Carriers have good reason to be enthusiastic about agency-oriented Web sites. They have the potential to reduce expenses associated with servicing agents as well as provide competitive advantage over other carriers. On the other hand, though agents do use company Web sitesat least the good sitestheyre frustrated at having to deal with carrier-by-carrier logon and navigation differences. Theyre also frustrated by the need to enter data into carrier screens thats already present in their management or rating systems. (See Sounding Line, August 2002, for details on the problem and a solution called hybrid interface.)

Its not surprising then that many carriers are asking themselves how they can make their Web sites more palatable to their agency sales force by providing some measure of integration between the agents technology and the carrier Web site. But thats easier imagined than done. If integration requires elaborate software development, rollout, and then widespread adoption by agents, it may never happen. So the issue for an increasing number of carriers is how they can provide integration (hybrid interface) without requiring much effort by their IT departments, agency partners, or the vendors that supply the agents.

Is effortless integration really possible? One major carrier is in the process of finding out. Though too early to go public about the pilot, the carrier (name withheld by request) did share its thought process. The carriers pilot technology partner, SeaPass Solutions, explained how the service works.