for? What's holding up the process? Any feedback or suggestions on how to get this industry operating in "real time" would be welcome.