abd insurance & financial services -...

success story

“ Our team has a complete picture of client data at their fingertips. It’s all based on real-time data, enforced data, premiums, commissions, everything we need to know to provide a world class experience to clients. ”

Brent Rineck, Chief Information Officer, ABD Insurance & Financial Services

ABD Insurance & Financial ServicesCompany snapshot

Established in 2012 in the heart of Silicon Valley, ABD Insurance and Financial Services provides risk management, insurance brokerage, human resources, and retirement consulting services. The company’s advisors offer guidance and craft the industry’s most innovative solutions to help address risk for clients of varying sizes, growth stages, and industries. As they continue to grow, this $600+ million in premium agency relies on cutting edge technology to enhance customer experiences and improve operations.

http://www.vertafore.com

In just seven years, ABD has grown into the fifth-largest insurance broker in the Bay Area with eight locations and over 300 employees.

As a leading consulting and insurance brokerage firm working with some of the most innovative clients in technology, life sciences, sharing economy and more, ABD must implement the latest and greatest technology to continuously improve operational efficiencies, recognize and protect previously unforeseen risks, and provide unbeatable value to clients.

Brent Rineck joined ABD early on as CIO and has been strategically preparing for the future ever since. The RiskMatch implementation is among the newest pieces of tech Rineck has introduced.

Historically, the insurance industry has been slow to adopt technology — especially data and analytics tools — due to concerns about dirty data that requires meticulous cleaning to be useful. Rineck says, “I think a lot of companies say, ‘Well, our data is bad, so we don’t have a use for it.’ But it’s never going to get fixed unless you have a reason to fix it. And RiskMatch highlighted the reason to fix our systems and our data.” The reason being that RiskMatch gives ABD access to over $100 billion of in-force premium data in the form of actionable insights. Rineck embraced RiskMatch to help ABD make more informed decisions and win more business.

Vertafore Solutions:

RiskMatch

Proven results & better connections:

• Increased market transparency to maximize carrier commissions and improve relationships

• Drastically reduced time spent on proposal creation

• Uncovered potential for over $1 million in additional carrier commission

ABD Insurance & Financial Services

abd insurance & financial services success story | 2

Peace of mind — for customer and agencyAs innovative as ABD is, they still face universal insurance agency problems like coverage recommendations. Companies typically don’t know how much coverage they should have and want to be sure they are adequately covered for their risks. Rineck says, “For P&C, they want to make sure they’re buying the right amount of coverage. For employee benefits, they want to know if they’re offering a competitive benefits program.” However, without the data to back them up, ABD wasn’t comfortable recommending specific coverage amounts. With such a wide range of limits available for each type of policy, the client could be in serious trouble if ABD didn’t recommend the perfect coverage. RiskMatch not only suggests which policies a client should have based on industry-wide information but also gives the average limits held for each coverage.

“We’re able to say, ‘Companies of your size and in your industry — this is what they buy, here is the low, the high, and the average coverage,’” Rineck explains. “Now if we have a client come back and say, ‘Well you guys sold us a million dollar coverage, and now we have this ten million dollar claim,’ we can go back to our proposal and see that we offered one, five, and ten million dollar coverages, and they took the least expensive one.”

With RiskMatch, ABD can ensure they are offering coverage levels on par with the rest of the industry and with companies of similar size and risk profiles as their customer. The client can have peace of mind that they are offered the proper coverages, and ABD can mitigate liability if a client has a mishap that isn’t fully covered.


“ ABD is a technology-focused company. We don’t want to walk in to client renewal meetings with stacks of paper. The Risk Profile report from RiskMatch is easy to generate and offers a unique interactive experience. Our clients expect and appreciate a paperless approach to business, including insurance summaries and industry benchmarks.”

Brent Rineck, Chief Information Officer, ABD Insurance & Financial Services

Maximizing opportunitiesABD also leverages RiskMatch for instantly creating compelling proposals to win more business. Rineck says, “As brokers, we’re bringing the buyer and seller together, but we’re also consultants and the more expertise we have, the better.” RiskMatch’s benchmarking and proposals maximizes ABD’s opportunities by allowing producers to get pre-formatted industry data at their fingertips. They can quickly see what risk is in-force today and follow a step-by-step walkthrough with the client that demonstrates the agency’s expertise and empowers a data-driven conversation.

