It’s our new Real Time data-exchange system that is seamlessly integrated with WinRater Auto & Home software. To put it simply, SinglePoint lets you retrieve real time rates from carrier web rating engine and effortlessly submit New Business Applications to your carrier web sites.

A Real Time Rate is a rate that is retrieved directly for your carrier web rating engine and displayed in your WinRater comparative premium list.

Once you are set up, all you have to do is:

• Simply complete all of the rating fields for a new quote in WinRater as you normally do.
• Click the SinglePoint RATE button.
• WinRater/SinglePoint will instantly pass the rating data to the carrier web rating engine.
• The carrier will run their reports, determine eligibility, and calculate the quote.
• SinglePoint will return the quoted premium for display in WinRater's premium list.

Yes... SinglePoint takes the quote you completed in WinRater, turns it into a New Business App, and then submits it to your carrier web site. It “magically” pre-fills all the data from the App to the carrier site so you don’t have to re-key or fumble around.

But the real beauty is that SinglePoint “standardizes” your submission process. That is, no matter what carrier you are submitting to, you’ll perform the exact same clicks and keystrokes.

Definitely! Agents have submitted nearly 20,000 Apps through Singlepoint – and that’s only since June 2008. Singlepoint has been deployed to over 1,700 Agencies. There are currently over 5,000 CSR’s/producers registered to use SinglePoint.

No. The SinglePoint set up process is very easy. You can do it within minutes! Or, of course, we can set it up for you. Just give us a call.

There is no separate charge for SinglePoint. It is included in your Annual WinRater Invoice.

As long as you are running WinRater and have access to the internet you should be all set.

Of course! SinglePoint displays the App with all the WinRater data flooded into the appropriate fields. But you can type in as much information as you’d like or complete the entire App. The more data you enter in SinglePoint, the more data that will get transferred to your carrier site. And don’t worry, you can print or email the App at any time.

Not quite, but virtually all of the information that is required on the carrier site gets pre-filled from SinglePoint. Some carriers may require you to answer a few company-specific questions that are not included in SinglePoint just yet or complete a validation process. And you can hyperlink right from SinglePoint to your carrier site to complete these items.

There are many carriers aboard the SinglePoint platform and many more will be added. Right now the SinglePoint-enabled carriers are: Arbella, Commerce, Encompass, Hanover, MAIP/CAR, National Grange Mutual, Norfolk, OneBeacon, Quincy Mutual, Travelers, Vermont Mutual, Plymouth Rock (for Real Time Rating, too!). There is an expandable list at the top of the left sidebar with current SinglePoint auto and home carriers (just click on the plus sign!).

Every agency needs to cede business to MAIP and so we recommend that you setup and use SinglePoint in your agency now. Also, we are adding carriers to SinglePoint all the time!

Well... “Yes” for Real Time Rating and “No” for submitting.

If we are generating Real Time Rates for your carrier(s) such as Plymouth Rock, then yes, you need to use SinglePoint or otherwise Winrater will not be able to display a Plymouth Rock quote in the premium list.

You do not have to use SinglePoint for submitting new business Apps to your carrier, however, we believe you will be missing out on a significant improvement to your agency’s workflow. To be blunt, your agency will be at a competitive disadvantage.

No. You simply register your agency on the web to use SinglePoint, and then sign up each of your CSR’s/producers. These CSR’s just create their own SinglePoint username/password and enter their carrier userID/passwords. The entire set up can take as little as five minutes depending on the size of your agency.

We recommend one person organize the setup process and becomes the "Singlepoint Administrator". This person will register the agency in SinglePoint and signup the specific CSR’s.

• Boston Software will send an email inviting you to Register your agency to use Singlepoint. This person will be considered the SinglePoint Administrator.
• The SinglePoint Administrator will click the hyperlink to begin the setup process and enter the all CSR’s that will be submitting business through Singlepoint.
• Singlepoint will send an email to these CSR’s requiring them to create their own user name and passwords.
• CSR’s also have to enter their carrier userIDs and passwords in WinRater so that SinglePoint can automatically log in to the carrier sites when submitting.

Of course you can give us a call to walk you through the process. We can even do it remotely. We’re always happy to help. You could also attend one of our webinars that explains the whole process or you can visit our Learning Center where you will find a lot more useful information.

As we continue to improve the administrative module in SinglePoint, you will need to contact us if you would like to add users. We will provide you with a link.

Without a specific email address, SinglePoint wouldn’t really know who was submitting the business. SinglePoint keeps track of all your agency submissions and the CSR’s who submitted them. We do this by keeping separate usernames and email addresses. The beauty of this, however, is that your agency will get valuable information and submission reports.

There are a few quick and easy steps to enter your login in credentials for your carriers.

1. In WinRater, on the menu at the top of your screen, click on Utilities.
2. Select Integration Setup
3. In the Integration Type Section, SinglePoint Submissions should be listed. If not, select it from the drop down menu and put a check mark in Default Export Type, located to the right.
4. Click on the Settings Tab, directly above Default Export Type. This is your WinRater Settings screen. Here, you would enter and/or edit all carrier and SinglePoint login credentials.

Active X controls basically help your computer launch websites and run certain scripts quickly. Often times your browser will try to block these from running when first loading a web site for security purposes. However, if you trust the web site (such as ours), you should allow the Active X controls to run.

If you have forgotten your password, you can easily reset it by logging directly into SinglePoint.

On the bottom of the login page, click on Forgot Password and follow the instructions. Also, you can call us and we will reset it for you.

