Sword Insurance, a provider of Web-based product distribution solutions to the property/casualty insurance industry, announced the latest release of its independent Web portal, AgencyPortal version 4.2.

The new AgencyPortal 4.2 features include:

• The Work Item Assistant – This feature helps alleviate the back and forth faxing, emailing, and telephone calls between agents and insurance carriers by linking communication within the portal to new business submissions and renewals. This allows agents and insurance carriers to communicate real-time within a quote; upload file attachments at any point within the transaction; and receive email notifications for specific events. Sword Insurance built this feature in response to demand from small and mid-market commercial lines carriers where most business is referred.
• Product Create and Copy in the Toolkit – Insurance companies can create their own new products within the toolkit, including different pages, transactions, rules, and lists. AgencyPortal ships with product-specific templates which provide depth of content and speed to market for Sword Insurance customers. This practical new feature in the toolkit enables clients to support a product for which a template is not yet available. Carriers can also copy an existing product set and recreate it in another instance.
• Rules Export within the Toolkit - AgencyPortal now ships with the Rules Export feature that allows carriers to export rule inventories by product from AgencyPortal into Excel spreadsheets and to do so in an easy-to-read format, not code. This new feature makes it simple for carriers to ensure point of sale system compliance with enterprise rules and allows for easier innovation with existing and new insurance products.
• The AgencyPortal Installer – The new installer feature allows carriers to get the AgencyPortal application up and running by following a few simple steps. Prior to 4.2, project teams needed to build the AgencyPortal Web application archive (WAR) file themselves. The installer provides easy portal application set-up with a pre-built WAR file. Carriers can deploy the packaged war to their server, launch the Installer in the browser, and have portal up and running within minutes.
• Work List Enhancements – Five new features in the work list improve users' ability to organize and manage their work queue. Examples include the ability to search, filter multiple columns and criteria, save and reuse filters, and expand filter options.

“The new features included with version 4.2 are the direct result of ongoing customer feedback, insight from our own project managers and a variety of insurance technology experts,” says Allan Egbert, vice president of technology at Sword Insurance. “We continue to focus on offering the insurance industry innovative solutions that minimize operating costs and maximize efficiency for the user.”