"Just do it"

Rough Notes, Oct 1999 by Doucette, Nancy

Once the consumer chooses to do business with a particular agency, that agency is then charged $10 for closing the business. After the consumer enters his/her social security number to indicate the decision to accept the quote from a particular agent, it is then the responsibility of that agent to "pick up the phone" before binding the policy.

The next step for the agent is to submit the application to the carrier and with ebix.link available to the agency and the carrier, the transaction can take place electronically. All the necessary data from ebix.mall will be converted to an AL3 format for transmission to the carrier. Delphi charges the agency $20 per submission to send a transaction and the carrier $20 to open the electronic folder. Earlier we referred to the simple form which consumers complete when they first visit ebix.mall to request a quote. Most of the data collected is mapped to the appropriate ACORD form. But there is additional information that can be channeled directly to other underwriting tools, eliminating the need for the agent to key in additional data. Through an arrangement with ChoicePoint, Delphi is offering online MVRs, CLUE reports, and credit reports via ebix.com. Dun & Bradstreet information is also available. These are especially attractive features for smaller organizations that don't buy reports in volume.

Raina points out that Delphi received input from the Certified Professional Insurance Agents Society (CPIA) in the design and development of ebix.mall. In return, Delphi has provided automatic registration to the site to the CPIA's 3,500 members-- assuring that consumers will have access to products being offered by some of the country's top agencies.

(See Rough Notes September 1999 issue, "CPIA Society dedicated to sales excellence," for a related article.) The CPIA Society has given its endorsement to the ebix family of products and will be providing assistance with the "Ask the expert" feature available at ebix.com.

To establish more inroads with carriers in the financial services area, Delphi recently announced a strategic partnership with Hewlett-Packard Company (HP). Delphi will leverage HP's "e-services" capabilities and the relationships with the financial services/general insurance sector that have grown out of those capabilities. HP also will provide technology support to ebix.com in terms of highend hardware and e-security software support. "HP's e-services division and insurance services division have a strong clientele in the insurance carrier market. HP will put its might behind ebix.com to help us reach out to consumers and insurance professionals alike," Raina declares.

Whereas there's a $100 per year registration fee charged to agents who want access to ebix.mall, there's no charge for access to ebix.com. However, Raina is quick to note, "Even if you do no commerce at our site-no ebix.mall, no ebix.link-- there's still huge value there."

Delphi describes ebix.com, which was launched in May 1999, as "the only site on the Web to meet the insurance needs of both the consumer and the insurance professional." Below are some site feature highlights: