The carriers are not without faults, of course. Single-entry is such an obvious answer for agents, but the costs for any products offered thus far to the carriers have been prohibitive and the technology changes so fast we are afraid to commit to it. The initial investment is very expensive and the product may be obsolete a year after it is up and running, or the supporting vendor(s) may no longer even be around by the time you are ready to start using it. The lessons of the collapse of the dot.coms were not lost on us.

Unlike nonprofit organizations, we all have bottom lines to answer for. We're all looking for an edge because that is the way we are supposed to run our businesses. Single-entry doesn't seem on the surface to offer a way to gain an advantage to the carriers, at least not yet.

Then there are the problems of competition and charges of collusion. Those of us who were around at the time will not forget the charges of collusion leveled at the industry the last time the market hardened. It changed the way we all had to do business, and while the state attorneys general backed off after those changes were implemented, the threat of their getting involved again remains.

Single-entry might be just the spark needed to reignite their interest. It certainly doesn't smack of competition at first glance. The agents and the carriers operate in the real world, and while we are always looking for ways to improve service and cut costs, we do not have bottomless resources to invest in technology or endless time to devote to studies to determine what the ideal solutions are.

There must be some prospect for a return on these investments if ACORD or anyone else expects us to commit more to them.

James R. Lyter

Manager, Research and Operations

Lebanon Mutual Ins. Co.

Cleona, Pa.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, June 24, 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.