Life Insurance Software. What is the Best System?

[The Hopp]

What kind of software do most of the agents use? Pro's & Con's of each?
I use the Aliss system now. Are there better systems for keeping track of your leads, clients, quoting engine, and case management?

 

[Norwayguy]

What kind of software do most of the agents use? Pro's & Con's of each?
I use the Aliss system now. Are there better systems for keeping track of your leads, clients, quoting engine, and case management?

Yes, no, maybe... The aliss system and National Brokerages (Mountain Financials) OES system both handle well (in my opion) the process once the application is taken ie both have a fillable app system both can upload the app so the paramed gets the signatures (if you wish) and both follow up on the cases and allow you one website to followup on business from multiple companies. The problem is prior to writing the app neither program has a great system. With Aliss the system is manually calling your leads, yes they are imported automatically and it gives you a good system to run on but its mainly call,call,call,call,call,call...

I used to use ALISS but have moved over to the OES system with Mountain financial (Its free) and I supplement it with a sequential autodialer. I have many leads I can never get on the phone that will respond to my emails asking me to send them a quote, I send them what they give me something that is worthless without speaking to me further. I have also used Leadpod to call my leads in the first 10 days and hot transfer them to me...It allows me to keep on top of my securities business (I can't wait to get out of that).

I also backstop the Aliss quoter and OESs quoter with Compulifes software because with Aliss I know they may tell you to tell the client your quoting the top 500 or so companies but they aren't and you know they are not...With Compulife I can use the preffered Health anylizer and tell the client why I didn't quote Ohio National or some other company because based on there height the maximum weight for that classification is x or that they can not use blood pressure or cholesterol medication.

So those are a couple of other systems I use in conjunction with OES or ALISS back when I was using it. The down side is that my autoresponder doesn't talk to OES and Compulife requires me to reinput things while on the phone but it works for me so far.

 

[Mark]

What kind of software do most of the agents use? Pro's & Con's of each?
I use the Aliss system now. Are there better systems for keeping track of your leads, clients, quoting engine, and case management?

The Perfect Contact Management Program (CMP) for the Insurance Professional.
www.YourInsuranceOffice.com
E-mail: [email protected]
877.633.0808

This software has saved me a lot of time.

 

[Ami]

What kind of software do most of the agents use? Pro's & Con's of each?
I use the Aliss system now. Are there better systems for keeping track of your leads, clients, quoting engine, and case management?

This is an interesting question; however, IMO, the answer depends on what is best for a specific practice and approach rather than on any specific named manufacturer or product.

Insofar as database management and contact management systems, one of the considerations that need to be made is whether you want to go with an on-line (as in Internet based) or boxed (installed, resident and usable on a stand alone machine) or LAN (local area network (peer to peer or shared) server). There are pros and cons to each. I can go into these if anyone wants me to expand; however, for the sake of brevity, I'll leave expansion on this out for now.

Another consideration to keep in mind is security. Again, there are pros and cons to each of the above in this regard. Yes, your data is secure from theft on a stand alone machine... unless that machine takes a walk and the encryption is breached. Yes, internet based version providers may claim security; however, it's not so rare to read that hackers have made their way into (what were thought to be) hacker resistant web-servers, not to mention key loggers and communication interceptors, and other malware that on occasion but too frequently for comfort tags along with "free" software.

Yet another consideration is the manufacturer. The client database is your "inventory" and your asset (not to mention that the detailed notes that you keep in that database could go a long way to cover your ass-ets.). Conversion from one database system to another may be advertised by some providers but it ain't as easy or as inexpensive or as complete as some of the advertisers may claim it to be. IMO, the choice of a database system is a long term proposition! I personally would shy away from "home business" manufacturers. The product may be great and the price may be attractive...but... what if the "brains" of the home biz dies and the wife, kids, brother in law, son in law, and cousin Jedidiah are not all that thrilled or capable to continue with the program, its maintenance and support?

While there are numerous term quoters out there, many of which are on-line and free of charge, and while there are new and better term quoters appearing on the market and while it is as easy as a few mouse clicks to switch from one to another, the choice of a client database / client contact management system needs careful examination of your practice, your needs, your risk tolerance - and most importantly the reliability continuity and level of support that you can expect over the LONG TERM. Although "price" is relevant in any consideration, the cost of committing to a system or manufacturer without careful and thorough examination of the various aspects can easily become unbearable.

I doubt that you will be able to get a statistically viable answer to your question "What kind of software do most of the agents use?" at this forum or in any other discussion forum. As to "best", it's a suitability question as to what is best suited for YOUR short and long term needs, etc.

Good luck, invest the needed time and effort to investigate your options thoroughly, and don't rush your decision on a client and prospecting database.

Ami

 

[The Hopp]

Thanks for all your answers.
I use Aliss now and it's a good program that stores all my clients information, provides quotes (term, UL, annuities), free website w/quote engine, and has a case management section among other things. It is web based and costs me $60/mo. Compulife is good for quoting but doesn't have a contact mgmt system if I'm not mistaken. I like the all-in-one system where I can track everything.
So I guess I would alter my question slightly. I only have experience with Aliss so that is all I know. So are there better all-in-one systems out there or less expensive alternatives?

 

[SportsNut]

No all-in-one that I am aware of... in fact Aliss isn't really an all-in-one system either, but possibly closer to it. You are only quoting the carriers that your upline in Aliss has programmed into the sytem, and not truly a comprehensive quote.

If only Ron Popeil had an early interest in the life ins biz, we would now have exactly what it is you are now describing. Maybe it is not too late, possibly a Primerica Rep will entice Ron on the idea of this HOT concept of buying term and investing the diff... or NOT.

 

[wfs]

...with Aliss I know they may tell you to tell the client your quoting the top 500 or so companies but they aren't and you know they are not...With Compulife I can use the preffered Health anylizer and tell the client why I didn't quote Ohio National or some other company because based on there height the maximum weight for that classification is x or that they can not use blood pressure or cholesterol medication.

I do not like the fact that the companies are limited - even though I think it is limited to the top companies for most cases. I certainly do not say that I am quoting the top 500 companies though. I do however find it easier to have a top selection of great companies with good contracts than having 500 companies pop up on the screen. I don't need to always sell the "cheapest" product, just the best one that I have that meets the clients needs and budget.

With all of that said, Aliss is still a great system. Sure it has its shortcomings:

• no click to call
• Windows IE only (yuk)
• A few small "bugs" that I have found
• Inability to batch upload contacts from Excel (.txt, .csv)
• Inability to export prospect/client data to Excel

I have never had any software product that met ALL of my needs. I find that I always need several apps to get the total job done. Perhaps one day we will have utpoia, but what fun would that be??

 

[The Hopp]

I didn't really have any huge complaints about the ALISS system I just didn't know if there was anything better out there that I should try. I agree that there is a lot of stuff they can improve on with the Aliss software.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

Compulife anyone... or are we comparing apples and oranges?

 

[The Hopp]

I just signed up for the free trial of Compulife but they are just a quoting software, correct? The don't have any contact mgmt software.
Also when you guys are doing case management do any of you use quickview.net? Or do you go into each companies individual agent site. I can only get quickview to update/work with West Coast and AIG.