What Agency Management System/Software do you use?

[danielddye]

I've noticed a few plugs from Quomation, including from their own staff. I have to say that their products, PowerQuote & PowerManage are a great value. Our agency has been using them for 5+ years and are getting along fine.

The agency is predominantly a personal lines agency and so having the majority of our carriers download to the ams is a big help. I wish Quomation would spend some time, however, updating the way PowerManage handles commissions. It's very painful to say the least. I have found that our agents simply use the ams to keep track of basic client info and a place for transactional notes. They aren't very open to the idea of using the marketing and reporting capabilities built in to PowerManage.

Their comparative rater, PowerQuote, is similar to EZLynx in that you can get RealTime rates from the major carriers. The difference is that it runs locally and is not web/browser based.

I've researched other systems because some of the functionality demonstrated to me is impressive, e.g. marketing, forms, document mgt, and accounting. The price, however, is so outrageous that it cannot be justified. Their setup fees are, imho, a load of crap that should just be thrown out the window. I can understand a training fee for a few hours or days worth of training but paying $10K + for the initial setup so that a tech can direct me to the link and tell me to hit 'run' or 'open' is crap! As if these companies aren't raking it in on the back end with the monthly subscription/lease fees. Give us a break up front!

 

[maleman2045]

Than you Mark, very helpfull, What do you use at your agency?

I currently do not use any software as I am an independent agent, but have been a systems/business analyst for software companies for 16 years.

All the best in your research.

Mike, not Mark.
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I've researched other systems because some of the functionality demonstrated to me is impressive, e.g. marketing, forms, document mgt, and accounting. The price, however, is so outrageous that it cannot be justified. Their setup fees are, imho, a load of crap that should just be thrown out the window. I can understand a training fee for a few hours or days worth of training but paying $10K + for the initial setup so that a tech can direct me to the link and tell me to hit 'run' or 'open' is crap! As if these companies aren't raking it in on the back end with the monthly subscription/lease fees. Give us a break up front!

I will respond objectively here, even though this dagger comes a little close to my heart...

When a vendor provides you with a quote for software sales, hardware sales and professional services sales, each of these items should be detailed and not summarized.

This way you can see what you are "getting" for your dollar.

Furthermore, "hitting run" or "open" should never be lumped in the initial setup as that falls under training UNLESS the purpose of that cursory introduction on how to begin using the software was to allow you to use it and generate questions that will be discussed and answered when you are trained. BTW, I have never agreed with this model as how can one expect the customer to truly know what questions to ask as they are just "fumbling around" in the software and usually causes more work for the trainer to unravel the self taught, self inflicted misunderstanding of the features of the product.

You should be able to express your dissatisfaction on the services you've rec'd with your sales rep and get some type of a credit/refund, assuming it was not clearly detailed in the contract.

My two cents...

 

[IndyGreg]

InsurancePro is like $120 per month. Download available with most of my companies.

 

[saferoadinsurance.com]

IndyGreg how many users is that for $120

 

[IndyGreg]

I think I can use 4, currently only have 2 active.

 

[aharmon]

Hello,

I am with QQ Solutions. Our latest agency management system available is QQ Evolution. You might be familiar with our other management system QuickFile. We provide numerous features agencies need to run and increase their book of business. We provide items such as comprehensive commission structures, scanning, marketing, carrier downloads, reporting, just to name a few. QQ Evolution is powerful, affordable, and modular allowing you to choose the set of features which best suit you. Your data is stored on our servers with a SLA agreement guaranteeing access to your data.

We also have a 100% Web-based comparative auto rater, QQ WebRater. It is currently available in Florida and Texas. Our consumer portal QQ WebAgent is also available with the rater. You can quote up to 6 cars and 6 drivers. The rater has real-time rating, bridging and binding to numerous carriers. With QQ WebAgent the consumer can easily obtain a quote right from the agency's Web site.

These are just a few of the features our products contain.
For more information you can visit our Web site at QQSolutions.com or contact us at 800-940-6600.

Sincerely,
Product Management
QQ Solutions, Inc

 

[avaloninsurance]

I am a start up shop and am currently using Choices software Choices ACORD Forms, ACCORD Forms, Insurance Agency Management and Certificates of Insurance they do not have as many extra options as TAM or AMS/Sagitta but if you are looking for a basic program to keep track of sales/clients this will work. It allows you to attach documents, create letters, enter phone logs, enter follow ups/ to do's for each of your clients. It is online so you can access information from any computer. For one person (at a time) access it costs $250 per year. I believe for up to 5 people it is $500 for the year. They offer a 30 day trial period with no credit card required. You can get in the system and play around to see if you like it. If at the end of the 30 days you don't like it just don't pay to have access to it anymore. My only gripe with this one is that as of now you can't attach emails to a client account. Other than that this works fine for what I need.

 

[FLInsa]

Having been in this business for over 15 years and having worked with all of the major management systems I can say w/o a pigment of doubt that no software in the market today does what AMS360 does.

I purchased the 360 about two months ago and it seems to me that every single thing that an agent can hope for or want in a system, it has. Just amazing.

Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.

So if your agency can afford it, I highly recommend it.

Disclaimer: no I don't work for AMS360. Just trying to contribute to the forum. As always your mileage may vary.

 

[Bertolinoins]

I looked into all of the options 2 years ago when I started my agency and came down to Hawksoft and Doris as they seemed like the best combination of performance and value. I liked Hawksoft a little better but went with Doris because it is part of Applied and in the software game... The small providers don't have a great track record of lasting. Both were $1500-2000 to set up and $125 for the first user and $ 50-65 for each additional user. Doris does everything I need, the accounting functions could be cleaner but I can upload/download with all of my carriers and comparative rater(ezlynx). I also use a program called CSR24 that allows my customers to do their own certs and make policy changes online. That program didn't work with Hawksoft two years ago, they might at this time.

 

[vrracr]

we ended up going with Aspire. fairly easy to use and pretty comprehensive in terms of features and functionality. we use Semcat's comparative rater which integrates with the Aspire ams.