Top 10 Tips for Personal Lines Retention

It’s no secret that successful agencies make retention a priority. They know that keeping a customer is much more profitable than going out to find a new one.

Here are 10 helpful tips to keep your agency focused and winning at renewal time.

  1. Have a Retention process. 
    This one may seem obvious, but it really does start here.

    Repeatable success won’t happen without a plan. Document a process and embrace it the same way you would any critical procedure within your agency.

  2. Work your Retention process daily.
    Retention should be a daily habit. Each member of the team should have an assigned role and a list of goals to achieve each day.
  3. Be proactive, not reactive.
    Know what’s happening with your client’s policy before the carrier sends the renewal notice. Then, communicate (quickly).

    Once clients receive their new rates from the carrier, they’re already shopping (without you). That means you need to touch 100% of your clients before the carrier.

    To stay ahead of the game, make sure renewals are downloading to your agency management system.

  4. Know when a client is at risk.
    Renewing clients should be managed in two categories—those at risk and those that aren’t.  (This may seem easier said than done, but technology can really help out in this area.)

    You’re going to touch both groups, but prioritize the communication.

    For at-risk clients, you’ll want to evaluate their policy first. If you recognize their renewal is out of line with the market, communicate that. Let them know better options are available and reassure them that you’re already working on it.

    For clients in a better spot, you’ll want to communicate that you’ve proactively reviewed their renewal. All is in order and in line with the current market, but you’re available for any additional consultation.

  5. Be ready to explain why the client’s premium increased.
    An on-screen comparison of the current and renewing policies is the quickest way to accomplish this. If there is an obvious reason for the rate increase (new car, coverage changes, etc.), viewing them side-by-side will quickly discover it.
  6. Be ready to provide multiple quotes.
    Customers want to feel like they have explored their options. By providing multiple quotes, you’re easing their minds and making them feel better about doing business with you.
  7. Know when to remarket, and when to educate.
    As retention becomes a daily priority, your agency will gain a feel for when it is appropriate to remarket your insureds.

    What does the client value? How big was the impact of the state rate change? What’s happening in the carrier market, or with the product offering?

    Educate your clients on current market conditions so you remain their trusted advisor.

  8. Stay in touch… not just at renewal time.
    Having a regular communication cadence will keep you top of mind all year round. Find reasons to reach out and add value to your clients’ lives.

    Account reviews are great opportunities to re-evaluate clients’ needs and reinforce your value.

  9. Cross-selling keeps customers.
    Rounding out accounts is a sure-fire way to strengthen them for the long term. Is the client bundled for home and auto? Does your agency offer Life and Health?
  10. Be unique in your community.
    You know why customers trust you to insure their risks, so make sure that value comes through at renewal time.

    Do you give back to the community through charitable work or volunteerism? Do you serve a particular demographic? What types of online services do you provide? Do clients have access to their policies online 24/7?

    This is the time to promote your brand and show customers that you care.

Final Thoughts

Always remember, agency retention doesn’t happen by accident. It’s something you must work toward constantly to be successful. With the right plan and practices, retention can become the cornerstone of your business and its long-term growth.

If some of these best practices seem daunting, it may be because your agency isn’t using all the technology available today. EZLynx can help with that. From Rating Engine to Management System, Communication Center, and the patented Retention Center, EZLynx has the tools you need to intelligently streamline the entire customer renewal process.


What’s New in EZLynx 20.2

The EZLynx June 2020 release will go live on 6/26. Below you can find some of the highlights. Be sure to join us on Thursday, June 25 at 12:00 PM Central Time for our next episode of EZLynx Live, where we will be showcasing these exciting enhancements!

Payment Processing Through Client Center

Your clients can now make electronic payments by credit card or eCheck via EZLynx Client Center. You will also be able to track payment history and view tasks generated through payments.

EZLynx has partnered with Clearent for this highly demanded feature.

Steps to enable payment processing through EZLynx:

  1. Set up your merchant account with Clearent. Start the process at https://www.ezlynx.com/vendors/clearent.html
  2. Inside EZLynx, navigate to the EZLynx Connect Marketplace. Click on the “Payment Connector” card to find and activate the Clearent integration.

Calendly Integration with Client Center

With EZLynx Client Center, online customer self-service is available to your clients 24/7. But some situations require more traditional, direct communication between agent and insureds. That’s where Calendly comes in.

