One such company is Van Wert, Ohio-based Central Insurance Companies. Central still relies on the success of its agents for business and is taking steps with technology to increase its agents' competitive edge. Using the speed and accessibility of the Internet, World Wide Web and Internet-based applications, Central is taking steps to streamline some of its workflow in order to better service agents and their customers. According to Gary Corcoran, assistant vice president of procedures, by the spring of the following year, Central began to see the Internet as a network and the browser as technology to assist its agents.
Central agents fill out a single but dynamic quote form online.
Laura Ditto, communications manager, says that while the form is not customized to each agent, as the agent fills it in, the form changes to fit the agent's quoting needs. By making the form dynamic, Central has made it possible for the agent to give only that information which is necessary. And in addition to being dynamic, the form is easy to complete. For Tom Massotti, president of the High Ridge Agency in Stamford, Connecticut, and a user of the application, getting quotes from the same system his underwriters are working from is more accurate. Software has the tendency to have errors, but we know that coming from the mainframe it is correct.