Agents Turn to State Department Web Sites to Stay on Top of Information

Whether it is obtaining information on licensing or getting the latest updates on fraud, many agents across the country rely on their respective state’s insurance department Web sites to get useful information. From New York to California, the volume of hits continues to grow according to the respective departments.

Dana Palmer, Web Content Manager for the Texas Department of Insurance site, added that, “in analyzing our e-mail and Web server logs, we see there are a lot of agents and insurance companies using it—they’re our biggest users. We look all the time at other state’s sites and get good ideas. We’re going to go back over everything in the next year and make it so it is even friendlier. At the core, we have 25 or 30 who work regularly on it, but 50 to 100 who contribute in some way. We do an online survey every year and we’ve found that basically 70 percent or higher find the Web site very useful, a good site to find what they need.”

According to TDI, it went public with the Web site on January 23, 1997, with about 600 visitors browsing 2,300 Web pages during the first week. Having experienced steady growth from that week forward, the site now averages more than 700,000 page requests each month or about 23,000 requests a day.

Palmer said that some 400 visitors to the Web site responded to an online survey on customer satisfaction posted earlier this year. The number is a significant increase from the 111 individuals who participated in the biennial survey in 2000.

The survey responses were mostly positive overall. Palmer added that areas where the agency’s site scored well included: “ease of use, appearance and accessibility of databases and forms. Suggested improvements included: 1) adding an employee directory, (2) improving the ability to find forms, (3) updating information more often and (4) improving the search engine.”

TDI has begun addressing the suggestions, having already implemented a major improvement in the search engine and added an employee search feature. It plans to add an organized forms directory upon the completion of the agency’s Forms Project later this year.

Palmer noted that problems common to visitors who have had a bad experience with TDI’s Web site include: the inability to find a particular file or form; they were able to find a file on the old Web site, but could not locate it on the new one; the inability to understand how to navigate the site; and more information and/or easier to use information was needed.

TDI expects to continue improving its Web site as Internet technology evolves and interest Web site grows. Palmer stated that with future upgrades to the site, TDI intends to “Improve quality by creating a system that ensures content is updated promptly; improve usability by grouping related materials and rewriting, shortening and providing lead-in summaries to content; and streamline the process for submitting new content and retiring out-of-date material.”

California Department of Insurance (CDI) spokesperson Nanci Kramer said the department’s Web site has been a big hit with agents across the state.

“One of the biggest improvements we’ve made in service to agents on the Web site is online renewal of licenses,” Kramer commented. “It could take months before and now it can be done in 48 hours or less. Agents said they use to end up with a backlog and it took too long. We keep up with the trends and look at what will best benefit agents and consumers. Right now, the big push is on online exams for agents. They still have to come here because it is a proctored exam, but instead of paper documents, they’ll be taking it online. The other thing we have on there is everything about regulations and market conduct. An agent can know about what we’re doing, filings that are being done, it is all there.”

Another area that has proven popular is the fraud information that is made available to agents on the CDI Web site, a site that is worked on by about a dozen people full-time.

“It gets the word out there about who is doing what,” Kramer said. “One of the other things we do is produce survey information that we receive. Agents can see what is going on and what trends there are with companies.”

Kramer said that the constant change of technology is a challenge, made even harder by tough times with the budget.

“You need to have a substantial budget and in these days, that is extremely difficult. It is a priority, though, because in the long run, this lowers overall costs.” Among the goals over the next year is to make the Web site more disabled access. “We’ll be making some changes to accommodate the disabled,” Kramer noted.

Kramer added that the department’s Web site gets a lot of attention from other states. “The Web site is one that the Commissioner (Harry Low) has been assertive on. We are in the electronic age and we do want to be behind the curve.”

The CDI’s monthly numbers for visits to the Web site in June were 722,288 and the average monthly traffic so far in 2002 is 812,755. “Those are the static HTML pages, they don’t include PDF’s, Excel or Word documents,” Robert Hagegorn, assistant chief counsel, said. The department updated different things on its Web site in June 71 times. Hagegorn added that, “we’re working on redesigning the entire department insurance Web site. We need to make it so it is easier to find information and more compliant with the American With Disabilities Act.”

Kramer noted that, “two of our top three pages hit most often are agent pages. The licensing page is number one.”

Oregon’s department Web site has been in operation for several years and is there as John Piper, Public Information officer for the Insurance Division, noted “to make it so people can access information without having to call us. Agents are using it quite a bit to get forms. We use to print a lot of them for agent applications and now there is more of it on the Web site and we’re continuing to add forms to it.”

Being a smaller department compared to a California or Texas, Piper notes that Oregon’s department has a challenge “because we don’t have a lot of resources dedicated to it, but we realize more and more people are using the Web, and it is in our best interests to put as many resources into it as we can. We look at the other states and have looked at California and those that are similar in size to us. There are some good ideas and we look for them to use here.

“The more information on the Web site, the more challenging it becomes to organize the information. We also post all of our enforcement actions on our Web site that we take against agents and companies.”

In Texas, Lee Jones, assistant director of the Public Information Office, said the Texas department’s Web site offers up a number of options for agents.

“There is a direct link on there for license renewals, the ability to verify the license status of many agents, including their own,” Jones said. “We also have very good company profiles on all the licensed companies along with the eligible surplus lines carriers, HMO’s, etc. You can look at a company and get a direct link to get their rating. You can also check on a company’s history. All of our bulletins are on there too to help agents be aware of what’s going on out there. There is also a portal where they can ask questions of the TDI.”

In Louisiana, acting commissioner Robert Wooley remarked that, “the state’s Web site allows for producer and company searches, searches by license numbers, finding out what lines those people write. I’m constantly getting agents telling us that our Web site is very useful for them. Another feature is that insurance fraud can be reported anonymously online.”

“We’re working on making it so agents also can renew licenses online and submit electronic payments. We recently started a question form on there so you can post a question by category. The Web site makes us more efficient in cutting down phone calls we have to take. It has been a great tool for us.”

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