What’s New in EZLynx 21.3

The EZLynx December 2021 release is now available! Here are some of the highlights:

Automation Center Enhancements for IVANS eDocs and Messages

In EZLynx Automation Center, the Carrier Notification Received trigger has been expanded to include tailored workflows for the full range of carrier message types. Each carrier message contains handling information that can automatically drive activities within your agency. Where policies are at risk, you can immediately intercede and work with the customer to resolve outstanding issues.

For the Carrier Notification Received workflow, Message Type has been added as a filtering parameter. These message types include:

  • Notice of Final Cancellation
  • Payment Overdue
  • Rescission Notice
  • Non-Payment Pending Cancellation
  • Electronic Memo
  • Non-Renewal Notice
  • Policy Change (Travelers only)

Automation Center Adds Policy Renewal Workflow

A new Policy Renewal workflow has been added to EZLynx Automation Center. When a policy is renewed, your agency can now automate actions like:

  • Email or text the client
  • Generate and share important documents
  • Create notes or tasks for your agency to follow up
  • Create folders within EZLynx Management System

As you would expect, you can filter this workflow based on various parameters within the context of the policy or applicant/insured.

This new trigger can be found under the Management System section in the Workflow Editor screen.

Additional Lines Added for Edit Downloads Feature

EZLynx means smarter downloads, because our process goes out of its way not to override existing manually entered data. You can also supplement information in policy downloads sent from the carrier. In a Commercial Auto policy, for example, users can fill in missing information for vehicles, drivers, coverages, additional interests, and more. This feature allows agencies to take complete control of their policy data.

Previously, the Edit Downloads feature was only available for commercial downloads. Now, we’ve extended this feature to personal lines, as well!

The following LOBs have  been added for Edit Downloads:

  • Personal Auto
  • Homeowners
  • Dwelling Fire
  • Personal Umbrella
  • Personal Inland Marine
  • Flood
  • Watercraft (small boat)

Rating Engine Updates

Several carrier-specific questions have now become part of the default EZLynx Rating Engine questions for the Home LOB. These moves improve accuracy and reduce the overall number of company-specific questions. Questions include:

  • Number of Full Baths (added into MSB Lookup)
  • Number of Half Baths (added into MSB Lookup)
  • Occupancy Type
  • Dwelling Usage field updated (Unoccupied and Vacant moved to new Occupancy Type field)
  • Sinkhole Collapse (moved to regular Endorsements section)

We also have some state-specific updates with this release, to reflect changes to state law.

  • Virginia — Bodily Injury, Uninsured Motorist, Underinsured Motorist Minimum Limits increased to 30/60
  • Nevada — Dog Breed question removed
  • New Jersey — Additional “Not Specified” Gender option added

Option to Cancel Pending Bulk Re-Assignment Jobs

Previously, if your agency needed to cancel a pending Bulk Re-Assignment Job, you needed to contact EZLynx Support. You now have the in-product option to cancel those queued requests yourself.

NOTE: You are only able to cancel jobs that have not yet started processing. In general, Bulk Re-Assignment jobs start processing by 5PM CT.

Additional LOBs for Commercial Package Policies

When creating a Commercial Package Policy, you now have two additional LOBs to choose from:

  • Excess Liability
  • Professional Liability

Retention Center – Change Reasons for Additional LOBs

A key feature of EZLynx Retention Center is the way it summarizes premium-bearing changes between the insured’s current policy and the carrier’s renewal offer. These Change Reasons save hours of time previously spent by agency staff manually comparing dec pages.

In this release, we added Change Reasons for the following LOBs:

  • Business Owner’s Policy
  • Commercial Inland Marine
  • Crime
  • Commercial Umbrella
  • Excess Liability

In total, we added the Change Reasons feature for 20 new LOBs in 2021!

 

For more information on any of these exciting new features, please visit the EZLynx Solution Center.


What’s New in EZLynx 20.4

The EZLynx December 2020 release is now available! Here are some of the highlights:

Vonage Integration

Experience seamless integration between your agency management software and your phone system.

In September, we announced our partnership with Vonage to integrate unified communications and programmable voice capabilities into EZLynx Management System. This integration is now generally available to all new and existing Vonage customers.

With Vonage, EZLynx customers have the ability to collaborate more efficiently, stay connected and create richer customer experiences through live interactive voice and video sessions—from anywhere, on a single platform.

