News from 2009 IASA Conference: AMERISAFE Goes Live on FirstBest UMS for Workers’ Comp

The system is now being used within AMERISAFE's underwriting, sales and marketing departments as well as its internal agency and will be rolled out to agencies branded as AMERISAFE GEAUX.

AMERISAFE, a DeRidder, La.-based specialty writer of workers' compensation insurance for hazardous industries, has gone live on FirstBest UMS. The FirstBest UMS solution combines FirstBest Agent, which the vendor describes as a rich agent portal for commercial lines, and the vendor's underwriting workstation.

"AMERISAFE selected FirstBest UMS to help us better communicate with our agent community and to help increase the volume and throughput of our submissions," says Geoff Banta, chief operating officer, AMERISAFE. "UMS will improve agent collaboration, visibility and service — key aspects of continuing to grow our business profitably."

The carrier's implementation of FirstBest UMS took seven months, followed by a two-month rollout, according to a FirstBest press release. The system is now being used within AMERISAFE's underwriting, sales and marketing departments as well as its internal agency. The carrier is launching FirstBest UMS internally branded as AMERISAFE GEAUX, which it plans to roll out to more than 2,000 agencies. Once rollout is complete, the carrier will be able to collaborate in real time with its agent users via an online agent workspace with rapid upload, submission and quote turnaround, all of which will result in greater business transparency, the vendor claims.

"In April AMERISAFE received the first binding order on a UMS submission," relates Kelly Goins, senior vice president of underwriting, AMERISAFE. "We are excited to roll out UMS to agencies so that they too can benefit, understand our appetite during the pre-qualification process and see changes to submissions in UMS as they happen."

AMERISAFE's Banta adds, "The AMERISAFE/FirstBest relationship is a true partnership; FirstBest has met and exceeded our expectations from day one."

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