Comparative Rater suggestions?

[TFCinsas]

I know there has been some discussion in past threads about what comparative raters your agencies may use, but they are approximately 3 years old now, and we all now how different the landscape can be in 3 years.

I'm in a 10 person independent agency in MI with about 2 active CSRs that quote through Capital Rating's Evolution Software, which has little TAM integration (which I'm just now looking into setting up) to import quote data into a customer/prospect record in TAM, in order to cut down on duplicate data entry. Capital seems to be fine for our CSR's but they really have nothing else to compare it to, so I'd like to know what else is out there and what works for you guys.

I'm looking for a rater with the best TAM integration (2 way, roundtrip, whatever it may be) and a general price range.

So far, I'm aware of the following options: EZ Lynx, Capital Evolution, ACS, SemCat, PL Vertafore Rater, ITC Turborater, ICE Systems?, CCi.

Any discussion would be appreciated,

Thanks!

Nick

[Mark]

Hi Nick,

We are still on EZ-Lynx and very satisfied.  We have around 6 users on it, I believe.

[Kenny Cruzan]

We too use EZ-Lynx and very satisfied with it.  We even have links on our website where customers can get real time comparative quotes for home and auto.  They simply click the links and fill out secure online forms which inputs the customer data into ez-lynx servers.  Our CSRs get an email and log into ezlynx web portal.  They will call back suspect and get any follow up information needed.  If customer purchases the policy, the CSR clicks a button that submits and we download the policy into TAM. 

I think you need to research which comparative rater uses the most carriers that your agency writes with.  That is why we went to ezlynx in the first place.

[Jim Jensen]

We are still using PL Rating from Vertafore, including Marshall & Swift home cost estimates. Integration works fine both ways. Pricing is based on numbers of users and not number of companies we are rating. It includes vehicle/driver discovery. I took a test drive of EZ Lynx and the difference that I saw was that in PL Rating, we fill in all the u/w info and answer all company unique questions in 1 pass, then submit for rating in 1 shot. No secondary or tertiary layer of additional questions popping up that I saw in PL Rating.

I think it's fairly standard now, but they also have a link that if you want/need to finalize a rate in the carrier's website, you can go straight from the quote to the client file in the carrier system. The rater is usually very accurate, but we have a carrier that always requires some oddities that PL Rating can't capture, like their own RC estimate for homes that never agrees with anyone else.

[Jeff Zylstra]

I know there has been some discussion in past threads about what comparative raters your agencies may use, but they are approximately 3 years old now, and we all now how different the landscape can be in 3 years.

I'm in a 10 person independent agency in MI with about 2 active CSRs that quote through Capital Rating's Evolution Software, which has little TAM integration (which I'm just now looking into setting up) to import quote data into a customer/prospect record in TAM, in order to cut down on duplicate data entry. Capital seems to be fine for our CSR's but they really have nothing else to compare it to, so I'd like to know what else is out there and what works for you guys.

I'm looking for a rater with the best TAM integration (2 way, roundtrip, whatever it may be) and a general price range.

So far, I'm aware of the following options: EZ Lynx, Capital Evolution, ACS, SemCat, PL Vertafore Rater, ITC Turborater, ICE Systems?, CCi.

Any discussion would be appreciated,

Thanks!

Nick

I see that you mentioned ACS (Agency Computer Systems), so I have to assume that you're in Michigan?  If so, I would recommend them.  They offer comparative rating using both rates and company systems, can bridge between Applied and the company systems for upload and issuance, and can also do credit scoring instantly in the background.  They pretty much allow you to transact business however you want to do it, rather it's with the rates on disk, or going out to the companies' computers for rates.  They also offer several other types of rating besides home and auto, like Fire/Dwelling, Farm and BOP, none of which we use.  We've had them for about 25 years now, and they've been pretty solid for us.