I know, I know, we talk about WinRater
Auto all the time.

But we haven’t forgotten about WinRater
Home Rating Software!

Over the last few months we’ve made a number of improvements, including: 

• A new option for “distance to coast”: WinRater now supports “20 miles”.
• Guaranteed Replacement Cost change:  Now the endorsements for Dwelling Replacement Cost and Specified Additional Amounts of Insurance are on the same Adjustments tab and WinRater will only add the checked Replacement Cost option if it is offered by the selected Carrier plan.
• You can now create a pdf of your quote and email it.
• Added Peerless rates to available plans.
• Added Vermont Mutual and Concord Group to SinglePoint new business submissions.
• Added Andover Companies to the automated ChoicePoint credit retrieval utility.
• And we’re making a number of improvements that will be included in our WinRater 6.0 upgrade, due out in January.

Not too shabby, eh?!

You’re gonna like this guy.  He’s smart, competent, agreeable, young, curious… and he gets thing done right the first time.  If he doesn’t, he gets really angry and takes it out on himself (never on agents) in bizarre self-mutilation rituals.  

Seriously, he is pretty exceptional with a great education (Holy Cross) and resume, which includes running his own business.  He will manage all aspects of Operations including billing, customer relations management, software updates, etc.  

John is taking over Operations from Heather Concannon because she… swallowed a balloon and no longer can do the job effectively.  Just take a look –

OK, not really — Heather’s ballooning belly is the result of yet another pregnancy here at the fertile offices of Boston Software.   (Yes, something must be in the water.)  Heather and her husband are expecting their first baby in April.  As for the office, she is now focusing on SinglePoint.  This is an important part of the future of MA rating and she’s working hard to get all WinRater users plugged into SinglePoint and trained.  Moreover, she and Tonya will be spearheading the SinglePoint real time rating rollout. 

Give our offices a call and say hello to John or maybe congrats to Heather!

A few agents have told me that they were not confident with the accuracy of WinRater Auto quotes. That’s not something we like to hear. So of course we investigated closely with closely carriers and our staff.

We found out that WinRater is extremely accurate!  You know what else we found out?  That in the vast majority (over 90%) of the cases where a WinRater quote does not match the carrier DEC page it is because the agent or CSR did not enter enough information in WinRater or entered the wrong information.  That’s probably not want you want to hear, but it’s true.

With Managed Competition, carriers require very specific driver, vehicle, and underwriting data. Cutting corners when entering info in WinRater is only going to get you an inaccurate quote.  Four things you can do to help your staff keep track of these specific carrier requirements and quote accurately:

1. Refer to the WinRater Auto Tip Sheet on our web site while you are quoting.  This easy-to-understand reference guide will definitely help.

2. Contact Phyllis Panico at phyllis@bostonsoftware.com. Her job is to make sure she you understand the different carrier requirements. She is also the person to speak to when your WinRater quote does not match your DEC page.

3.  Contact me, Tonya Pickett, at tonya@bostonsoftware.com and I can visit your agency to answer questions and train CSRs. I’m happy to help.

4.  Talk to us! Let us know how we can improve WinRater, be more accurate, etc. Remember this is a partnership between you, us, and your carriers and we have to rely on each other for success.

Just in case you weren’t aware, here are the 13 carriers that retrieve credit reports while quoting in WinRater Home:
      • Andover
      • Arbella
      • Bunker Hill
      • Commerce
      • General Casualty
      • Hanover
      • Hingham
      • National Grange
      • Norfolk & Dedham
      • OneBeacon
      • Peerless
      • Quincy Mutual
      • Safety

Call us if you write HO business with one of these carriers BUT are still going out to www.choicepoint.com to run these reports.  We can help you save time.

Agents writing Homeowners business with The Andover Companies can now run ChoicePoint credit reports (and verify eligibility) from directly within WinRater Home Rating.

This is another great way to streamline workflow in your agency. With this utility, you can pull ChoicePoint credit reports while rating the policy. WinRater, in turn, will instantly verify the eligibility of the risk according to the Andover rules.

The Andover Companies now joins 12 other MA carriers, including OneBeacon, Commerce, Hingham, Quincy, Safety, Bunker Hill, and Hanover that have implemented this solution to help agents gather necessary underwriting data and streamline new business quoting.

If you have any questions, just give us a call. We can get this set up for you in a few minutes.

Another Carrier added!!

Quincy Mutual now joins SinglePoint for new business Auto Apps.  That makes 15 carriers.

If you write with Quincy Mutual, just add your Quincy Mutual firewall credentials in the Settings Tab in WinRater.  (Need the firewall credentials? Just call Marge Mahan at Quincy Mut at 800.899.1116 ext 5173)

And if you’re not using SinglePoint yet, stop re-keying data into your carrier sites, and get on board with SinglePoint! Call Tonya or Heather to set you up.

Nice to see many of you at this year’s annual gathering of independent agents, carriers, and vendors at the Copley. We showed our new WinRater 6.0 upgrade, which includes SinglePoint real time rating. We’re putting on the finishing touches now and will begin beta-testing with agents the first week of December.

We also held our annual User Group Meeting and had a lively exchange of ideas and thoughts and Q&A.

And as we have for the last few years, we hosted the Cocktail Party on Friday night. That was a lot of fun.