Category Archives: Industry Trends
In this interview with Insurance Journal’s Mitch Dunford, Applied Systems CEO Reid French talks about the future of insurance technology. He also discusses Applied Systems® Epic, the fastest-growing agency management system in the insurance industry today. To learn more, visit www.appliedsystems.com/epic. Powered by InsuranceJournal.tv Join the conversation: TENCon is the flagship annual conference [...]
If U.S. insurers are nervous about another bad tornado season, they have good reason.  Financial losses from natural catastrophes hit record highs in 2011. Globally, natural disasters cost $380 billion in damages. In the United States, tornado damage alone accounted for more than $10 billion. Those losses are reflected in combined ratios. Fitch Ratings recently reported a rise in combined [...]
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Independent agents have worked valiantly to minimize the impact of the soft market, streamlining operations and ramping up marketing and sales in hopes of at least treading water until conditions improve. What industry analysts can’t seem to agree on is whether the industry is now in the midst of a recovery. And, if not now, when is it going [...]
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How long has it been since you checked your Facebook page to see who’s commented on your last post? A few minutes? A couple of hours? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Google+ have become indispensible tools for communicating personally and professionally. In the business arena, the insurance industry has embraced social media in getting the word out [...]
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Just as economic gloom threatens to spill into another year, there are glimmers of hope. According to the just-released update to the current Best Practices Study published by the Big I and Reagan Consulting: Top-performing agencies have grown and maintained steady levels of profitability in 2011. Smaller agencies reported flat growth when compared to 2010 [...]
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If something is important to you and your business, it’s important to us at Applied Systems. We’re always trying to improve on our overall performance and customer satisfaction. Many of our clients regularly e-mail and call to commend our Support specialists, and that’s very gratifying for all of us. We appreciate your business, and we [...]
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From many insurance industry organizations, it seems all we have heard about in the past few years is decreased spending and budget cuts.   But it looks like things are turning around. A recent survey by Novarica  shows that most insurance companies plan on increasing their IT budgets in 2012. Among the driving factors cited in [...]
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Having the right app can make all the difference. During a recent concert, at the moment the lighters came out to punctuate the crowd-favorite power ballad, this non-smoker was glad I had plunked down $1 for the lighter app on my cell phone. With a fingertip touch, I bonded with fellow concert-goers, and the Kings of [...]
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Before you continue reading this post, please take a moment and answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to these questions: 1)     Do you know what Facebook is? 2)    Does your agency/brokerage have a Facebook page? If you successfully scored two ‘yes’ answers, continue reading. If not, please hop off and read 3 Simple Reasons Your Business Needs to Be [...]
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Your business is doing the ecologically responsible thing by going green. You have blue bins all over the office where you toss aluminum soda cans and plastic water bottles. Next to those are bins where you deposit documents after you accidentally hit Print.  As someone who doesn’t want to see your children on a planet overrun with landfills and devoid [...]
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