AgoraRe.com Strives To Streamline Processing Facultative Life Cases
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The Internet is the place to be for reinsurers and the direct writers who work with them, says Carol Sullivan, vice president of operations for Agora Insurance Network Solutions Inc., Chicago. It can make a significant dent in mailing costs and save valuable time as well, she adds.
When a direct writer sends a facultative life insurance case to a reinsurer, the process typically entails mailing a document of about 50 pages by express delivery to four or five reinsurers.
"If you send out 20 to 100 cases a week, its a very expensive, time-consuming process," Sullivan says. "The insurers that have the best response time to their brokers are the ones likely to get the most business."
AgoraRe.com, a secure information exchange from AgoraIns, was created to eliminate the impediments of cost and time by allowing reinsurers and direct writers to bypass the mail and communicate via the Internet.
The site began as a technology project by CNA Life Re, Chicago. It evolved from a project to its own business when CNA sold its life reinsurance unit to Munich American Reassurance Company, Atlanta, at which time Agora began operating as an independent organization. Not long after, the AgoraRe.com system, staff and network were separated from Munich and reinvented as Agora Insurance Network Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of MARC.
