For a six-month subscription fee of $95, agents can post practically any business, commercial or personal lines, on the site, said Jeff Neilson, president of ProgramBusiness. He noted that business is not limited to the United States, but is international in scope.

After posting a piece of business, the “Trading Floor” notifies participating “storefronts” interested in the line. Notification is through e-mail. Agents do not have to reveal the identity of the account, and can block any carriers, MGA or wholesaler to which the producer does not want to submit business.

ProgramBusiness, which makes its money from the posting of “storefronts,” has no financial interest in any individual transactions, Mr. Neilson said.

Agents who have the “Gold Storefront” status with ProgramBusiness can post their business for free. Visitors, besides finding the “storefront” registrants, can also use a white page directory search engine to find more than 2,000 additional wholesalers, MGAs and carriers.

Among the underwriters with “storefronts” or paid advertisers and participants in ProgramBusiness are AIGs Lexington, Hub Groups Ranger, GE Westport, Hull & Company, Norman Spencer McKernan, Americana Financial, and various MGAs of Gulf Insurance Company.

In the past three months, the site has seen about three million hits, according to Mr. Neilson. The average length of a visit per registrant was more than three minutes. The total number of unique visitors was over 50,000 and those logging on more than once was over 16,000.

Additional information on the site is available at www.ProgramBusiness.com.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, June 10, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.