How We Handle Enhancements and Future Enhancements Being Discussed!

(Click Here to Submit A New Enhancement Request or Bug)

How Enhancements Work

With all enhancements, our users will determine whether the enhancement is something that should be added.  If there aren’t enough requests for an enhancement or interest in one, we won’t do it.  Therefore, please make sure to send in your vote when we send you an Enhancement Request Notification. 

If an enhancement request from a user is something we’ve agreed to put on the docket for our users to vote on, we’ll send all users a link to a web page outlining the enhancement request.  At this page we will …

·         Give as much detailed information as we have on the requested enhancement.

·         We’ll ask you for your input on the enhancement.  You may have some great ideas on that enhancement to make it even better and more functional.

·         We’ll post the estimated upgrade cost for this enhancement.

·         If the enhancement will require programming that would change the base system, the enhancement would become a “mandatory” upgrade* to all users.  If it’s a mandatory upgrade, we’ll let you know that too.

·         We’ll ask you to vote on it … This is YOUR system and we only want to offer add-ons and new features that would be beneficial to you and our other users.

* Mandatory Upgrades.  There may be enhancements we add that are classified as “mandatory upgrades”.  What that means is we had to make programming changes to the base system and were not able to make the enhancement a module that we can turn on and off for select people.  If there is a 50% or greater request for an enhancement (majority) that is a mandatory upgrade enhancement, then all users will need to purchase the upgrade (if fee based) and upgrade their system. 

Agencies that choose not to upgrade will no longer be able to receive any further upgrades on the Policy Analyzer and will be limited to the tools and functionality available at the time they elect not to upgrade.  If down the road an enhancement comes out that a user wants but they didn’t purchase a “mandatory upgrade” enhancement, the user will need to purchase all “mandatory upgrades” they missed.

Here are a Few Enhancement Requests We’ve Already Received or Came Up With Ourselves …

• Insured's Online Information System - HOT!!

Click on the links above for the detail information for these considered enhancements.

What Kind of Enhancements Could We Add?

We can add ACORD forms and custom forms.

We could create a full-blown employee/producer management system like a corporation's HR department would use, or something along those lines.

From pulling in birthday's from InStar we could create a very elaborate birthday tracking system.  This would include the ability to send birthday notices to your insured's along with finding sales opportunities based upon age. There's a lot we can do by pulling in the birthday list.

One thing we constantly see is agencies using Excel to handle a task that should be done in a database.  What kind of things are you doing in Excel that could be automated in a database?

We can take existing data and relationships (ie, policies attached to a client) and manipulate that data to give you more control over it or to increase the uses of that data.  Take off the blinders and think of all the ways you'd like to use your data, along with new areas you'd like to automate.  Already I've written a pretty advanced Certificate of Insurance management system for a specialized agency. 

I've also written a document management program and a number of advanced marketing programs. 

While there are a few marketing tools in the PA, there are a lot of other things I could do that would give you one heck of a marketing system.  In fact, to support an agencies sales and marketing efforts we're in the process of writing the Sales Assistant.  And what's exciting about this is I'm a master at insurance marketing and would be able to compliment the marketing tools in the system with education and training on marketing to maximize your marketing efforts. 

About the only area we may choose to stay away from is full-blown accounting. 

I did an accounting package with the last agency management system I wrote the beginning of 2006 (why there was a hold up on releasing the  PA), but it was only to handle the sub-ledger side of the accounting ... there was no GL and no checking account.  It mainly handled invoices, installments and payments.  While what I did was pretty impressive, I'm not sure if down the road I would even entertain the idea of writing any kind of accounting package because I feel this is an area your agency management should be handling.

Having said that, I am entertaining the idea of pulling your accounting information to give you the same ability to create advanced reports like I have with your policies and clients.  This would be a huge job and would have a higher than normal cost to it.  Therefore, before I'd be willing to take on a task of this magnitude I'd require a greater than 50% vote for it and would require pre-orders for it.

I'm also sure that users will come up with more enhancement ideas.  Just think of all of the ways you would like to use your data to compliment your agency and all of the features you wish InStar offered but doesn't.

If you'd like to make an enhancement request, Click Here to Submit A New Enhancement Request or Bug.

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