Your username is not case sensitive, but your password IS case sensitive. We recommend that you write down your username and password with the correct case and store it in a safe place in case you forget.

There could be many reasons why this is happening. Most likely, it’s because your network firewall is blocking SinglePoint from launching. You have to change the settings in your firewall and/or Anti-Virus Protection to allow access to the SinglePoint screen. Your IT administrator may need to be involved. Feel free to call us if you need help.

All this means is that you have to complete some basic Customer Information in order for SinglePoint to launch. Usually this is just Customer last name or address. Glance at the details in the Quote Export screen and it will let you know what information is missing.

This message indicates that something is wrong with your SinglePoint login credentials (UserName and Password). You need to make sure that you have an active account in SinglePoint and your login is inputted correctly in your WinRater Settings screen. Feel free to call us for help.

This message indicates that something is wrong with your login credentials for the particular carrier you are submitting to. In the WinRater Settings screen, verify that your login credentials for the selected carrier are correct.

Yes, even though you may be registered and using SinglePoint for some carriers, you must tell WinRater/SinglePoint that you are authorized to submit to any new carriers that join SinglePoint. You do this by entering this carrier’s userID/Password in the WinRater Settings screen.

There are a few things that can be going wrong here. The SinglePoint Administrator should log in to SinglePoint and confirm this CSR has an active Username and Password. Once you have confirmed this information, the CSR must make sure that the Username and Password for SinglePoint is correctly inputted into the WinRater Settings screen. If this doesn’t clear the issue, you should call us.

If you look at the top left hand corner of the New Business Application, there is an icon that is a magnifying glass. By clicking that, you can zoom in and out to view the application clearer.

We thought of that when creating this application. In the top left hand corner of the App, there are icons that allow you to Collapse and Expand so you can view each section one by one. This should help you organize the information better and not be too overwhelmed.

Yes. You can email the Auto or HO App to your insureds while you are entering data on the App. At the top of the App you will see an email icon. When you click this icon it will prompt you to enter the recipient’s email address and the application will be attached. You can also email from the Submission List screen -- just highlight the App in the list and click the Email button.

Of course! Agents are able to print the application for signatures, and filing purposes. At the top of the application, you will see a Print icon.

After you submit the App to the carrier, you should hyperlink up to the carrier web site where you’ll need to complete them. We are working on capturing all the carrier-specific questions in SinglePoint so you won’t have to go to the carrier website to complete them. This will be available in an update, sometime in the near future.

You can hit the SAVE icon at the top of the App and it will be saved. To retrieve it later, just go to the Submissions List, find it in the list, and click View.

You can get to the Submissions List while you are in the application or by logging into Singlepoint directly:

http://www.bostonsoftware.com/singlepoint

Currently you are unable to delete an application if it has already been submitted to a carrier.

SinglePoint is designed on a user basis. Each person must set up their own username and password to be part of the agency submission report as well as protect private information.

At the present time SinglePoint does not prompt you to change or reset your password. However, it is good security practice to update it every few months. That functionality may be added in the future.

You can select the Forgot/Change Password link on the SinglePoint login page:

http://www.bostonsoftware.com/singlepoint

Just follow the prompts.

We are working on an Administrator module to give you access to managing these accounts yourself. But at the present time you will need to contact Boston Software and ask to have the account deleted.

Yes, on the Submissions List you can select a CSR and other search criteria and look up activity by specific CSR’s.

New carriers are plugging into SinglePoint every few weeks, including Safety (Auto), Peerless, MPIUA, and many others!

Be sure to keep in touch with us and check out our web site to get the latest information. And if one of your carriers is not on SinglePoint, be sure mention it to your marketing rep -- that is the best way to motivate them. Eventually every carrier writing personal lines business in MA will be on SinglePoint, and then think how easy writing new business will be.

As more carriers file complex "multivariate" rates, it has gotten harder for comparative rating vendors to "manufacture" rates. Because of this, carriers and vendors have begun working together to implement real time rating. This means that instead of having WinRater calculate the rate in our data tables, WinRater (via SinglePoint) will go out and retrieve the rate from the carrier web site. It is all done instantly ("real time") and displayed in WinRater in the Premiums panel. But in the background WinRater/SinglePoint will actually pass a file with all the rating data to the carrier and, in turn, the carrier will pass the quoted premium back to us. There are many benefits to real time rating.

Absolutely. The beauty with real time rating is that the quoted premium comes directly from the carrier. Therefore, it should be 100% accurate and ready for binding.

Once you upgrade your version of WinRater, you should be ready to go. (This assumes you are currently using SinglePoint.) The only difference is that after entering all the rating data, you will have to hit a "Rate" button to tell SinglePoint to retrieve a real time quote for those carriers that are real-time-enabled. Otherwise, WinRater will display the premiums for all your carriers in the same way.

Don’t worry, we will continue to "manufacture" these carrier rates. Their premiums will appear in the premium list, as usual. You won’t even tell the difference between manufactured rates and real time rates.

Plymouth Rock is currently the only carrier on board with Real Time Rating. Released with great success, thousands and thousands of quotes have been generated in WinRater. Also, thousands of quotes have also been real time submitted to Plymouth Rock’s Agent Web via SinglePoint. We are scheduled to roll out another 6+ carriers by the Summer of 2009. Keep an eye open for information regarding SinglePoint’s Real Time Rating and Submitting.

You should make sure your agency and all your CSR’s are comfortable using SinglePoint now. Setting up SinglePoint and adopting it as part of your workflow right now will definitely help when we turn on real time rating.