Okemos, Mich. - Sircon Corp. and Efficient Forms LLC, Littleton, Colo., have formed an exclusive partnership designed to build on each other's products and customer bases to create an online platform for agent hiring, contracting and licensing for insurance agents, carriers and regulators. The partnership is a step toward creating a single online community where insurance carriers and their distribution partners can collaborate through an integrated, coordinated network, according to the two companies."This combination provides online capabilities that can transform processes between insurance carriers and their distributors," says Gary Gummig, vice president of business development at Sircon. "By integrating online services that will automate transactions and workflow, and virtually eliminate paperwork, this creates opportunity for unprecedented process breakthroughs."
Today, a single packet of hiring or contracting forms may contain up to 50 pages and many, when completed, are distributed between agents, carriers and regulators and often circulated, several times, for correction. As a result, the hiring and contracting process is heavily dependent on paperwork and redundant data entry, taking weeks or even months to complete. This delay creates bottlenecks for agents and carriers and adversely affects revenue opportunities.
"The insurance industry lacks the ability to easily coordinate paper-laden tasks between insurance agents, brokers, carriers, and other interested parties," according to Cynthia Saccocia, research director in the insurance practice at TowerGroup. "The partnership between Sircon and Efficient Forms offers an interesting value proposition for the industry. If insurance agents and brokers could enter their information only once and submit it to multiple carriers and state regulators for approval, that process would deliver on the elusive promise of SEMCI (single-entry, multiple-company interface) for the contracting and appointment process and potentially improve time to market for valuable revenue generating activities."
Sircon brings to the partnership an extensive network of more than 1,500 insurance carriers and state regulators. Efficient Forms brings a rapidly growing customer base of over 300 of the nation's top insurance brokers plus the industry's leading forms technology.
"The combining of our respective customers will allow us to significantly accelerate adoption of a common platform for carriers and their distributors to collaborate and exchange data," says David Kenney, chief executive officer of Efficient Forms. "The value of this network will grow quickly as more companies and distributors flock to join it."
Sircon's Producer Express and Producer Manager products will integrate technology from the Efficient Forms iForms Product Suite and be connected to Efficient Forms' broker network. The result will form a "network on demand" of producers, brokers, carriers and state regulators.
Sources: Sircon Corp., Efficient Forms LLC