This integration provides :

  • Customer Profiles — A window automatically opens to an Account Overview when an incoming phone number matches an applicant in EZLynx.
  • Click to Dial — Make calls easily from EZLynx. Areas include the Account Overview page, the Carrier Directory, Sales Center, Communication Center, and many more. Phone numbers appear as hyperlinks.
  • Call Logging — When an incoming or outgoing call is completed, EZLynx will automatically create a note on the Activities page. You can add additional notes to the discussion, documenting the contents of the call.
  • Sent and Received — The Sent and Received page in Communication Center is expanded to include voice calls. Incoming and outgoing voice calls will display, along with current text messages.

Vonage is the latest addition to the EZLynx Connect platform.

Visit our Vonage partner page to get started.

Commercial Edit Downloads

EZLynx already had smarter Commercial Downloads, because our process goes out of its way to not override existing manually entered data. Now, we’ve added the option to edit your agency’s Commercial Downloads, as well.

With Commercial Edit Downloads, your agency can supplement information in policy downloads sent from the carrier. In a Commercial Auto policy, for example, users can fill in missing information for vehicles, drivers, coverages, additional interests, and more. This new feature allows agencies to take complete control of their policy data and make information complete.

Please note: Users cannot change the information downloaded by the carrier, but are instead able to add to it (unpopulated fields) through the entry screens.

For subsequent downloaded transactions, EZLynx will:

  • Automatically sync this user-added information
  • Maintain each version of the edited policy as a history
  • Provide the option to restore a version at any point in time

This feature is available for the following lines of business: Commercial Auto, Commercial Property, General Liability, Business Owners Policy, Commercial Umbrella, Homeowners, Dwelling Fire, Personal Auto, Inland Marine, Workers Comp and Crime. When Edit is selected under Actions for a supported line of business, just like a manual policy, a new option to “Save & Continue Edit” appears.

This feature is now available for all EZLynx Management System (Level 3) customers.

Cross-Selling Personal Lines in Client Center

EZLynx Client Center has been evolving to become not just a robust self-servicing tool for insureds, but also a platform for exciting cross-sell opportunities.

The latest… Client Center now offers complementary personal lines products to insureds—automatically!

Insureds will be presented with the option to “Save By Bundling Your Policies Together” on their Policies page. When selected, users will be taken to a form to answer questions pertaining to the additional line of business. EZLynx will prefill the form with as much of the applicant’s existing data as possible. Once submitted, a task notification will be created for the agent in EZLynx, as will an application under the Applications section for the insured.

Insureds with an active Auto policy will see cross-sell options for Home, Renters, and Condo. Those with an active Home policy will see an Auto cross-sell option.

If the applicant has any difficultly completing the application, there is an option to click “Need Help?”.  Similarly, a task notification will appear for the assigned agent, along with an incomplete application in the insured’s Applications list.

Streamlined User Account Settings

Account Settings are new and improved!

For starters, users can access Account Settings under their username (user initials/circle in the top-right corner of the screen).

Once there, users will find their settings available under five categories: AccountPreferences, ACORD Forms, Email Signature and Security.

The “Security” tab is where users can set up their Two Step Verification for login.

By placing the most common Account Settings all in one place, we’ve made it fast and easy for users to manage their account profiles and preferences.

Consolidated Rating Questions

How would a 25% reduction in the number of questions required to get a quote sound? For most agents, that’s exactly what we’ve done.

We’ve added several new fields to our ratings screen, along with updating a few existing fields with new options. The result is that they no longer appear as additional carrier questions for each individual carrier. When you spend less time filling out information… you receive quotes faster.

Some examples include:

  • Foundation Type
  • Roof Design
  • Wind and Hurricane Deductibles for additional states
  • Vehicle Purchase Date
  • Number of Occupants

We’ve also improved the MSB Residential Pre-Fill and Reconstruction Cost tool. With this release, we’ve added/updated rating fields (and refined the way they map) to improve the accuracy of quotes.

Automation Center adds Expiring Policies Trigger

Agencies can now automate the workflow for expiring policies in Retention Center.

EZLynx Retention Center users have a new trigger available for Policy Added to the Expiration List. As the name suggests, this workflow will be triggered whenever a policy is added to the Expiration List in Retention Center.

