Agency Management Systems vs. Carrier Portals: The Battle for Insurance Agents' Desktops

Where should carriers invest: in their own distributor portals, or in agency management system integration? Agent groups say all insurer transactions should begin and end in the AMS. But is that what agents really want?

"Given a choice between a really bad interface between the agency management system and the insurer, or the carrier portal, I might [prefer the carrier portal]. But if I had a preference between a good AMS interface and the portal, things would be different. I work with ACORD, IVANS [Stamford, Conn.], AUGIE -- it's clear agents want to be more efficient and effective in what they do in their AMS. It just is not efficient to be a worker in an agency today and need security credentials for 10 or 15 or 20 carrier portals to do your job. That principle alone is just very clear.
But if you're an agency today, portals are a fact of life because you don't have effective interfaces. Agents are extremely frustrated with all the different security [and] passwords. There are a handful of carriers that want their agents to work in their portals because strategically they feel if the agents spend more time working in the portal they'll get more business from that agent than other carriers will. I don't want [insurers] to take the results of this extremely small survey and justify doing less work with ACORD and AUGIE."
--Doug Johnston, VP of Partner Relations & Product Innovation, Applied Systems (University Park, Ill.)

"The AMS should be where all transactions start and end --whether that's interfacing with the company directly, quoting, policy changes, inquiries. The primary reason is the issue of efficiency: You end up learning to do things one way.
We are not blind to the fact that in many cases the AMS training in any given agency and, more important, the cadre of companies that a particular agent may [support] sometimes make it a more difficult process for the CSR or account manager. There are a number of folks that are on the front line day to day who have defaulted to using the [insurance] company portals because at the moment it is more convenient or easier.
We have carriers routinely tell us that their agents aren't pushing as hard on this issue as they feel they should be if they want [AMS integration]. It does cause [carriers] to consider: Where should we put our dollars -- into our own website or the integration?"
--Dick Poppa, President and CEO, Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York (Dewitt, N.Y.)

Nathan Golia is senior editor of Insurance & Technology. He joined the publication in 2010 as associate editor and covers all aspects of the nexus between insurance and information technology, including mobility, distribution, core systems, customer interaction, and risk ... View Full Bio

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