Priority Data’s continued growth in Minnesota has garnered more news coverage as www.propertycausalty360.com covers our addition of new Agent Rating and Quoting customers in this update on Who’s Using What.
Priority Data’s growth continues to be recognized in the insurance technology industry. The addition of new Agent Rating clients has garnered attention from industry publications. Insurance Networking News published this article titled, “Priority Data Expands Presence“.
December 14, 2011 (Omaha, NE) – Priority Data is proud to announce that they have added four township mutual partners in Minnesota. In October, Priority Data launched Farm and Home quoting for North Branch Mutual. Additionally, Priority Data has signed agreements with Sverdrup Mutual, Madelia-Lake Crystal Mutual, and Has San Lake Mutual to launch quoting, rating and underwriting solutions in the first quarter of 2012. These four companies join Norwegian Mutual as Minnesota township mutuals that have partnered with Priority Data for fully web-based agent quoting and underwriting solutions.
“We are pleased with how our solution has been received by the township mutual marketplace. Priority Data will continue to offer best of breed web-based solutions to insurance companies of all sizes. We believe good service and top quality technology will help our partners compete in a dynamic insurance marketplace,” said David Mellor, CEO/Managing Partner of Priority Data.
Priority Data has customized the Agent Rating solution to handle the unique packaging approach of township mutual insurance companies in Minnesota. The agent is presented with the fire rates from the township mutual combined with the wind, liability and inland marine rates of their statewide packaging company or companies.
Priority Data has experienced growth elsewhere at the same time as the growth in Minnesota. A new partner, Remington Farmers Mutual in Indiana launched Agent Rating for Home and Farm quoting on December 1st. Remington Farmers Mutual’s solution also integrates credit scoring via LexisNexis and e2Value’s replacement cost estimation solutions for both dwellings and farm outbuildings.
“The addition of numerous partners over the second half of 2011 is a testament to the quality programming and great service that the staff of Priority Data provides to our customers,” says John Dunn, Director of Business Development. ‘We continue to enhance our solutions while providing the top notch customer service that is part of our company culture.”
Priority Data expects all new partners to have their solutions in production with their agents in the first quarter of 2012. In addition to Agent Rating, Priority Data provides Consumer Quote an online consumer facing quoting solution for insurance carriers and full business process outsourcing (data entry, scanning and mailing) for a variety of industries including insurance, retail, law, government and non-profits.
For additional information please visit www.prioritydata.com or call John Dunn at 877-273-7774 x506 or email at sales@pdomaha.com
It never amazes how easy some people make it to gain access to their online accounts with fairly easy passwords. This linked Insurance Journal article does a good job of covering the “25 Worst Passwords”. Do you use any of these? If so you might want to make a change to protect your private information.
The top 10 Worst Passwords of 2011 according to Insurance Journal:
1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
Check out the article to see the rest of the top 25!
Due to our growth Priority Data is hiring a variety of positions. Please check out our job postings on CareerLink. We currently have a full-time opening for a Software QA Analyst and a contract Developer Position both are new positions. We anticipate multiple part-time Data Entry Operator positions to be available soon as our customer demand increases. Please view our open positions on CareerLink and follow the directions in the position to apply. We are looking for some great people to join our team and help us serve our customers!
Priority Data is happy to announce it has partnered with MSO, Inc. (The Mutual Service Office) to offer MSO member companies Priority Data’s industry leading web-based rating, quoting and underwriting tools. You can read MSO’s announcement here. MSO is a rating and statistical bureau for small to mid-size insurance carriers.
Priority Data is pleased to announce that we are now a Preferred Service Organization with the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies. This is the latest development in our continued relationship with NAMIC. We continue to be a Partner in Education serving as a sponsor at various events throughout the year and exhibit at the annual NAMIC Convention. This year we can be found at booth 210.
Priority Data is pleased to see that our partner Scott Creative is having success designing and executing direct mail campaigns. We are happy to say we provided the mailing list data that was used in this featured success story for Action Motion Chiropractic and Sports Center. Direct Mail continues to be a successful medium because everyone has to touch their mail. It is not automatically directed into a “spam” section of their mailbox. If the design is right, the copy is right, the target list is right and the offer is meaningful success can be found in direct marketing.
The success of direct marketing is not only found in local success stories but also study after study. I found a recent study from ICOM (Epsilon Targeting) while reading Deliver Magazine. It points out this somewhat surprising fact, “The preference among 18–34 year-olds for receiving marketing information from offline sources led by mail and newspapers is two to three times greater than online sources such as social media.” More can be found here.
National Underwriter’s PropertyCausulty360 site recently published a story titled: Hogwash Farm-use Discount for City Driven Luxury Cars. This story highlights a problem for auto insurers that is growing. False or misleading information that is being provided by the insured. This story highlights farm use discounts, but there are undisclosed drivers, low mileage discounts, garaging locations and many other items the effect premium and predict loss that insureds aren’t always telling their insurer. This premium leakage is effecting all insureds by way of higher premiums.
Insurance companies are beginning to look at these issues by using various data validation and additional data discovery tools at the point of quote or point of bind. However many may want to look at their existing book of business to identify premium leakage and opportunity for premium recovery. These issues are especially of interest to single state and regional carriers. If they haven’t implemented tools at the point of quote or bind like the large national carriers have they could find themselves being adversely selected. To correct this issue a premium recovery program might be instituted along with fraud detection tools prior to binding.
Priority Data is proud to have as a partner Inovatus, LLC. Inovatus has a great group of analytic and data tools to help insurers identify these risks and collect the proper amount of premium from the insured. Additionally, all Priority Data software products easily integrate reports from Lexis Nexis at the point of quote or point of bind.
The big news in the insurance industry the past couple of days has been Allstate’s purchase of Esurance. The top 5 carrier buys one of the top online direct sellers. Many folks seem to think this means that Allstate doesn’t value the exclusive agent network they have or the independent agents who write Encompass Insurance. Nathan Golia has a slightly different take in his article in Insurance & Technology, Agents Shouldn’t Fear Allstate’s Esurance Buy. We tend to think Nathan is likely on to something.
The industry is changing and consumers are looking online as they shop for insurance. It doesn’t mean that neighborhood and hometown agents aren’t valued or important in the process, but an online presence is definitely necessary. Nathan wrote another story in Insurance & Technology a few weeks back about a regional carrier that seems to have struck the balance between the online channel and independent agent channel. It is very important for carriers that they develop a system that aids and assists their agents, not one that competes. There are a number of tools and approaches available to carriers to consider and use. Some type of action is important for carriers and agents to stay competitive.