How MGAs Get More Business Using Download

If you’re an MGA and you are not offering download – you should be. As the insurance landscape becomes more competitive, independent agencies are moving to automation technology to better compete in the digital world. They expect their ecosystem partners to do the same.

Automated servicing is not just for insurers – agents are giving more business to MGAs who offer download. IVANS Exchange has over 33,000 agencies in the U.S. are actively receiving download. One such agency is Boyd Insurance, an agency with offices in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Paul Turner, principal at Boyd Insurance Agency, sat down with us to discuss how the agency takes advantage of IVANS technology to be more accurate and efficient in their day-to-day business operations.

IVANS: Tell us about Boyd Insurance’s business model.

Paul: Boyd Insurance Agency provides both personal and commercial policies to clients across New England. We want to leverage technology to its fullest.

By taking advantage of the automation that’s out there, it makes my staff more efficient which gives them more time to service customers and sell insurance.

IVANS: How has IVANS Exchange and automated download affected how you do business?

Paul: We first heard about IVANS Exchange at Applied Net. We discovered the many lines and carriers we were not downloading with compared to our existing download and asked, “Why are we not doing that?”

Once we were set up with our IVANS Exchange credentials and had access, we realized it could do even more. I regularly use it to assess the amount of download we are receiving from our carrier partners, look for trends and review additional download opportunities for us to take advantage of.

We do a lot of surplus lines business and we moved much of that to our MGA partner J&J because they offer download. And that’s why they’ll continue to get more business from us. In our opinion, an MGA that offers download “wins.”

The more we become automated, the more we expect our MGA partners to as well. When an MGA tells us they offer download, we’re more interested in working with them.

IVANS: What value does automated download bring to your agency?

Paul: Our goal at Boyd Insurance is to maximize automation, as it saves us time and money. Our service staff should be spending time with clients, not worrying about accuracy of data. Download comes directly from carrier systems, removing the chance that manual entry will add errors to data.

When we implemented Direct Bill Commission Statement (DBCS) download, we were stunned at the time savings. Previously, it took a CSR three days to process 438 statements. DBCS download completed it in less than a minute. We no longer had to rush through the process manually to get policies out the door and could instead relax and focus on client contact.

IVANS: What successes have you attributed to your investment in IVANS technology?

Paul: The speed and accuracy of download is apparent. If we submit a change request to an insurer or MGA, it’s there in our agency management system the next day because download allowed a carrier to push it to us overnight.

Our CSRs can verify changes almost instantly to insureds. It’s the same for claims – a CSR typically only needs a single phone conversation with a client to get them information where before it took two conversations.

IVANS: How does Boyd Insurance’s partnership with IVANS support your digital transformation?

Paul: As part of our digital transformation, we recently moved to a new agency management system. Migration to the new system was seamless. We configured download and we didn’t skip a beat – we just got back to work. The streamlined data processing that goes on behind the scenes now allows our agents to dedicate more time to actual client service.

We no longer have to worry about the user being wrong or manually-entered data being inaccurate – we’re getting accurate information from the carrier and we know it’s going to be there. I don’t know why other businesses don’t use download – it gives you efficiency, accuracy and time savings right out of the box.

Learn more about IVANS Download and discover how you can offer agencies a superior insured experience throughout underwriting and servicing.

Automated Servicing, 2021, MGAs, Agency-Carrier Connectivity