On average, says IVANS, an agency connects to six carriers each day. Download technology enables carriers to send policy information in batch format via agency management systems quickly and efficiently. Using industry-standard formats, ICE downloads data to electronic mailboxes on the carrier and agent side, enabling agents to pick up the responses to their requests as soon as they are available.
IVANS says it now is certifying 41 agency management systems through the initial implementation of all download projects with insurance carriers. Certification plays a critical role in the download implementation process, since it ensures that the information from the agency management system will be downloaded properly between an agent and carrier.
After IVANS does the mapping and translation, the company says sample policies are sent to the agency management system vendor to assure all the fields are correct within the vendor's application. If any issues exist, IVANS makes changes to the script and, once everything is running properly, the agency management system is certified. On the carrier side, agents are registered on IVANS’ agency registration system and added to the download file by the carrier. Lastly, the agency runs a one-time utility to add the carrier to its download system, and the process is complete.
