Navigating Sales With SunGard

Then Cleveland-based First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association, a fraternal insurance society, decided to build an independent agency force, one of its first challenges was to implement a sales illustration system to meet state requirements, according to Pat Braun, national sales manager at FCSLA.

Then Cleveland-based First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association (FCSLA; $484.5 million in total assets), a fraternal insurance society, decided to build an independent agency force, one of its first challenges was to implement a sales illustration system to meet state requirements, according to Pat Braun, national sales manager at FCSLA. After looking at six vendors' sales illustration products, FCSLA in January chose iWORKS NAVIGATOR from SunGard Insurance Systems (Miami), an operating unit of SunGard (Wayne, Pa.). The solution is a Web-based suite of illustration tools for life insurance product sales.

"SunGard had been in the business for a long time, and we had worked with them before," relates Braun. "They offered to build exactly the system we needed at a very competitive price and in time for our 60 contracted agents to use it."

Implementation of the system began immediately. The application is managed by the vendor on an ASP basis, though the insurer installed a Dell (Round Rock, Texas) Poweredge 2850 server to support it. The entire implementation for FCSLA's life insurance line was finished within three months, Braun notes.

FCSLA went live with the product in May. "Our expectations are that the system will run well, and we anticipate that sales will grow over the next year," says Braun, who adds that the carrier also plans to implement iWORKS NAVIGATOR for its annuity products. --M.W.