Company: Vertafore, Bothell, WA
Company Description: For over 45 years, Vertafore has focused on helping insurance agencies, carriers and MGAs harness the power of software solutions to stay ahead of the competition and stay profitable. With more than 20,000 agency, carrier and MGA customers, we are the leading provider of connected technology and information solutions to the insurance industry.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Categories - Software
Nomination Sub Category: New Product or Service of the Year - Software - Cloud Platform

Nomination Title: Vertafore Agency Platform

Tell the story about this nominated product or service (up to 650 words). Describe its function, features, benefits, and performance to date:

Before the Vertafore Agency Platform, agents had to buy disparate applications to get the capabilities their management system didn’t provide. This resulted in IT headaches, with data, documents and applications scattered and fragmented across the infrastructure. Customer service representatives were forced to balance multiple screens to accomplish basic tasks across their workstream.The poor integration also created significant inefficiencies which resulted in lower customer satisfaction, reduced revenue and increased errors & omissions (E&O) risk.

Unfortunately for many agencies this is still the reality. Despite increasing budgets, Ernst & Young reports that 80% of insurance executives see themselves as technology laggards in customer engagement, analytics and adoption of mobile.

Based on the demand of Vertafore’s customer base of over 20,000 insurance businesses, the Vertafore Agency Platform was redesigned to help agencies overcome the challenge of managing disparate technologies. This is the most revolutionary improvement in CSR usability and productivity in decades, putting the agency management system, rating, and reference capabilities on a single screen.

Enhancements include Vertafore Single Sign-On, Vertafore SmartFlows, and a new “My Agency Home” dashboard that offers a personalized summary of each agent’s work status.

The My Agency Home page provides integrated, seamless access to the tools agents need to make their business successful. Agents can service customers faster with this intuitive, customizable dashboard that provides a personalized user experience and delivers key information at a glance.

Benefits of the new Vertafore Agency Platform include:

• Increased revenue – Agents are able to acquire new customers and cross-sell existing customers with faster quoting.
• Retain existing customers – Agents are able to provide unexpected service, reduce attrition, and become a trusted advisor with instant access to information and materials that keep staff current
• Increased profitability - Increased efficiencies allow agents to sell and service more without increasing staff. Agents can now deliver exemplary service while saving time on every transaction.
• Anywhere, anytime access - Ensure that agency staff has secure access to all the information they need to be successful, anywhere, at any time.
• Business management – Agency owners can access tools to successfully manage their business, make data-driven decisions, track and forecast sales, and manage agency licenses.

More than 11,000 users are registered to use the Platform and since January 2015 more than 3,000 people have attended product demos and webinars.

Customer Testimonials:

“Vertafore Agency Platform has helped our agency to more than double our annual revenue – without having to hire any additional staff” – Cam Winterburn, Winterburn & Associates Insurance LLC

"Transitioning to the Agency Platform was a no-brainer, particularly due to the seamless integration of our core business applications and advanced reporting functionalities,” said Whitney Malone, Agency Operations Specialist at Gardiner Allen DeRoberts Insurance, one of the nation’s largest, locally owned independent insurance agency supporting clients in all 50 states. “Since making the switch, our agents can manage leads and sell more effectively, resulting in exponential revenue growth.”

“We see somewhere between 20-40% increased production out of folks. We’ve had someone out on medical leave and we haven’t missed a step with the Platform.” – Joyce Sigler, VP, Jones & Wenner

“With the Platform, I don’t have to pull canned reports, export them to Excel, and spend hours creating pivot tables to analyze the data.” – Sheryl Duguid, Office Manager, McCredie Insurance Agency

“Our goal was to make things simple, and to do that, we needed one, tightly integrated system that could do it all.” – Rob Macoviak, President, Oyer, Macoviak and Associates

In bullet-list form, briefly summarize up to ten (10) of the chief features and benefits of the nominated product or service.

• Single solution for all lines of business: personal, commercial and benefits.
• Advanced accounting, with no month- end processing, so books are always in balance.
• Leading publisher content allows producers to win clients and write complex commercial lines.
• Fully integrated mobile tools so producers can sell more, while providing exemplary customer service.
• Dynamic reporting to manage all aspects of the agency business.
• Agency licensing to ensure staff are licensed and authorized to sell what they’ve quoted.
• Book personal lines faster, with real- time home, auto, and flood quotes.
• Anywhere, anytime access allows employees and insureds to interact when, where and how they want – quickly and securely