“ABD is a technology-focused company. We don’t want to walk in to client renewal meetings with stacks of paper. The Risk Profile report from RiskMatch is easy to generate and offers a unique interactive experience. Our clients expect and appreciate a paperless approach to business, including insurance summaries and industry benchmarks.”

The Risk Profile Report within RiskMatch tells the producer everything they need to know about the client’s existing policies, their industry, and any gaps in coverage that they should consider insuring. “Our producers now click through the report and say, ‘Here’s what your peers are doing.’” ABD’s producers no longer need to spend enormous amounts of time preparing detailed presentations. With RiskMatch,

creating data driven, business winning and retention proposals requires simple, intuitive clicks.

Rineck appreciates the time RiskMatch saves his producers in preparation for client meetings, but also the additional support it provides in closing deals. “We can show our clients that our expert advisors have easy access to all the data needed to support their needs,” Rineck says. “This is how you differentiate yourself in this industry. Every broker down the street is going to be offering the same products. So, it comes down to consultations and the client experience.”

“ I am proud to work with a company that focuses on technology and innovation to make sure we stay on top in our industry. Products like Riskmatch help keep us on the leading edge.”

Workflow before ABD’s producers manually created proposals

TOTAL TIME: 2 WEEKS

1The producer sent a PDF to the client that they printed off, filled in with their current information, and then sent back to the producer. 2

This information was combined with benchmarks pulled from ABD’s own data within their agency management system.

3The marketing team then reached out to several carriers to see where they could remarket based on the client’s pooled information. 4

The producer put together a PowerPoint presentation with the proposed new coverages for the next term.5

The producer then printed out the presentation and delivered it to the client.

Workflow after ABD’s producers use the Risk Profile Report

TOTAL TIME: 30 MINUTES

1Prior to a client meeting, the producer views what coverages the client already owns, when they renew, and which markets wrote them in an intuitive format.

2Using the Risk Profile Report, the producer creates organized, professional, and customizable PDF proposal for the client.

3During the meeting, the producer clicks through a pre-formatted presentation that guides a meaningful, data-driven conversation with the client covering: • ABD’s history and expertise in the client’s specific industry.• What coverages the client should be buying based on their exposure

and what their peers in the same industry are buying.• The best options for marketing the client’s risks and the rates over time

for the types of coverage in question.

Rationalizing relationships

Carrier relationships play an enormous role in an independent agency’s success. Consolidating to only a few profitable carriers or increasing commission rates by just a percentage can have considerable implications for the agency. The problem was, until now, it was nearly impossible for agencies to get a birds-eye view of their carrier relationships — certainly not a comparison to the entire insurance industry. In the past, ABD would negotiate commissions on a per-client basis. But because they had no insight into industry-norm commissions, the carriers had all the leverage during negotiations.

With RiskMatch, Rineck explains, “We now have the whole picture. It’s all based on actual data, enforced data, premiums, commissions, everything. And that puts us in a better place, the carriers believe it.”

ABD uses real-time, in-force data to see where their commission stands with a carrier compared to the industry average. “The data clearly shows what other brokers are getting. Now we have the power to negotiate at an aggregate level that’s much more effective,” Rineck says.Although to some it may sound hostile to go to your carriers asking for more commissions, Rineck claims that it’s healthy for the relationship. “We have really good relationships with our carriers, so it’s not just like we’re saying, ‘Give us

more money,’” Rineck says. “When you come in with solid data in the background, it just reinforces your confidence with the carriers and improves the relationships.”

Rineck is confident that being armed with data has led ABD to success in both improving carrier relationships and boosting their bottom line. “Looking at our commissions and then comparing them with the average on RiskMatch — the same line of business, the same carrier, all the same factors — we found potential for over $1 million in additional revenue,” Rineck explains.

“ Looking at our commissions and then comparing them with the average on RiskMatch — the same line of business, the same carrier, all the same factors — we found potential for over $1 million in additional revenue.”

1ABD relied solely on carrier-provided information in preparation for carrier meetings and were unable to identify the profitability of each carrier relationship or how their commissions compared to the market.

2ABD executives entered carrier meetings with uncertainty and rarely successfully negotiated better commission rates.