Automation Center and Retention Center now work together to help agents manage the client retention process on auto-pilot mode.

Automation Center adds Client Center Link

Automation Center can help your agency increase adoption of EZLynx Client Center. We’ve added triggers for Applicant Created, New Customer and Additional Policy. You can now establish workflows so that when one of these events occurs, clients will be emailed automatically with a link to pertinent information within your agency’s customer portal.

An Applicant Created trigger will lead insureds to the Client Center homepage. New Customer and Additional Policy triggers will lead insureds to the appropriate Policy Summary page.

Improved Application and Policy Entry Workflows

The following LOBs have been updated with a new look, feel and usability:

  • Dwelling Fire
  • Inland Marine
  • Recreational Vehicle (RV)
  • Motorcycle

Entry screens have been updated to provide a more logical flow for how you enter data and navigate between different tabs in the screens. Users will find the improved user experience faster and more intuitive. Here are just a few examples:

For Dwelling Fire, you can now see all Locations in a single view.

The Inland Marine section has been reorganized to make it simpler to find the relevant underwriting section. Simply click on the expander and view the questions/information for that section.

We’ve reordered the Motorcycle & RV tabs to be the same as those in the Rating screens. This brings uniformity to the way data is entered both for the Rating and the Policy Entry Screens.

These updates will help agents enter data more quickly and accurately.

 

For more information on any of these exciting new features, please visit the EZLynx Solution Center.


The E&O Risks with Non-Downloading Carriers

Nag Rao, EZLynx CEOOur world, whether we like it or not, has become always-on and fully connected. This is especially true for the insurance industry, which is so heavily dependent on accurate and timely information.

When we decided to build an agency management system into EZLynx, it was our goal to build a system that was more than the ‘glorified notepad’ offered by our competition. It was our goal to not only parse and process the policy information that comes from the carrier as part of their daily download, but also to do something useful for the agency with that information.

EZLynx Retention Center® demonstrates this design philosophy. Agents who are subscribed to our patented Retention Center can see an intelligently prioritized list of renewals to work on as part of their daily workflow. The way this product is designed, agents work down their list of renewals in Retention Center from highest priority to lowest priority, with the goal of clearing all the high priority renewals from the Retention Center as quickly as possible using our proven process – ultimately improving their overall agency and carrier retention rates along the way!

This brings us to the problem of carriers who don’t download. EZLynx Retention Center switches to complete manual mode for the policies from those carriers. Although it still displays the upcoming renewal based on the manually entered expiration date[1], it still means the agent is responsible for manually maintaining all the policy information, including renewals and changes, within EZLynx. This imposes a severe burden on agency retention staff, who are already stretched thin by trying to keep up with renewals.

From what we have seen in the real world with Retention Center, agents simply forget or don’t bother to update manual policy information, which pretty much makes it impossible to effectively manage the renewals. We regularly see manual policies slipping through the cracks during renewal time. Not only could this be a serious E&O risk for many agencies if they forget to check on the carrier site for non-renewals, but it’s also a terrible experience for the customer, who often chooses an independent agent for the personal touch!

Another big example of the negative impact of non-downloading carriers within EZLynx is the lack of full policy self-servicing support for these policy holders in EZLynx Client Center. EZLynx Client Center allows the agency customer to go to their agent’s website 24/7 and log in to their account. They can print their proof of insurance, ask their agent a question, request a change to their policies, and more.

The simple fact is that carriers hurt both their agents and themselves when they choose not to download information into an agent’s management system – especially a smart agency management system like EZLynx. If the agents are writing with carriers who don’t download to save money for their customers, they do so at a high financial cost for their business and a watered down level of service for their customers.

This begs the question as to why agents work with carriers who do not download, and what agents can do about it. As is clear from the above examples, if the agents are doing this to help their customers, the opposite may in fact be happening. Next time you want to write a policy with a non-downloading carrier, please think twice. Consider letting carriers know that you’re less likely to present their rate to the consumer due to the increased financial burden of servicing and renewing a manual policy. Carriers rely on independent agents to be their extended sales and customer service arm. At the very least, they could work to make sure you have the most up to date information and resources at your fingertips.

Learn more about EZLynx Management System, EZLynx Client Center, and EZLynx Retention Center

[1] The sentence was amended to point out that Retention Center still alerts agents of expiring manual policies.