Calendly is a 3rd-party application that can be added from the EZLynx Connect Marketplace. Calendly helps schedule meetings without the dreaded back and forth of emails and phone tag.

Once your agency has activated the Calendly integration for Client Center, your customers will begin seeing the link to schedule an appointment.

New Automation Center Workflow for Carrier eDocs

We’ve added a new workflow to EZLynx Automation Center, which triggers when carrier eDocs are received. This powerful automation notifies insureds, provides access to the incoming carrier documents, and creates Notes/Tasks for the agency.

By eliminating the need to share documents with clients manually, time is saved for both agents and insureds. Clients are notified immediately by email, along with a secure link to view the documents in EZLynx Client Center.

Carrier eDocs include Declaration Pages, Policy Documents, Notices of Final Cancellation, Non-Payment Pending Cancellations, Non-Renewal Notices, Payments Overdue and Reinstatement Notices. Filters can be set to tailor your agency’s actions to the types of carrier eDocs being received.

This feature is available only for agencies who have upgraded to EZLynx 5.

Rating Engine Updates

The Rating Engine is receiving updates for three states, in-line with the upcoming state regulations.

Michigan (Auto Coverages, Effective July 2):

  • The new state minimum for auto liability coverage is being updated to 50/100/10.
  • Per new state regulations, 20/40, 25/25, 25/50, 50/50 and 55 CSL will no longer be supported for the Bodily Injury, Uninsured Motorist and Underinsured Motorist drop downs.
  • “PIP Limit” and “Excess Attendant Care” fields have been added to State Specific coverages. (Excess Attendant Care will be enabled if PIP limit has values other than Unlimited or No Coverage.)

Arizona (Auto Coverages, Effective July 1):

  • The new state minimum for auto liability coverage is being updated to 25/50/15.
  • Per new state regulations, 15/30 and 25/25 will no longer be supported for the Bodily Injury, Uninsured Motorist and Underinsured Motorist drop downs.
  • 10,000 will no longer be supported for general coverage Property Damage for Auto quotes.

Virginia (Addition to Gender Field):

  • Not Specified has been added as a third option under Gender.

These Rating Engine updates will also apply to Consumer Quoting, Web Services, and Client Center. (For Client Center, only Gender changes are available).

EZLynx 5 Applicant/Co-Applicant Switch (Beta)

The ability to swap the Applicant and Co-Applicant with a single click is almost here!

Reentering data in order to quote the same household under a different applicant can be needlessly time consuming. Soon, you will have a way to quickly switch the primary applicant information with the co-applicant directly on the quote results page and get a new quote. This new feature is entering a small closed beta, before being available exclusively in EZLynx 5.

Watch for an announcement of the general availability of this function in an upcoming issue of NewsLynx.

 

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


EZLynx Introduces Integration with Secure24 Alarms for ADT Home Alarm Systems

EZLynx is proud to announce its partnership with Secure24 Alarms for ADT Home Alarm Systems. Now agents can easily cross-sell home security to interested shoppers from within the EZLynx Rating Engine and earn commissions.

This new integration acts as a lead generator for clients interested in learning about ADT Home Alarm Systems. Secure24 Alarms contacts the prospect to provide more information and manage the complete sales process. When a lead results in a sale, the agent earns a commission. There is no cost to the agent for this new feature, only opportunities to earn more.

The entire process is kicked off with a single button press. During the normal quoting process, agents will find ADT Home Alarm Systems conveniently located within the “ADD VALUE TO YOUR QUOTE” section of EZLynx Rating Engine.

“Shopping for insurance or purchasing a new home is a likely time for homeowners to reconsider their security options,” said EZLynx Director of Strategic Partnerships Kevin Coplin. “Insurance agencies are looking for ways to introduce additional revenue streams with their existing client base. ADT Home Alarm Systems is a great way to do this, and our partnership with Secure24 Alarms makes the process about as simple and seamless as it can be.”

“Secure24 Alarms is truly excited to be partnered with EZLynx,” said Secure24 Alarms Chief Marketing Officer AJ Vogler. “Our strategic partnership creates additional value for policy holders, agents, EZLynx and Secure24. Allowing agents to seamlessly refer clients to exclusive security packages from the leading home security company in the world while creating an additional revenue stream for agents is a win-win in our book. The push-button referral process will make this very simple.”

Secure24 Alarms is the latest addition to the EZLynx Connect platform. EZLynx Connect provides third-party businesses an avenue to distribute their products and services directly within the EZLynx platform. We’ve opened the EZLynx framework and invited carriers and vendors to work side-by-side with our technologists to innovate and integrate solutions to better the agency workflow.


Enable Multi-Factor Authentication for Your Agency Today

With phishing and other password-theft scams on the rise, safeguarding your agency’s data has never been more important.

Of course, EZLynx continues to aggressively ensure that our system is secure. Cloud-based agency management systems minimize many of your operational risks by offloading your critical infrastructure, removing physical storage needs, and enhancing security.

But in the end, all it takes is a simple username and password for someone (hopefully you) to access all of your client data in our system.

That is why multi-factor authentication is so important, and we are encouraging you to enable this feature on your account, as it will soon be required for all EZLynx accounts.

What is multi-factor authentication?

You may have heard of this before, and you likely have already experienced it at your banking website. To put it simply, multi-factor (or two-factor, two-step, etc.) authentication ensures that just because someone has your password, they still cannot access your account until they complete another step to prove their identity.  They must also have access to a second means of authentication, usually in the form of your physical mobile phone, which most likely is never far away from your hand!

Enabling multi-factor authentication is easy.

If you’re an EZLynx Rating Engine or Management System customer, you already have multi-factor authentication available to you!  It just needs to be enabled.

EZLynx Multi-Factor Authentication supports sending a verification code to your email address or as a text message to your phone.  We recommend that you choose the Text Message option as the most secure and reliable method.

You can learn how to get started here.


What’s New In EZLynx 4.19.13

EZLynx 4.19.13 is now available! Here are some highlights of the release:

New! Certificate Master Workflow

Certificates are perhaps the most time-consuming and costly activity imposed on agencies. Now EZLynx has redefined the creation, management, and distribution of certificates, streamlining the workflow and changing the way agencies think about getting them done.

Remarks made at the Master level carry through to all holders at once, and true asset association means that vehicles/locations automatically flow over with each holder. EZLynx has also simplified the task of sending certificates out to thousands of clients, with one-click distribution through the client’s preferred method — including online self-service within EZLynx Client Center.

This is a game-changer for commercial policies:

  • Dedicated Certificates work area
  • Completely revamped Certificate Master workflow
  • Master level remarks carry through to all holders at once
  • Easily add and manage certificate holders
  • True asset association
  • Attachments associated at the Holder level
  • Longer remarks automatically flow to the required ACORD 101
  • Certificate Distribution Reports provide a history of what you’ve generated

The new and improved Commercial Certificates is now available to all users of Level 2 and Level 3 EZLynx Management System. Look for the new “Certificates” tab on your Commercial Accounts.

Client Center: Certificate Self-Generation

Client Center is fully integrated with the new Certificate Master workflow. This means that Certificate Master Remarks you enter will be displayed on the Master Certificate you share to the Client Center.

Because Master Remarks now flow to the Client Center Certificate Master, this will save you (and the insured) needless back-and-forth communication to get the proper remarks added. Additionally, Supporting Documents now download with the Certificate Master in Client Center.

Documents can be attached to the Master Certificate, or to an individual Certificate Holder. When supporting documents are attached to a Master Certificate, they will stay associated with the Certificate. When the insured logs into the Client Center to “Download” or “Add Certificate Holder” to a shared Certificate, these documents will stay intact and download along with the Certificate.

Rating Engine Updates

EZLynx Rating Engine is receiving various updates with this release.

State-Related Updates:

  • Oregon ― Gender option X-Not Specified is renamed to Not Specified
  • Michigan ― Additional PIP deductible options ($1,000 and $2,500) for Auto Application

Updates to Various Field Options for Home and Dwelling Fire:

  • Frame Option is removed from the Exterior Walls field on Home Rating Application.
  • Added a new value of 10% to the Ordinance & Law endorsement option on Home Rating Application.
  • Under the Dwelling Fire Endorsements Tab, Replacement Cost Dwelling is renamed to Increased Replacement Cost Dwelling Percentage, with dropdown values of 125, 150, and 200.

