The way we do business in the insurance industry is rapidly changing. Gone are the days when insurance professionals worked within well-defined groups and interacted with the same people. Organizational “ecosystems” today include cross-functional teams and partnerships. We’ve learned that productivity increases when we share information and collaborate with others.
Partners offer innovative ideas and knowledge that can improve business performance, market understanding and product innovation. Partnerships give us a competitive advantage and an opportunity to access a broader range of resources and expertise.
With over 100 corporate partners, associate members and exhibitors, NetVU’s own ecosystem is deep and far-reaching. Through its partnerships, NetVU is able to form relationships with key industry influencers to promote its vision, grow its audience and magnify its impact. Partners lend financial resources and industry-specific expertise to enhance NetVU’s ability to provide resources and quality education to our members.
Regardless of your level of involvement with NetVU, you are part of this greater strategic partnership. NetVU works with Vertafore, local Chapters, and corporate partners and exhibitors to support you and the industry we serve.
In turn, our partners enjoy the benefits that come from being recognized as NetVU supporters, and are rewarded with the vital information they gain from our members to improve their products and services.
Building engagement and nurturing these partnerships is part of NetVU’s business plan. Establishing relationships allows our partners to pursue their growth goals and objectives in a more efficient and cost-effective way.
“The NetVU relationship provides an additional connection with agents,” says Daniel Goodwin, business architect and senior consultant at Nationwide. “Through their feedback and input, we can evaluate our work in various areas and develop a strategic approach for connecting and engaging our agents.”
As a NetVU member, you belong to perhaps the richest, most experienced, most capable network in the industry. You can access this knowledge base and reap the benefits of customer solutions that often include exclusive NetVU member discounts.
Here are some examples of partnerships and how they benefit you, our member:
- Ongoing webinars, including one from AppRiver, “Understanding Office 365,” which enabled members to submit questions via NCOM beforehand. This helped to steer and focus the content of the webinar to best suit member needs.
- Education on Best Practices, including finding and managing great talent in a remote workforce atmosphere, courtesy of our partner WAHVE (Work At Home Vintage Experts). WAHVE helps to locate Vertafore users to fit with the job function being sought, and NetVU members receive a discount on WAHVE’s services.
- Informative and timely IT information, such as the article recently shared in NetVU Newsflash by our partner Smart I.T. Services Inc., which described this season’s latest scams and provided safety tips to protect members and their firms.
I encourage you to review the list of partners that actively support NetVU. Your feedback and knowledge shapes our collective insight and influences decision-making in critical areas that can affect your business. By engaging with NetVU partners, you become actively involved in determining the future of our industry.
Lynn Walsh-Albertson
NetVU Business Development Coordinator
[email protected]
It can be challenging to fit local user group meetings into your schedule, but NetVU Chapters, Education, and Partners are here to help. Our user group volunteers have been working hard to provide virtual opportunities on the latest hot topics to help you better utilize your Vertafore system.
The best part of these virtual meetings is that they’re open to all NetVU members so you can connect to other users and education that you might not normally have access to for a local meeting!
View our Meetings & Events Calendar, and Register Now.
Tuesday, 11/7 at 1:00 p.m. Central – All About that Task - Join the ImageRight NetVU Chapter (formerly the WorkSmart Virtual Chapter) for our upcoming meeting. Jonathan Ruhlen, Vertafore Solution Consultant, will refresh your mind with the "other things" you can do with a task such as set up a parent and subtask or a split task; what the difference is and when to use them. We will quickly review the drop-down list associated with tasks and answer any questions you may have.
Wednesday, 11/8 at 10:30 a.m. Central – Making Download Work For You - Part 1 - Come away with the knowledge and tools to build your download plan for your agency. With this class, go beyond the tools and information to make download work to your advantage, and come away with the ability to build a written download plan for your agency regardless of whether you are NEW to download or REVISITING for a check-up.
NetVU offers monthly download webinars. Stay tuned to our Meetings & Events Calendar for details on the next webinar.
Thursday, 11/9 at 12:00 p.m. Central – Workplace Flexibility and Remote Work Best Practices, Presented by WAHVE - Technology has transformed every part of our work and life. The 9-to-5 work day has been rapidly disappearing as more employees do some of their job outside the office. WAHVE Sr. Vice President of Marketing, Rick Morgan, will discuss the various types of remote-work options and best practices to implement for a successful remote work and work-life fit program.
Friday, 11/10 at 11:00 a.m. Central – Vertafore Agency Platform for Real People - Yes, I Can Do Almost Everything in Vertafore Agency Platform - Join Joyce Sigler of Jones-Wenner in this series of webinars aimed at showing you how Vertafore Agency Platform can and should be an integral part of your agency's work processes. See Vertafore Agency Platform in day-to-day use as the one place for almost all tasks in AMS360.
Tuesday, 11/14 at 1:00 p.m. Central – Securing Office 365, Presented by AppRiver - Microsoft’s advanced threat protection (ATP) aims to reinforce its Office 365 service, but there are some compelling reasons for not leaving your security in Microsoft’s hands. Join AppRiver’s Jeff Willard to find out why premium spam and virus filtering, along with web malware protection, is a more powerful, cost-effective alternative.
Wednesday, 11/15 at 1:00 p.m. Central – Using InsureSign With Your Vertafore Agency Management System - During this webinar, you'll enjoy a live demo of the latest version of InsureSign's e-signature software, including the updated QQ Catalyst integration. You'll also learn how InsureSign works with other agency management systems, and how its features can help you save time and service insureds faster.
