According to AMS Services Agency Markets President and CEO Dave Shea, however, AMS 360 was not created as an answer to Nexsure, but in response to AMS users need for improved agency workflow.

Mr. Shea conceded that the two products use the same technologies, and he was unable to cite any substantial differences between the agency management applications themselves. He also noted, however, that while Nexsure is a relatively new product, “AfW is fully developed and tried and true.”

According to Mr. Shea, one of the workflow areas to be improved by AMS 360 is the invoicing processgetting invoices out, managing invoice traffic, late charges and other aspects of invoicing. “Things that used to take four to six steps now happen in one or two,” he said.

AMS 360 also provides direct links to some carrier Web sites, enabling customer service representatives at agencies to access customer information from those carriers systems in “two minutes,” allowing them to answer customer inquiries much more quickly, Mr. Shea claimed. Normally, he added, such a process might take between five and 20 minutes, as CSRs would have to get off the phone with the customer, go to the carrier Web site for the information, then call the customer back.

The initial release of AMS 360 is available immediately and will be offered as an application service provider program (delivered over the Internet, rather than residing in-house at an agency) only to new AMS customers, said Windsor, Conn.-based AMS. Migrations of existing AfW customers will begin early next year. Mr. Shea said an in-house version of the program will be released some time in 2004.

System requirements to run AMS 360 include a Windows version 98 or higher and a Web connection. A broadband connection (cable modem or DSL) is recommended, said Mr. Shea.

Pricing information was not provided.

AMS also announced that the database of AMS Sagitta management system will be moved to IBMs UniVerse database. The migration will take place “in a phased process” beginning in the third quarter of 2003.

UniVerse is “very similar” to Sagittas current database, allowing many elements to remain “virtually intact,” said Mr. Shea. He cited the “financial strength of IBM” as one of the primary reasons for the move. The cost, he noted, is “no different than the annual model today.”

Mr. Shea added that, “Sagitta agencies will have greater openness and accessibility with other standard database capabilities like XML.”

Sagitta agencies will be required to move to UniVerse by December 2004 “in order to continue to receive support for AMS Sagitta,” the company said.

A third announcement from AMS concerned TransactNOW, a software product that enables communications between carriers, agents and AMS agency management system users. According to Mr. Shea, the primary benefit of this software is that it allows a single agent sign-on for all carriers that have adopted it.

In addition to cutting the time CSRs need to answer customer inquiries, TransactNOW represents “an easier alternative to Transformation Station,” said Mr. Shea. IVANS Transformation Station is an interface technology for agency/carrier communications. The technology was developed by Applied Systems, the largest agency management competitor of AMS, but has been in use by some AMS agents since 2001.

AMS said it remains “committed to using Transformation Station as an interface solution for our carrier partners who choose that business model.” According to Mr. Shea, however, Transformation Station isnt necessary when TransactNOW is used.

The initial release of TransactNOW supports billing and claims inquiry, identified by AMS users as the highest volume transactions, said AMS. Carriers that have adopted this release include Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, Encompass Insurance, The Hartford Financial Services Group, Kemper Auto and Home, Progressive Insurance, SAFECO Property and Casualty Insurance Companies, The St. Paul Companies and Travelers Property Casualty.

Mr. Shea had indicated that policy inquiry and quoting would be looked at next for inclusion in TransactNOW, but according to John Day, senior vice president of industry and carrier relations for AMS, agents are more concerned with “post-sale activity.”

Mr. Day described TransactNOW as “a downloadable plug-in” for which agents can register online, after which they are “automatically ready to go.”

While TransactNOW is currently “free to customers to use,” Mr. Shea said AMS will eventually seek to put a price on it. He gave no timeframe for the imposition of pricing.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, March 24, 2003. Copyright 2003 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.