CertsNow 24/7 or CSR24

[MT_Agent]

Any one using or used either of these products? What is your experience?

[HarrisburgAgent]

I was at a recent ASCnet (applied users group for TAM) with about 40 other representatives from other indpedent agencies. The presenter asked the question regarding these services, and out of the group, only 1 person was using it. Considering the cost involved, and that most certs need special attention, I couldn't imagine it would be worth it.

Anyone out there using it, and seeing lots of activity from insureds?

[threed]

It seems to me that most insureds expect at least basic services from the agency. I don't think very many insureds would be thrilled if they had to "do it themsleves" when it came to things like certs. Smaller accounts might be a good segment with which to encourage this kind of product/portal. Even then an agency usually only gets a few cert requests per year from a small account and they usually aren't too complex. To me "hands on" rather than "hands off" will breed better retention.

[MT_Agent]

I whole heartedly agree that for client retention hands on and direct support is needed. I have several large (100 +) unit assocations and in order for to keep up with the evidence of insurance demands from the lenders I either need to hire someone one specific or use one of these programs so the lenders can generate the evidence themselves. I am also looking down the road, along with today's trend, that to compete against the direct writers that offer online service shouldn't we as independents? If the cost is not to great offering online 24/7 and shop hour of 8 to 5 gives the client the best of both worlds and should only improve your shops image of customer service, true? My question is either product worth the cost or is it just throwing money out the window?

[Island Girl Agent]

I know these guys continually market us, and one of our principals (not me) seems interested, but I agree with the other comments. The cert requests we get here are varied and detailed, and many require close attention to the details of a contract (even a lease contract) to be sure we are "certifying" the correct information. Even what used to be simple 20 or 30 years ago (yup, I'm old) has morphed into the point of being ridiculous due to so many policy restrictions. So I for one am grateful to have a couple of very sharp employees who handle the certs here with care. We constantly get positive feedback from clients about how fast and accurate we reply to cert requests, and that alone is worth the salary we pay our staff.

[shazeltine]

We have been using CSR-24 for several years now and we are very pleased with it - we do not expect our insured to issue all their own certs, and we still issue the majority out of our office, it is for their conveinence and all our insureds are very happy with it. CSR-24 allows the insured to issue the basis certs or to reprint certs that we have issued when they are needed 24/7. It also allows us to set up special templates for the attachments of forms and other info by catagory, which also saves us a lot of time.

[agentservices]

Certificates Of Insurance: What Do They Really Cost Your Agency

Bill Wilson Director, IIABA’s Virtual University in PropertyCasualty360 a national underwriter website provides us with a bit of insight regarding this cost analysis and client service question. He writes that one of the most daunting—and often reviled—tasks facing agencies today involves the processing of certificates of insurance. This is an activity that typically generates no revenue for the agency but creates significant operational costs and dramatically heightens the agency’s E&O exposure.

Read more: http://ecertsonline.info/the-real-cost

[dhoffman]

We have used both CertsNow and CSR 27. We were using Certs Now but they only do certificates and charge per certificate. They do a good job if that's all you want. The cost was getting out of hand and we had to find a solution. I was at a User Group meeting and saw the CSR 24 product. Not only was the cost less, it did a lot more for less. Cost is based on revenue not per transactions. We now use CSR 24 and are very happy with it. CSR 24 intergrates with our application software (TAM from Applied Systems), has a client portal where our clients can log in and view their policy information, request changes, issue their own certificates, etc. We also use the portal to post commercial clients policies if they wish. Our larger clients don't want to deal with keeping up with large policies when we can post an electronic copy for them. CSR24 also has a 24/7 answering service that we use. Our clients don't know that they are not talking with someone at our agency because they answere the phone as one of our staff. CSR 24 sync's with our system each night to update the client portal.

[OldIndyAgent]

Arrgghh! What happened to Realtime?

[volstrike3]

I have used CSR24 for two years and I could never leave. I have several large trucking accounts and condo association managers that love it. The condo manager gets very competitive quotes from Farmers but gives us a second look and sticks with us at times because of our system and how much easier it makes their life. Their office people are insurance savvy enough to do their own certs and the system has several safeguards built in to where you can rescind certificates if necessary. You will not be able to train every client to self serve but the ones that do it love it. It isn't for everybody but if you have high cert accounts (Truckers, construction, HOA's, etc) then it is a very handy system to have. I have one contractor with over 600 certs... and we did his renewal certs in about 5 minutes by updating the carrier info and sending out an email to all the existing cert holders. Once the info is in the system it is a breeze.

[MT_Agent]

I went with the CSR24 program from Artizan and will update in a few months to let anyone who is interested know how it is going.
I have to say for any agency that does a lot of Evidence of insurance or Certs and are not interested in anymore then that, give Jasmine Winters a call at CertsNow (ebix.com). The program is fairly resonable and could save a csr weeks of time once set up.