Our Journey That Brought Us To The Point Of Designing An Agency Management System. Here’s How We Ended Up Here…

by President & Founder, Bradley Chesnut

It All Started With Running My Own Agency

In 1986 I was running a thriving agency that was growing faster than any of the other agencies in town by a huge margin. However, like a lot of agency owners, time was not my friend. There just wasn’t ever enough time in the day to get everything done that needed to get done.

And it wasn’t just me. This included my whole staff. None of us were getting all of our work done by the end of the day causing us to fall further and further behind. This forced me to continue hiring CSR’s which ate away at my agency profits. More than likely, you can totally relate to this.

There were clients that needed services;
Weekly there was a bunch of prospective client leads that needed to be worked;
When we made sales, and we made a lot, we had to process the order which you know is a lot of work (remember, this was the mid 1980’s and we didn’t have carrier websites to process the new client);
Weekly we needed to get the marketing pieces out that needed to get mailed or submitted to the local newspaper (we were very aggressive and very strategic in our marketing), and the list goes on and on.

Weekly there were many nights I would still be at the office working well after everyone else had gone home for the day. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon to not get home until well after midnight, and then I needed to be back in the office by 8:00 am that next morning.

Something had to change to free up my time and my staffs time.

I Was Fascinated By Computers. But Once I Got Into Database Systems I Was Hooked!

For whatever reason, I had a fascination with computers. At the time they were pretty new to small businesses, and very expensive.

The first computer I purchased had a 286 processor with 5 1/4″ & 3 1/2″ floppies, and I splurged to get a 30 mg (yes, megabyte, not gigabyte) harddrive and an EGA monitor. This top of the line computer in 1986 cost me almost $2,300! Today you can buy at least 3 computers at this price.

A software program I also purchased to go with the new computer was a program called Q&A. It was an integrated system with a database, letter writer and report module. The problem was I had to write the database program from scratch, as if I had enough time. But I did it anyway.

In fact, the main reason why I purchased the database program was to merge the names in the database with letters we’d write for marketing and to service our clients.

Plus, and this was a biggy, we could create “form letters” we could easily pull up and print fully merged with a client or prospect record. I was simply tired of sending out those tacky looking letters typed up on a typewriter with more than half of them having white out on them because of typing errors made. This was my main motivator.

Maybe you remember those days, maybe you don’t. If you do I’m sure you can appreciate the significance of form letters and merged letters compared to using a typewriter. If you don’t remember those days because you’re younger, go to the museum to see what a typewriter looks like and how it works to appreciate the significance of this.

Geez, conversations like this make me feel so old!

Anyway, I wrote the database program to handle policy management, client servicing, marketing and to handle the producer commissions. Frankly, the system I wrote was a pretty darn nice system for the mid 1980’s.

However, what was more exciting was the HUGE drop in our workload by automating the agency. It got to the point where I was asking myself, “What other tasks, jobs or whatever could I automate?”

I was just blown away with how much time my staff and I were saving each day from the automation system I wrote and the results we were getting because of the automation system, things like being able to:

Get the marketing pieces created, printed and sent out in a whole lot less time. I’ve been a committed student to marketing and copywriting since the mid 80’s to include going through many very advanced courses and spending a bundle on mastering marketing and copywriting.
Sending out service letters a lot faster. And because it was so much easier and the letters looked so much better we started sending out all kinds of letters to our clients which helped us up-sell and cross-sell them even more policies and coverages, along with increasing our retention level. (I was very focused on anything and everything that affected our premium volume, both for the good or for the worse.)
By now doing “mail-merged” letters where we only had to type the letter once and just merge it with contacts in the database I was able to completely end the need for typist who would simply type up the marketing letters we sent out. This in itself created a huge increase in profits to the agency!
Needing less CSR’s because my CSR’s were getting a whole lot more work done in a day than they ever did before (I was just so amazed they were getting all of their work done for the day with time to spare).
Spending less time servicing our clients since we had all of their information right at our fingertips.
Paying commissions dropped from being a two to three day task to just pushing a button to spit out a commission report broke down by producer, and then another button to update the records to show they had been paid. Wow!

These are just a few ways the database system helped my agency.

I was also finally able to actually get home at a decent time each night. This in itself made it all worth it.

I fell in love with the results I was able to create by being properly automated, and the huge increase in profits was pretty darn nice too, and I already had a passion for marketing. These two things became the core areas of training and consulting I offered agencies after I sold my interest in the agency and went into consulting…

Helping them to properly automate their agency to create measurable results and create a more productive agency to support the next objective of…
Innovative marketing to help them grow their agency.

In my business circle, many call these two things my two great loves (next to my family, of course).

By The End Of 1989 I Sold My Interest In The Agency & Went Into Consulting

Since those days when I sold the agency back in 1989, I’ve had a very extensive background in agency automation. In an effort to not bore you to tears (you’re welcome) with all of the details of my many experiences, I’m going to do my best to just summarize my experiences.

However, I think you may find ‘how I got into agency automation’ interesting so I’ll start with this.

Even though the agency was flourishing, by 1989 my son was 2 years old and I was tired of not being able to spend quality time with him and the family. I sold my interest in the agency and went into consulting. For the first time in a long time I had total control over my time and was able to spend much more quality time with my family.

Obviously my first clients were the agencies I competed against (and ate their lunch) who wanted to know how I was able to grow so fast and write so many new policies in a week.

Making a long story short, for the first few years I pretty exclusively worked with agencies on marketing. I love marketing!

But it became extremely frustrating when my clients would let the leads I was sending them pile up on their desk and not work them. And with every day that passed they didn’t work them, the leads would get colder and colder.

Now, why this was so frustrating was because I was paid based upon the premium from the new business they wrote from the leads I sent them. It was a very fair compensation plan because we both either made a financial killing if I hit a marketing home run, or we both made very little if I didn’t. But, this compensation plan required both of us to do our part… my sending the agency lots of leads to work and the agency working those leads and turning them into new agency clients.

I was doing my part, but too many of the agencies I was working with weren’t doing their part by immediately working the leads I was sending them. I watched so many leads get colder and colder sitting on their desk which was money going down the drain. I was not a happy camper!

Because I tracked everything, I knew pretty accurately how many leads would turn into a customer so it wasn’t very hard to figure out when there was a problem at an agency who was getting leads from me.

Their Method Of Servicing Their Clients Was Stealing Their Time Too!

I quickly realized they had the same problem we initially had … swamped, and not enough time in the day to get all of our work done let alone develop new clients.

Remembering how significant automating my agency made, I started working with my clients helping them to properly automate their agency. What you may find interesting is the Applied System was the very first system I worked with.

Because of the significant benefit automation made for my clients I made a paradigm shift in my carrier and started focusing on helping agencies create a productive office first, and then helped them with their marketing second.

Frankly, this business model worked like a champ for my agency clients.

The foundation to the automation I would help agencies put in place and learn was how to create a productive agency. This was my primary objective and the focus to my helping agencies with their automation.

Bluntly, NOTHING did more to helping an agency increase their productivity and be more efficient than the agency management system.

And believe me, I’ve tried a lot of other solutions over the years because of some agencies being stubborn about not wanting to invest into a management system, or not believing the results that could be attained by using one.

However, no matter what I put in place, nothing created a higher increase in productivity than a management system. Absolutely nothing, and I’m pretty darn savvy when it comes to computers, software, agency automation and helping an agency increase their productivity!

Now, to clarify, I’m not talking about all agency management systems. Just a handful that provide key productivity features and handle client & policy management at least semi-correctly. There are more systems I avoid than recommend for a lot of reasons. I’m not going to say anything more than that because I’m not here to bad mouth any system. I’m just trying to share my story with you which intertwines with many of the systems on the market, including systems no longer available.

Increasing An Agency’s Productivity Has Been Core To My Working With Agency Management Systems From Day One

From the very beginning of helping agencies with their automation my focus has been on helping agencies create a highly productive agency. It’s what I studied, brainstormed and became an expert in. Plus, it measurable so my clients could actually witness the results of my working with them!

I had to master this if I was going to be able to help agencies hit a home run with their marketing because I needed their staff running like a finely tuned engine. I need them to be as efficient as possible if they were going to have the time to work all of the leads I would be dumping on their desks by helping them with their marketing.

Over The Past 25 Years I’ve Had A Very Extensive Background In Agency Automation

After 25 years of working with many different insurance management systems and working hand in hand with hundreds of insurance agencies, I have been as frustrated as you with the automation available and the high cost of automation. Not a single system out there was designed to be workflow driven. Not one! And this is why agencies have to jump all over the system to handle each of the steps to complete a task.

Yet, this industry has always been workflow driven. It’s always been about processing a renewal, processing a new application, creating an endorsement and making sure it got processed correctly, and so on.

Yet, from system to system you have to jump all over the system to complete each task, which is also the biggest part of training a new CSR. This is why we’d put together “workflow manuals” for the agency’s staff… so they’d know the exact steps to process the task, company by company and LOB by LOB, and where to go in the system to handle each step of the task.

It’s because of this I’ve become a master at creating workflow manuals that are agency management system specific. I learned very quickly that the system you’re on controls the steps and how you process a task because you’re processing the task from your management system. How you process a task is handled differently system to system.

It’s not that the steps to the task are different, say, for a Safeco personal auto policy renewal. That doesn’t change unless your agency wants to personally make adjustments to the steps. What’s different is how each system handles this task and how you have to jump all over the system to find the features in the system needed to process the task at hand. How much sense does this make?

Not a whole lot! Especially when workflows have been pretty consistent for a lot of years.