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


What’s New In EZLynx 4.19.07

Release Highlights

Text Messaging Preference Management

We’ve enhanced our opt-out support in EZLynx Text Messaging.

When a recipient replies STOP to a text message, our system has always automatically opted them out from future messages. In this update, we have added a Suppression List area so that users can easily see when a recipient has opted out.

This enhancement also provides a way for an agency to manually opt-out a recipient’s phone number from future text messages.

Client Center Now Supports ID Cards for Manual Policies

With Client Center, customers were already able to access their ID cards for downloaded policies within your agency. With this update, customers are now able to access their ID cards for manual policies as well.

Just another way EZLynx is making it easier for your agency to grow and service its commercial book of business!

New LOB – Cyber and Privacy Coverage

Cyber and Privacy Coverage has now been added as a line of business for manual policy entry. Agents can enter full application details for coverages, scheduled items and more.

Certificate Master Workflow (BETA)

We’ve made big improvements to the commercial certificates workflow!

Certificate management can be one of the most time-consuming aspects of servicing commercial policies. Now, EZLynx has redefined how certificate masters are created and managed, streamlining the workflow and changing the way you think about getting them done.

Here are a few highlights of this game-changer for commercial policies:

  • Certificates now have their own, dedicated work area
  • Completely revamped Certificate Master workflow
  • Remarks made at the Master level carry through to all holders at once
  • True asset association means vehicles/locations automatically flow over with each holder
  • Associate attachments at the holder level
  • Easily add and manage certificate holders
  • Certificate Distribution Reports provide a history of what you’ve generated

If you are a commercial agent regularly servicing accounts and distributing certificates, this update is for you. To be among the first agencies to make use of this new, time-saving workflow → CLICK HERE.

Rating Engine Updates

EZLynx Rating Engine is receiving various updates with this release.

Auto:

  • New field addition “Telematics” at Vehicle level
  • New field addition “Transportation Network Coverage” at Vehicle level
  • Adding support for vehicle year 2020
  • Property Damage Limits update for Missouri (State Regulation)
  • New Violation addition “Texting while driving” for Pennsylvania (State Regulation)

Home:

  • Display label change for “Replacement Cost Dwelling” endorsement and option values

Auto, Home, and Dwelling Fire:

  • Prior Carrier List is updated
  • Display label for existing Credit check authorization field on Policy Info tab is changed to read “Credit Check and Other Underwriting Reports Authorized”

 

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


EZLynx Roadmap for 2019

2018 was a year of growth for EZLynx and especially for our agencies! Agencies using EZLynx have on average enjoyed substantial year-over-year increases in customers, policies, and premiums. While agents saw growth in all areas, this trend was especially pronounced for commercial lines. We take pride as a partner in your success and want to continue to provide the tools you need to thrive and grow each year.

We all work towards Nag’s vision of a single platform customer lifecycle solution built on the pillars of productivity, serviceability, profitability and scalability for your agency. We believe that scalability is achieved by aligning the right people, processes, and technology to overcome plateaus that inhibit growth. We want to thank our customers who also believe in and support our vision as we strive to improve our industry.

We faced challenges with our own scalability this year, which is why we made the difficult decision to hold off on some important new features while we focused on the system architecture and stability of the platform. For many years, EZLynx was known in the industry for its reliability, so we look forward to earning back your trust in that area. To continue our growth, we’ve put the people, processes, and technology in place to continue delivering innovative solutions to support your business while we grow ours. The way we see it, working as a trusted technology partner with your best interest in mind is the only way we both win.

Looking Back at 2018

EZLynx introduced exciting products and a series of targeted features that significantly impact the amount of time agencies spend on non-revenue generating activities. Features such as bulk document enhancements, updates to EZLynx for Outlook, improved download matching, additional LOB support, eSignature custom fields, MSB residential pre-fill with reconstruction cost valuation, and a completely new commission import workflow are all updates that were aimed at reducing man-hours spent on these necessary activities. The team is testing several other productivity features including an updated forms workflow, which saves time generating the application documents and will be available for general release early 2019!

We officially introduced Automation Center this summer to set the foundation for the future of our platform. Automation Center helps agencies scale by handling many of the repetitive tasks that consume resources and keep you from focusing on high-value activities. This type of automation also encourages everyone to adhere to standard workflows and promotes best practices. It is the foundation for helping you increase productivity and serviceability without adding staff. We will continue to enhance the automation features in 2019 with support for multi-step and conditional workflows.

One of the most exciting products designed to help agencies scale while increasing profitability is our Agency Insights™ for Sales Center. This feature automatically generates potential prospects from your quote data and book of business, giving you the information needed to recapture, win, and cross-sell opportunities before the X-Date. This is the type of feature that pushes the boundaries on what a management system should do for an agency.

Looking Forward in 2019

We want to provide commercial lines sales and service the same innovation and productivity gains that EZLynx brought to personal lines. We’ve set an ambitious roadmap for 2019 with a few surprises along the way! The roadmap focuses on the business problems that commercial agents have faced for years in the areas of submission management, certificate distribution, and ongoing servicing.

At AgentLynx 2018, we showed off a sneak peek of EZLynx 5, the next generation of the EZLynx platform, and we are excited to announce that it will be available later this year! EZLynx 5 is designed to move us toward our vision of a smart Rating Engine and Agency Management System that helps drive an agency through automation and improved consistency, functionality, and usability.

Recently we’ve noticed an increase in the consolidation of independent agencies under MAPs, or Market Access Providers. In late 2018, we started building EZLynx for MAPs, a product designed to help these organizations overcome common plateaus, scale quickly, and increase the efficiency of their operations. Our initial roadmap addresses member management, carrier management, and commissions processing.

As a company, we push ourselves to never settle and look for opportunities to affect positive change in the insurance industry. Even as the leader in personal lines rating, we believe there is room for improvement. This year we are thrilled to show some love for the EZLynx Rating Engine with the goal of improving speed and accuracy to help you accomplish more, faster!

AgentLynx 2019

A special thank you to everyone who joined us for AgentLynx last year in San Diego. We truly enjoyed getting to meet everyone and sharing our passion for new technology. With every AgentLynx we hope to inspire attendees to leverage EZLynx to drive productivity, serviceability, scalability, and profitability in their own agencies.

Our user conference is a unique opportunity for you to learn how to maximize your potential with EZLynx and to influence the direction of the product for the future. Several of the product enhancements of 2018 were a direct result of feedback from the conference! We are already working toward new surprises for AgentLynx 2019. We look forward to seeing you all in Fort Worth, Texas on October 20-23rd.

We are excited for the new year and the opportunities it brings to continue our journey as your technology partner!


MSB Residential Pre-Fill and Reconstruction Cost Valuations

EZLynx has a new integration to bring you residential pre-fill and reconstruction cost valuation in the EZLynx Rating Engine through the RCT® Express estimating platform from CoreLogic®.

Residential pre-fill will drastically improve your home quote process by allowing you to use MSB lookup within EZLynx to automatically pull information about a home prospect.

This will help streamline an agent’s homeowner policy quote process and improve the consumer experience by allowing agents to simply validate the property characteristics instead of attempting to fill in data fields themselves with homeowner-supplied information.

You can further improve your process with the MSB reconstruction cost valuation tool to predict the cost of replacing the entire home.

“Homeowners count on their local property insurance agent to protect their interests and make sure they are adequately covered under their homeowner policy”, said Mikhail Palatnik, executive of product management with CoreLogic Insurance Solutions. “RCT Express and Interchange®, our robust property prefill, can also help agents protect their most valuable assets — their reputation and relationship with clients who are most often neighbors and friends.”

Both services will be available at a competitive, cost-efficient rate per transaction.

“Our integration with CoreLogic is another step in our commitment to listening to agents and providing them with everything they need to run their businesses on ONE PLATFORM,” said Anoop Bargur, product manager for EZLynx Rating Engine. “Using residential prefill and reconstruction cost valuations, agents will be able to increase their productivity even more during home rating.”

For pricing information and to get started, please fill out the form below.


What’s New in EZLynx 4.17.12

The latest software release will be rolling out soon, and we’re pleased to preview just a few of the exciting features heading your way. Let’s take a quick look at some of the new beta releases for Policy Change Request, Rewritten Policy Enhancements, and EZLynx Sales Center 2.0!

