2001 Best Practices Study

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Analysis of Agencies with Revenues
Between $1,250,000 and $2,500,000
“We spend a lot of time looking at
what’s being done with technology in
other service industries. If you confine
yourself to what AMS or Applied is
doing, you’re not going to have any
idea what’s really going on out there.”
Increasingly, we see Best Practices agencies beginning to
differentiate between insurance carriers that aggressively use
technology to make business easier and those that do not.
E FFECTIVE PROCEDURES/PROCESSES
“Some of the companies are working hard
to make it easier to do business with
them. Others seem to be scratching their
heads. The fact that it can still take a
month to quote a fleet of cars, in this day
and age, with all the technology that’s
available, is just unacceptable. I am not
sure we can afford to continue to do
business with them.”
“We have a large commercial department
and a separate Business and Family unit
to handle all the small commercial and
personal lines business. The same
Business and Family CSRs work both
small commercial and personal
accounts…I know without a doubt we’re
finally making a nice profit on this
business…We tried this approach two
times before it finally stuck…technology
finally caught up to the point this would
work.”
“We used to T-file everything…now we
‘scan & shred” every piece of paper that we
deal with.”
“We’re complainers. If something takes
too long or if we’re duplicating our
efforts, we go to work to fix it. It’s a
constant process, it’s not like we review
our procedures manuals every couple of
years to see if we’re still current.”
In addressing procedures and processes, Best Practices agencies
of this size begin to exhibit a level of sophistication in line with the
size and scope of larger and larger agencies.
Although bureaucratic solutions for the sake of bureaucracy are
avoided at all costs, the volume and complexity of the insurance
written by these agencies requires routine thoroughness to achieve
effective and efficient processes.
Many of the Best Practices agencies interviewed indicated that now,
more than ever before, procedures and processes are updated
constantly to keep up with new and improved technologies used to
conduct business. Increasingly, more and more agencies are
moving their procedure manuals on-line in an attempt to allow
agency-wide access to current information.
Finally, many Best Practices agencies indicate that certain
insurance carriers are becoming much easier to work with than
others in terms of faster turnaround times with fewer steps. These
‘faster and leaner’ carriers are likely to enjoy a significant advantage
versus their slower moving competitors.
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