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AMS USERS' GROUP AND SEMCI: GREAT OPPORTUNITY... NEW FRUSTRATIONS

Beware of the carriers' Internet-based systems

"Companies seem enamored by the apparent low cost of an
Internet solution and seem not to recognize that it can be
just another way to deliver proprietary interface."

By Asa O. Pike, IV, Chairman, AMSUG Industry Affairs Committee; Principal, Pike, Conway, Dahl

Automated management systems have now been residing in independent agencies for over two decades, and the pursuit of nonproprietary data and transaction flow between agencies and their companies has been going on almost since the first system was booted.

APT was organized to address the need for single entry, multiple company interface. The AMS Users' Group, in an effort to make SEMCI a reality for its members, partnered with APT from the very beginning. Since formation of our Industry Affairs Committee, The AMS Users' Group has been actively urging insurance companies to adopt APT's SEMCI Access Module (SAM) technology.

At the outset, there were two obstacles to successful creation of a practical SEMCI environment: The first, of course, was technology. The second was a lack of interest on the part of many companies to create an electronic environment that might make the transfer of business from one company to another easy. During the 1980s, insurance carriers saw proprietary interface with their agencies as giving themselves a competitive edge over rival companies.

The first historical barrier, technology, no longer is a real factor. Largely because of Y2K issues, agents and their companies have modernized their automation facilities, and the challenge of giving agency PCs and multiple company systems the ability to effectively communicate with each other has largely disappeared. Some of this ease is also due to the universality of Windows and the forced standard of the Internet. The current effort to bring XML technology (the standard for corporate data integration) into the industry will take us even closer to having a universal "translator" that should eliminate almost any language barriers that still exist.

The second barrier, company attitudes, continues to present a great challenge. Some companies still seem reluctant to give up what they perceive to be a competitive edge with their agents. A greater issue, however, seems to be a genuine belief on the part of some companies that, because their proprietary interface works well for them, it works well for everyone. If the system works well for the company, and it brings in business, then it must work well for the agents using it ... never mind the possibility that the agency may be driven by the dominance of that company, within the agency's overall company business mix.

This "our way works" attitude, held by some companies, is largely responsible for the proliferation of proprietary small commercial business interfaces that have developed over the past two or three years. Company A develops a competitive "super BOP" product, attaches it to an electronic rating/underwriting software package and happily delivers it to the Company A agencies; so does Company B; so does Company C, and so on. Wittingly or unwittingly, companies are creating another jumble of proprietary interface systems, just at the very time when the opportunity is there for the industry to move in the direction of true SEMCI.

A second major concern is the emergence of Internet-based company proprietary systems. Companies seem enamored by the apparent low cost of an Internet solution and seem not to recognize that it can be just another way to deliver proprietary interface. Although under this technology agents aren't stuck with a room full of dumb terminals, there are still "one-time and done" data entry issues, training issues and concerns about how quickly the agency management system will be downloaded with the current information.

The AMS Users' Group believes that the opportunity to destroy this last and emerging barrier to true SEMCI lies with the insurance industry's automation vendors. Theirs should be the task of providing technology within their agency management systems that will allow the agent, working within this new environment, to access the various company upload and rating programs, select the appropriate company for each insured, provide the necessary individual company edits, update the agency management system and deliver the company upload, all with one-time data entry.

We all know that, in this time of exploding technology, the race definitely goes to the swift. As the definitive leader in multi-company interface, APT must continue to focus its efforts on developing new products like webSEMCI that keep pace with changing technology and the demands of its customers. Continued focus in these areas is also required of AMS, Applied, Delphi and other automation vendors.

Within The AMS Users' Group, the demand for SEMCI has not softened. Our members will move toward the technology that delivers and toward the companies that embrace it first. In the case of SEMCI, the end reward will inevitably justify the means. *

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