Listen carefully. What’s different is how the different management systems handle processing the task!

It is really easy to see which systems are developed by people who really do have a clue about this industry and which aren’t.

I Strategically Represented Three Different Management Systems Over The Past 25 Years

Over the course of the past 25 years I have also represented three different agency management systems. Being extremely selective of the systems I’d represent, I chose these three systems based upon a number of factors including their ability to help an agency increase their productivity.

By representing them it allowed me to really dig into the system to master it so I could offer my clients an even deeper level of support and training. Providing my clients with a high level of support and service, and helping them create measurable results has always been very important to me!

With two of the systems I played a significant key role in their success, while the 3^rd one I only represented for two months because the owner was just simply too hard headed and unwilling to even consider making important changes to his system that would make it so much easier for his clients to use and help them increase their productivity. All he wanted me to do is sell and help him grow his company like I did the previous two systems, but that is not how I operate.

Because of his ignorance and inflexibility, I simply could not represent his product and put my clients in a position of having to deal with this company and their lack of forward thinking. Enough said.

With the other two systems, however, I did a lot. Both were very receptive and really appreciated my ideas for both the company as a whole and for the product to make it an even better product.

However, my specific roles with each was pretty significantly different which I’ll save for another article. For this article, “How We Ended Up Here”, let me summarize an important factor in representing the two systems.

With each of the systems I represented (and other vendors I worked closely with over the years) I was frequently making program design recommendations that would make a big difference in how efficient their clients would be. Things like how to make it more single-entry, reduce steps, and make processing their work easier and faster.

But with each vendor it was the same story … I was told over and over again they couldn’t do many of the things I was requesting because, as they each told me, “It would require a re-write of the system” because their table structures didn’t support the change I was requesting, or they had other programming priorities they felt were more important like adding a new feature which had absolutely nothing to do with helping an agency increase their productivity. It was frustrating, to say the least.

… I Was Constantly Told They Couldn’t Add The Features That Would Increase An Agencies Productivity Short Of Doing A Re-Write Of Their System

Because these systems would need to be re-written so their table structures and design could support a workflow driven system and to support the other key features needed to increase an agencies productivity, this clearly showed that these systems had serious limitations of being able to take their clients to the next level in agency automation.

Short of a re-write, there’s a cap to how efficient and productive an agency will be on the systems out on the market.

While a vendor may add more features, no matter how nice the feature is, it’s how quickly your staff is able to service your clients and handle tasks (like renewals, re-writes, endorsements, etc.) that establishes how profitable your agency will be. That’s because productivity equals profitability. The more productive and efficient you are, the more profitable you’ll be.

Be Very Clear That It’s NOT The Cool Features That Will Make You Profitable. It’s How Quickly Your Staff Can Service Your Clients That Will Increase Your Profits!

Let’s be blunt. The foundation to an agency management system should first and foremost be on client and policy management, and servicing your clients. Isn’t this ultimately the reason you purchased your agency management system after all?

Fail here and who cares about all of the features a management system may have!

Making a long story short, after the vendor I represented for 8 years was bought out (I was NOT happy about this), a lot of my clients suggested I create my own system since I had so much knowledge and a lot of experience with agency management systems.

I pondered on this for about 2 years because I knew how massive of a job this was. In the end I did make the decision to do this. And I was right, this really has been a HUGE job! I’ll share just how big of a job this has been at another time.

For all of the reasons I’ve shared here today, and more, is why we took on the massive project of having an insurance agency management system written. But it’s not just any agency management system, nor did we mimic any of the systems on the market.

We didn’t mimic any of the systems on the market because we bluntly didn’t want to fall into the same trap the other systems have fallen into which has limited their ability to create a highly productive system and a workflow driven system since after all, this industry is very workflow driven.

And since there’s never been a system designed that’s workflow driven, we knew we had our work cut out. So we did what only insurance automation consultants with an extensive background in workflows and creating a productive agency could do…

With a blank canvas we completely re-engineered and overhauled the insurance agency management system staying focused on creating a system that would massively increase your productivity and a system that is workflow driven!

You’re going to very impressed at what you’re going to experience when you have a walk-through of the system!

Agency management systems and helping agencies maximize their automation effectiveness to create a productive and efficient agency has been my passion for the past 25 years. While this system may be new to the industry, it’s built from 25 years of agency management experience. How many other systems can say that?

The reason this is so significant is a new vendor will spend the first 3-5 years trying to figure out agency automation and how to create the kind of system their users want. The problem is, by the time they figure it out their table structures are already put in place and their system has already been designed to be feature driven. To convert it to be workflow driven would require a re-write.

The bottom line is, if the other systems aren’t going to help us to do our job of helping agencies massively increase their productivity then the only choice left is to have a system written to our specifications that will!

And that’s exactly what we did … had our own system written to help our clients massively increase their productivity.

Now you know!