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Encompass Enhances Site

Carrier delivers personalization and messaging features.

Supporting its strategy to rely on the independent agent as its sole distribution channel, Allstate Insurance personal lines subsidiary Encompass Insurance (Chicago, $1.7 billion in premium) has launched an enhanced Web site featuring access and content personalized to users according to their roles within an agency. Formerly CNA Personal Lines, Encompass' distribution force includes approximately 4,000 independent agents.

The site organizes content into seven category areas, including sales support tools, agency-specific information, account servicing tools and applications, training resources, and agent communication vehicles, as well as general Encompass information, industry reference sources, and agency management reports. Agency staff accesses the site through existing secure log-ons with the carrier.

"What we're doing is providing different types of information, forms of sales and marketing-type tools and capabilities to specific roles within the agency, and we're leaving it up to the agents to personalize according to their own preferences," says Lou Diaz, senior e-business manager, Encompass eBusiness Group.

The site also includes "What's New" and "Urgent Message" features, which deliver information relevant to the user, such as regulation changes or notice of pending renewal cycle for clients, reports Diaz.

The enhanced site relies on Interwoven's (Sunnyvale, CA) TeamSite product for content management, according to Mike Hrad, systems manager, Encompass e-business group. The rest of the "critical work" was done internally, according to Hrad. "We focused on a Java environment, looking forward to taking advantage of Web services."

The Encompass site is "light years ahead of other Web sites for personal lines," according to Alan Benet, principal of A.J. Benet Agency, Inc., a member of the NorthStar agency group that piloted the Encompass site at 25 locations. "It gives us the ability to be proactive rather than reactive."

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio

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