NEW TECHNOLOGY AND
POLICY CHANGE UPLOAD

"Some companies are effectively replicating more than
90% of their host processing and underwriting edits
for new business... at the 'point of sale.' "

The investment in the APT Company Module™ is beginning to pay significant dividends for many companies that are using this powerful edit development tool. Through the implementation efforts of over 52 APT members, industry standard APT editing software is making SEMCI cost efficient for agencies and companies. Some companies are effectively replicating more than 90% of their host processing and underwriting edits for new business...at the "point of sale." Agencies are able to do business with their companies electronically, using fully edited insurance transactions.

However, it's no accident that companies start with new business as their entree into the upload arena. Uploading new business transactions is very easy to do and requires minimal technological change at the company and vendor level, while delivering tremendous benefits by reducing expenses and improving service to new customers. However, agencies uploading new business quickly develop a voracious upload appetite and soon demand policy change processing.

Policy change upload leads the way for industry expense reduction

New business represents only about 15% of an agency and company's workload. While new business transactions are counted in the thousands, policy change transactions are measured in millions. These change transactions create a significant workflow and expense crunch for agents and companies if they are not processed in a single-entry, industry-standard manner as is done with new business.

Agents, who receive little or no additional commission dollars for servicing and processing customer changes, can significantly reduce their expenses and develop a uniform workflow using policy change upload.

Through the use of integrated APT Agency Module™ editing software and a unique Insurance Object Platform (IOP), Strategic Insurance Software, Inc. (S.I.S.), is making policy change upload simple for companies and agents.

Through experience with many companies and hundreds of change upload agency users, S.I.S. has developed a unique interface platform which provides each agency with a standard way of doing business with all their insurance companies.

For companies, IOP, used in conjunction with APT upload editing tools, assures that all downloaded information, including company unique data, is dynamically stored so policy change upload is 100% accurate. This dynamic storage, combined with the company's APT edits, means that there is no proprietary company screen development, allowing companies, not the vendor, to control the pace of upload deployment to their agencies.

IOP supports multiple upload modes to companies. For instance, one company's internal system may require that "full" image (i.e., the entire policy information is uploaded like new business) transactions be sent, while another may accept only "partial" image (i.e. only the information that has changed is uploaded) transactions. IOP determines each company's unique policy change upload requirements and provides full or partial image transactions automatically, as required, without agency involvement.

Each company represented by the agency may require its own unique upload (or download) communications facility. While one company may elect to use IVANS, others may require "point-to-point" directly with the agency or access through the Internet. IOP controls these desired companies' upload communications facilities automatically for each agency.

The real benefit to agents is enabling them to routinely handle their day-to-day servicing and processing without having to be concerned with system architecture, standards, formats, or company differences. Agencies have an easy, simple-to-use and uniform upload process that reduces their expense.

By utilizing an affordably priced SEMCI Partner agency management system that has been combined with powerful APT editing software and tools, companies and agencies are quickly achieving industry standard policy change upload. *