Thursday, 11/16 at 1:30 a.m. Central – AMS360 Accounting Chapter Meeting - Save the date for the AMS360 Accounting Chapter’s upcoming webinar. Details coming soon!
Monday, 11/20 at 11:00 a.m. Central – Vertafore Agency Platform for Real People - How To Work in Vertafore Agency Platform - Join Joyce Sigler of Jones-Wenner in this series of webinars aimed at showing you how Vertafore Agency Platform can, and should be an integral part of your agency's work processes. This will be a day-in-the-life demonstration of using Vertafore Agency Platform to move work through your agency.
View all of our Meetings & Events Calendar, and Register Now.
Do you find yourself spending countless hours every day re-keying data and processing requests? Are you searching for a better way to access policy documents on demand? If the answer is yes to either of these questions, then maybe it’s time your agency makes a change in the way you connect with your insurers.
By connecting directly to your insurer and MGA partners in your management system, IVANS enables your agency to automate the exchange of information directly from their system into your own via download. The ability to work in one management system versus referencing individual insurer portals for customer information allows your agency to operate more efficiently, provide better customer service and increase business growth.
The up-and-comer in download
A key download service IVANS offers is eDocs and Messages, which push a PDF or a message from the insurer’s policy admin system directly to the agency management system. This download offers a secure and managed alternative to email, mail and faxes.
Implementation of eDocs and Messages download will enable your agency to increase overall operational efficiency: with immense time savings, reduction of production cost, enhanced customer service and improved ease of doing business. In fact, according to a recent IVANS study, 79% of agencies saved at least one hour per day per employee when using eDocs and Messages.
Getting started with eDocs and Messages
IVANS offers a free online tool, IVANS Exchange, which allows you to review insurer download connections, like eDocs and Messages, available to your agency and communicate interest in receiving download by line of business from insurers.
To get started, follow these easy steps:
- Register your agency or log in - Log in to your IVANS account before you can access any reports or dashboards in IVANS Exchange. To log in or register for a new account, visit exchange.ivansinsurance.com.
- Access your Connections Report - Once you have logged in or created an account, you can view your IVANS Connections Report. This shows all lines of business your agency is currently downloading – and inactive ones that are available.
- Customize your Connections Report - You can request new downloads from your insurers or indicate if you are having download quality issues. When an insurer makes a line of business available to agencies, it is marked as an “A” on your Connections Report. Similarly, insurers have an agency report that shows where agents have expressed interest (marked by “W”) for specific download services.
At an agency, there is a big difference in the production and it’s easier to do business with insurers who use IVANS. The more you can stay in your system and keep a continuous workflow, the more productive we are.
With cyberattacks making headlines, it could only be a matter of time before a company has to deal with a compromised system.
Companies with access to clients’ personal data – such as insurance firms, doctors’ offices – should have best practices in place to help guard against ransomware and malware attacks.
Businesses should consider securing their network with a multilayer approach. By combining email and web security solutions with an endpoint anti-virus, organizations will be more thorough in protecting security gaps.
Companies may consider a cloud-based strategy. This allows solutions to be updated daily and ensures protection from new threats. By having an online back-up solution, users can roll back information to before the system was infected.
Lastly, advance spam filters can help eliminate risk of a ransomware or malware attack by banning email from regions where you are not conducting business. They also allow you to change security settings to block macro-embedded Word documents or Excel files – both common entry points for ransomware.
However, as we know nothing is foolproof and you may have to deal with a malicious attack. That is why it is important to have a good recovery plan in place.
Tips to help get you back up and running:
- Properly segmented networks: Properly segmenting networks and limiting shared drives can make recovering from a malware event easier. Doing so helps limit the spread of the infection inside a network and protects sensitive data from attackers.
- Backups: Be prepared to wipe a workstation and restore from backups. This is urgent in the case of a ransomware infection where attackers have encrypted files. Back up at proper intervals to ensure minimal data loss. Be sure to test your backups to ensure data integrity and know what is needed is being captured.
- Ensure data is being stored properly: All sensitive customer and company data should be stored, sent and received using strong encryption. In the event you suffer a data breach, this will make it more difficult for the attackers to use the stolen data.
- Identify suspicious activity in your DNS logs: Identify infected endpoints on your network by finding suspicious activity in your DNS logs. In the event of an infection or breach, focus on these logs to find other potentially compromised endpoints.
- Alternate systems: Have alternate systems available to ensure continuity of operations while recovering.
Registration is open for Accelerate, powered by NetVU! Don’t miss out on the special Early Bird pricing of $674. If you’re ready to put your firm’s pedal to the metal, register now and save!
This annual Conference will enable you and others from your firm to:
- Rev up your Vertafore system knowledge by attending in-person educational sessions presented by fellow industry users and product experts.
- Kick your industry connections into overdrive by meeting with valuable exhibitors and industry colleagues in the exhibit hall.
- Stimulate your insider’s knowledge by attending general sessions featuring Vertafore and NetVU leadership.
- Enjoy full-throttle entertainment opportunities alongside fellow members — including the Vertafore End Zone Celebration at the College Football Hall of Fame.
The 2018 event is being held at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta from May 17–19, 2018.
Register now!
Email Disclaimers/Notices
I am interested to know what wording for disclaimers/notice other insurance agents have with their email signature.
User Define fields/pages
I am in the need of setting up a user define page(s) for Auto Dealer Program and wondering if anyone has already gone through the process.
Form Letter with Multiple locations from Homeowners Policy
I am Trying to create a form letter that will grab ALL Location and Dwelling limit amounts from a Target List created. Does the Target list pull all locations or just one?
Activities View
Are the view settings from AMS360 supposed to transfer over to Platform?