Workflow before ABD had stale carrier data

1In preparation for carrier meetings, ABD executives have a real-time view into their premium flow, trading relationships, and commissions with specific carriers compared to the market average.

2ABD executives enter carrier meetings with confidence and can successfully negotiate while backed by proven data.

RiskMatch also enables ABD to gain insights into which carriers they should be writing their business with. They can recognize which carrier partners are profitable and for which lines of business. Rineck says, “We can look and see, ‘Wow, we are really losing clients in personal lines. Are we with the wrong carriers? Should we broaden our scope?’ Or, ‘Hey look, everyone else is writing with this carrier, let’s go see what they have.’” These insights give ABD the ability to recognize strengths and weaknesses with their carriers within each line of business and adjust accordingly to maximize profits.

Workflow after ABD has real-time insights into carrier relationships


Gaining actionable insights

Most of all, RiskMatch provides insights into ABD’s business that they’ve never had before. “To be able to pull data out on the fly… RiskMatch may be the most amazing system we have,” Rineck says. “You can breakdown the data by segment, new, net, retained, cross-sell, industry, wholesaler, carrier, or even the producer.” RiskMatch enables ABD’s executives to understand overall business performance, individual producer performance, and where they are earning below-market commissions — in a fraction of the time it took to run a series of reports — with more granularity and accuracy than ever.

Rineck goes on to explain, “Our CFO used to produce this big Excel document every month for every producer, what they brought in, what their budget was… But now our finance team just comes into RiskMatch, they click a button and export the details. We don’t have to wait until the end of the month to get it.”

“ To be able to pull data out on the fly… RiskMatch may be the most amazing system we have. With RiskMatch, nobody has to type in or convert the data.”

Brent Rineck,

Chief Information Officer, ABD Insurance & Financial Services

Not only are they spending less time attempting to collect and analyze disparate information, but they are able to distribute information to every stakeholder within ABD quickly. Their internal newsletter now includes statistics such as the number of new clients brought in over the last quarter and other company data that is disseminated to every employee. “We like it when people realize how much we’re doing and they don’t have to wait for the next all-hands meeting to find out what’s happening,” Rineck says. Only a fraction of the company is actually in the

software itself, but every employee is more informed as a result of RiskMatch.

Rineck and his team can rely on the accuracy of the data for two reasons: it’s updated in real-time, and there is absolutely no human intervention. “Any time you have a manual process of typing, reentering, and putting data somewhere else, there is a chance of a mistake being made,” Rineck explains. “With RiskMatch, nobody has to type in or convert the data.”


Workflow before ABD’s executives relied on stagnant information

TOTAL TIME: 1 MONTH

1ABD executives compiled employee self-reports and stagnant data within their agency management system and multiple other sources.

2ABD’s CFO organized the performance information into spreadsheets — produced once a month.

3ABD executives then sat down together to analyze where the business required action for improvement.

Workflow after ABD’s executives use real-time data

TOTAL TIME: 1 HOUR

1ABD executives use real-time, intuitive dashboards to view activity across the entire business — without any manual data collection or spreadsheets.

2Executives seamlessly track overall business performance, individual producer performance, and carrier relationships without any data collection or manipulation.

3ABD executives can make quick, informed decisions backed by the confidence of real-time data.

Powerful intelligence to grow your business

Today’s agents and brokers need to do more than ever to compete in the market. With the right insurance data and analytics solution, you can make more informed decisions, grow your business, and better serve as a trusted advisor to your clients.

With over $100 billion of in-force premium, RiskMatch is the most comprehensive data and analytics platform in the industry. RiskMatch’s machine learning technology quickly extracts, normalizes, and augments the data from your agency management system to give you clear actionable insights into your own business.

With RiskMatch, you can:

Inform executive decisions Understand which trends are affecting revenue and see how to foster long-term organic growth.

Identify specific revenue opportunities Grow within your existing book of business and get market transparency to maximize commissions.

Become a trusted advisor Improve customer satisfaction and create data-driven sales presentations for prospects.

Want to see the power of RiskMatch in action? Watch our demo.

Watch the Demo

http://www.vertafore.com/products/riskmatch-agents-brokers

© 2019 Vertafore, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Trademarks contained herein are owned by Vertafore, Inc. This document is for informational purposes only. Vertafore makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here. Information and views expressed in this document may change without notice. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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