Policy Change Request

The highly anticipated Policy Change Request feature was previously available for a limited beta group. This feature simplifies the change request workflow for agents, installing an added layer of assurance to the process.

Policy Change Request provides a start-to-finish process for efficiently initiating, requesting, monitoring and verifying policy changes. Utilize the familiar EZLynx workspace to closely manage policy changes, with particular attention paid to the quality of service being provided to insureds, the level of communication within your agency, and the accuracy of carrier submissions and responses.

With this latest release, Policy Change Request will be available for these lines of business: Personal Auto, Commercial Auto, Commercial General Liability, Business Owners Policy, Commercial Property, Workers Compensation, Homeowners, Dwelling Fire, Commercial Umbrella, Garage and Dealers, Professional Liability, Directors & Officers, Errors & Omissions, Commercial Crime, Farm Owners.

Highlights:

  • Create and preview changes from the policy entry screen
  • Communicate proposed policy changes through Change Request Memos
  • Track the entire Policy Change Request process
  • Use EZLynx eSignature to quickly and securely acquire insureds’ signatures
  • Generate Commercial Change Request ACORD 175 and submit to carriers as required.

Policy Change Request

Rewritten Policy Enhancements

Rewritten Policy Enhancements now grant you greater control over your agency’s book of business. When you remarket your clients’ business, sometimes what is new business to a carrier is really existing business to you and your agency. Situations like this can cause issues with commissions in your agency.

With these new enhancements, rewritten policies can now be accounted for in a way that provides a more accurate book of business and improved commission tracking.

Rewritten Policy Enhancements

We have also added new functionality to the Policy Transactions page to help identify potential rewrite transactions. When a policy transaction is matched to an applicant, the system looks to see if the downloaded policy is a potential rewrite. You then have the option to confirm whether it is a rewrite or not.

Highlights:

  • Improved Policy History to Group by Policy Term
  • Greater Visibility of a Policy’s History
  • Commission Rules for Rewritten Policy Term
  • Create Rewritten Policy when converting Application to Policy
  • Viewing potential Rewrites from Downloaded Policies

EZLynx Sales Center 2.0

This release marks sweeping enhancements to EZLynx Sales Center. The Sales Center 2.0 user interface provides an even clearer view of the opportunities in your pipeline, as well as a redesigned detail view for each opportunity.

We have also added amazing functionality designed to streamline your workflows in Sales Center. Intuitively manage your opportunities with enhanced priority, focus and profitability.

But wait, there’s more to come! This is the first of two Sales Center 2.0 releases. Each of them greatly improves your experience with our pipeline management system.

Highlights:

  • New display for Sales Center pipelineSales Center
  • Last contacted indicator on opportunities
  • New improved Opportunity Detail view
  • Automated integration with EZLynx Rating Engine

Be a Part of the Beta Team

While these new features and enhancements will be released automatically to all of our beta customers, we are always looking for more agents that want to play an active role in helping to shape the future direction of our product.

While being a beta participant has its own challenges in terms of having to deal with new enhancements that may still be rough around the edges, the feedback provided to us by these users is invaluable. If you are not a beta customer and enjoy testing pre-release software, please let us know below.


EZLynx Adds Unprecedented Number of New Florida Carriers to Comparative Rating Platform

Florida Agents Receive Better Market Penetration with EZLynx® Rating Engine

EZLynx announced today the availability of several new Florida carriers to their flagship comparative rater as part of a continued effort to help Florida independent agents remain competitive in a state dominated by regional carriers.

New Florida carriers available within the EZLynx Rating Engine include:

  • American Integrity Insurance Group
  • Cabrillo Coastal / Safe Harbor
  • Capitol Preferred
  • Centauri Insurance
  • Cypress Property and Casualty
  • Florida Family Insurance
  • Florida Peninsula Insurance Company
  • Heritage Property and Casualty
  • Southern Fidelity Insurance Company
  • Southern Fidelity Property and Casualty
  • Universal North America

“We are extremely pleased with the progress we have made for our Florida users,” said Kevin Coplin, Senior Manager of Carrier Relations at EZLynx. “Adding these Florida carriers to the list of over 176 carriers already active on EZLynx has given these agents a greater competitive edge in their state, and these newly added carriers will likely see increased volume as a result of the greater ease of access afforded to their agents by using EZLynx. Everybody wins here.”