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AMS Services is offering small to mid-size property & casualty insurance agencies a way to improve their operational efficiency—without breaking the bank to create an IT department.
AMS has issued a beta release of AMS Prime Online, a hosted version of AMS Prime, a management system that caters to independent insurance agencies.
According to Bill Bunker, senior vice president of products and marketing for AMS Services, the company issued the release of AMS Prime Online in response to the expressed needs of agencies.
“Small and mid-sized agencies have told us that they need an affordable online solution that allows them to efficiently run their business without having to build and manage an IT department,” Bunker said. “AMS Prime Online provides start-up agencies and captive agencies looking to move to an independent model access to the modern technology needed to focus on their core business of selling insurance policies and servicing policyholders.”
AMS Prime Online allows agencies to service customers better and faster through the following improvements: - The elimination of upfront investment and maintenance costs often associated with IT departments.
- Tight security on customer data maintained in an agency’s management system.
- Regular backups and offsite protection of data.
- Access to agency systems through any Internet connection.
The release of AMS Prime Online is just one of several new offerings or updates from AMS.
AMS Connectivity Services (ACS) has added new features to AMS TransactNOW, which gives agents real-time access to carrier information. They include CL Submit, Activities and Notifications, and AMS TransactNOW Client 6.0, which will be available to all AMS TransactNOW users and carriers in May.
A multi-carrier commercial submission feature, CL Submit enables extensive reuse of the policy detail stored in the agency management system, which allows agents and commercial carriers to process submissions directly from AMS TransactNOW. It also supports submission data and documents from the agent.
AMS partnered with the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies to develop and deliver the Activities and Notifications functionality, which helps agents receive notification of claim, billing, and other activity directly from carriers in real-time. The Chubb Group is the first carrier to implement this new AMS TransactNOW feature.
“The Activities and Notifications feature marks a true turning point in how transactions are handled by carriers and agents,” said Fred Covely, president of ACS. “Carriers can now reach out to the AMS TransactNOW agent community electronically, whereas before only agents had the ability to initiate transactions. Further, through CLSubmit, AMS TransactNOW agent users can send commercial lines submissions to multiple carriers at the same time, while the new AMS TransactNOW Client includes better integration capabilities than ever before.”
The new version of AMS TransactNOW Client features support for Windows Vista and a new installation program to support Citrix- and Terminal Server-based agencies.
ACS also has released a Download Certification tool for carriers and agencies exchanging policy-level information through any AMS agency management system. The tool allows users to: - Test the potential impact of code changes.
- Test the output files for lines of business for which they do not currently download prior to submitting certification requests.
- Research errors that may have occurred in a download file for a carrier that is already certified.
- Increase efficiency in the certification process by finding errors prior to submission for certification.
The Download Certification tool is the first major deliverable to result from a detailed analysis AMS Services conducted of the use of ACORD AL3 and XML standards in the insurance industry.
“We believe that automated validation of the AL3 messages widely used for download is critical for the industry to gain much-needed traction in several areas,” Covely said. “The download certification tool will allow us to greatly improve the quality of the data flowing through the industry pipes, resulting in reduced support cost for agencies, carriers, and vendors alike. In addition, the core technology used in the certification tool will be used by ACS to build various upcoming products that ease the transition from AL3 to XML.” |
