Frank Amoruso is president of the recently formed AMS business unit which focuses on point of sale products and services to both agents and carriers.
It's way past midnight and executives who have put in a 12-hour day are starting to shop for personal auto or homeowners insurance. Most local agencies have been closed for hours, but not Basics Insurance in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, a Chicago suburb.
Basics Insurance--a 20-person independent agency--is open for business and conducting a thriving operation on the Internet, long after principal Darren Niemann and his staff have gone home. Late-night shoppers are signing onto the agency Web site (www.basicsinsurance.com) and generating comparative quotes from the agency's roster of insurers.
The next day, Niemann and his producers will review the quotes and contact the Internet shoppers to complete an insurance transaction. The agency generates an average of 25 requests for quotes a day from its Web site and closes on nearly 75% of the requests, says Niemann.
The key to the Basics Insurance online marketing strategy is QuoteNETworks, an Internet-based comparative quotation system developed by AMS Rating Services.
Basics Insurance has been using QuoteNETworks for about one year, Niemann says. Since the agency added the comparative rating service to its Web site, Internet sales has become a growing source of new business--and an indicator of a future direction.
"In December, the Internet was our leading source of revenue," Niemann says. "That may have been a bit of an aberration, but I can see that the Internet as an insurance market is growing rapidly and a real opportunity. Insurance shoppers who come to our Web site are ready to purchase coverage; and once they have had a chance to compare the rates of several insurers, they are very receptive to our call-backs."
QuoteNETworks allows online insurance shoppers in 43 states to check rates for personal auto and homeowners insurance and business owners in 21 states to review rates and coverage for the standard businessowners policy. Hosted on the Rating Services online network in College Station, Texas, the quotation engine is linked to an agency's own Web site, allowing direct access for consumers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Online insurance shoppers use their personal Internet connection to browse their local agency's Web site and click on a link to the comparative rating service. Users identify the coverage and quotes they want by completing an online application and receive quotes from insurance companies represented by the local agency.
The system also includes a lead-generation and tracking system that alerts an agency by electronic mail whenever a quote is issued. The agency then downloads the consumer's information from the QuoteNETworks Web site to a desktop agency management system to avoid redundant data entry.
Since its launch in early 2000, QuoteNETworks has been sold to more than 220 agencies throughout the United States and has generated more than 13,000 qualified leads leading to more than $8 million in quoted premiums. Each month, the service processes about 7,000 comparative quotes, about 2,000 of which result in qualified leads for independent agents.
The QuoteNETworks rate database includes more than 1,000 insurance companies. Agents pay a $500 license fee and a $100 monthly maintenance fee for the service.
Welther Insurance Agency, an eight-person independent agency in San Clemente, California, has also been using QuoteNETworks for about a year, says partner Todd West. The agency closes only about 10% of the leads produced by the rating engine, but West says he is pleased by the way his agency has used the service to develop a strong Internet presence.
"A lot of agencies have put sites up on the Internet but have yet to generate any real business for their agencies. By having a comparative rating quotation service online, we are attracting real new business--prospective customers that we wouldn't ordinarily see contacting the agency," he says.
Many of the prospective customers go directly to the comparative quotation engine to check rates, West says. "Internet shoppers are different than any other kind of customer. They want the ability to conduct business 24 hours a day, and they want the ability to compare rates and coverage. They don't want to wait to make an informed choice."
West says he reviewed other quotation systems, including the services promoted by insurers and found them too slow and too limited.
"The carrier services offer quotations only from their database; you'd have to have several links on your set to offer any kind of range of quotes. And then there's no certainty that you are offering your online shoppers a real comparison. Most carrier systems collect the quote application information and then refer the lead to the agent, but the process can be too slow to really take advantage of the lead," he says.
Frank Amoruso, former president of Rating Services has become president of a new AMS business unit that combines Rating Services, the Insurance Information Exchange (iiX) and TowerStreet, the AMS-owned application service provider (ASP). The promotion was part of company reorganization announced in February.
Amoruso says QuoteNETworks was developed with insight from the AMS Users' Group, agents that use and support the AMS agency management system. The Users' Group, he says, communicated independent agents' concerns over Internet marketing and its potential for diminishing the role of the independent agent.
The QuoteNETworks system, he says, was designed to empower agents by emphasizing the range of insurers offered by each agent and giving agents control over leads generated by the service. "QuoteNETworks is designed to broaden an agent's marketing by providing an active resource on the Internet. It is not driven by individual carriers, as are many systems; it is driven by agents and designed to be flexible to meet their individual needs and the needs of their customers.
"These days, online insurance shoppers want the ability to move quickly to their decision by comparing quotes and making choices," he continues. "Many of these users will never need all of the advice and counsel an agent offers, but the customers who do will continue to seek out agents for the information and guidance that agents have always offered."
Amoruso says QuoteNETworks is a good first step for agents interested in developing a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy, but only the beginning. To succeed, agents need a new marketing strategy that incorporates the Internet into a broader plan to build new markets and deliver insurance products in new ways.
Michael E. Larter, director of product development for AMS Rating Services, agrees. He says QuoteNETworks was designed to elevate independent agents into the new world of electronic commerce and add flexibility to fledgling Web marketing efforts.
"With all of the explosive growth of products and services on the Internet, independent agents need access to this new market. The days of advertising in the Yellow Pages and expecting customers to reach out to you is over," he says.
Instead, agents need to reach out to customers to provide them greater ability to shop for insurance and make decisions. Personal lines are particularly volatile, he says, and agents who want to excel in personal lines need to create more opportunities to respond to online shoppers with quotes and product information.
"Independent agents need both a wake-up and an opportunity to bring Internet shopping solutions to their customers. QuoteNETworks is the beginning of that opportunity."
As independent agents, Niemann and West say that they are pleased with the QuoteNETworks technology but acknowledge they need to work harder to drive prospective customers to their respective Web sites.
"It's a great service to develop sales prospects," explains Niemann from Basics Insurance. "But it's not going to work if you just put a link on your Web site and expect people to come to you and it. Part of the agent's responsibility to use the service effectively is to present the service to customers.
"If you expect online shoppers to make use of the comparative rating service and eventually purchase coverage from your agency, you have to control the marketing and make the service your own. We promote the service and our Web site in all of our agency communication--even our voice mail message."
Welther Insurance Agency's West agrees. "It works when you market it. You need to build Web site traffic first to get the kind of leads you can close on effectively," he says.
Though QuoteNETworks is designed for independent agents, some agents may also access a similar Rating Services product from their insurers. Late last year, Rating Services announced NETRater, a service for property/casualty insurers, managing general agencies and insurance portal Web sites. Like QuoteNETworks, NETRater can be hosted by the Rating Services network but can also be hosted by a carrier's own computer network.
According to Rating Services, NETRater can be customized to allow online shoppers to complete an insurance application and purchase coverage, or to allow agents to receive quotations and complete transactions with online shoppers from their region.
NETRater is available in 21 states and can include as many as 200 rate plans. *
The author
Len Strazewski is a Chicago-based freelance writer specializing in marketing, management and technology topics. In addition to contributing to Rough Notes, he has written on insurance for Business Insurance, the Chicago Tribune and Human Resource Executive, among other publications.
For more information:
Contact: Todd Mericle, vice president, agency sales
Rating Services/TowerStreet
Phone: (800) 634 RATE (7283)
Fax: (800) 299-6122
Web site: www.ratingservices.com