Brovada presents the first real time endorsement upload that provides feedback such as premium and rating information - with no portals required. It’s the Holy Grail insurance has been looking for.
Brovada is a company of firsts and is committed to pushing the limits of technology.
Brovada Nexisys provided the first real time automated upload to company portals 5 years ago. It has since become the leader in connectivity for brokers providing over 500 brokerages: single sign-on, inquiry, new business and endorsements.
Brovada NexQuote was the first real time new business and quoting solution without a portal that ran directly from the BMS; obtaining rates directly from the insurer.
Brovada Nexpedite is the first and only solution that allows brokers to create their own scripts against company portals; eliminating the need to rekey data when played back through Nexisys.
Brovada NexExchange is the first and only connectivity solution that can be implemented within the insurer’s infrastructure to provide real time endorsement upload without the need to use a portal. It also supports portfolio transfers; portal automation; system conversion; and system integration to policy admin systems using screens, API’s, databases, or MQ interfaces. The portal automation feature allows companies to put their portal into overdrive by providing a system standardized upload feature using Acord or CSIO standard web services.
*The success of NexExchange has far exceeded our expectations. Several implementations are underway today that will put these customers in an envious position of being the first to provide real time upload without a portal or locally stored rating information. Stay tuned for the announcements over the next few months.
Brovada is a business that has focused solely on solving these broker connectivity issues. With five years of experience and success under our belts, we’ve solved problems others haven’t even contemplated yet.
Industry-led groups have presented solutions based on a difficult to implement collective effort. Sounds great but in reality it’s like herding cats. And following the letter of the law laid out by the standards bodies is an onerous task. It would require: strict adherence, multimillions of dollars in changes, and a concerted implementation by the industry. Does that sound familiar? It should. It was called Syncron initially and then the CSIO portal the second time around.
While we support the goal of these initiatives, we opted to skip the collective effort and make existing systems work in a collective manner.
As we chart the future we will continue to bring solutions that solve the unsolvable and pursue opportunities for our customers that set them above their competition. We are thrilled to have found the Holy Grail and we hope everyone is able to drink from it. Long live innovation!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
A Sea of Yellow School Buses
How hard work and trying times can be a recipe for fond memories.
I was recently asked to speak at a leadership conference for the executives of NAMIC. The topic I was requested to speak about was very familiar to me and one that I’m very enthusiastic about so I was thrilled with the opportunity. The topic was “Portals or No Portals”, not a ground shaking topic to everyone in attendance but one that was important for them to hear and understand. Rarely speaking to such large audiences, I was a bit nervous but realized to get better at presenting I needed to embrace the opportunity.
The conference is very family oriented and I was encouraged to bring along my family. So to begin my presentation I decided to break the ice by sharing the exciting road trip my wife and four kids made from Saint John to Mont Tremblant. My youngest two are twin boys and they provide my wife and me with no shortage of great stories.
On the way we decided to stop overnight in Drummondville. We just got nicely settled into our room when the boys noticed that across the street was the biggest collection of school buses we’ve ever seen. The boys share a complete love affair for school buses. Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus was all that we heard until their heads hit their pillows that night. For them it was the greatest moment in their lives. For my wife and I, and anyone within earshot of our room, the noise was a nightmare. But the funny thing about memories are how soon we forget the bad and remember only the good. I fondly remember that moment and their excitement and will cherish it forever.
I highlight this point because it’s important to sometimes step back from the moment to realize how good things actually are. Brovada has been working diligently for over 6 years now to provide insurers and brokerages single entry solutions. We’ve made enhancements, added functionality, and created new solutions to allow for an effective transition to a utopian world of SEMCI.
Along the way we’ve had to deal with competitors - some reputable, others not. We had to convince brokers that our goal was the same as theirs even though they may have felt otherwise. We had to remove the image that we were doing something suspicious when it came to making portal usage more productive. And most importantly we’ve had to keep a balanced approach to the way we do business so as not to alienate either our insurer or broker customers.
As I think about what we’ve accomplished in the same light that I remember the school buses I am proud of our successes and the successes our customers have had using our solutions.
P.S. One specific sense of excitement looking back is that we have always pushed the fact that vendors (including ourselves) need to allow brokers the choice of whichever third party solutions make the most sense for them. This was a common philosophical agreement we shared with Vertafore and Ebix - the number 1 and 3 leading suppliers respectively of brokerage management solutions in the world. That philosophy also is shared with our Canadian partners. An article in Canadian Underwriter written by Pat Durepos of Keal titled Whose Data Is It Anyways? from June of 2007 is bang on. In the article Pat states that the data in the brokers systems belongs to the brokerages and should be freely available to them to utilize as they see fit.
I was recently asked to speak at a leadership conference for the executives of NAMIC. The topic I was requested to speak about was very familiar to me and one that I’m very enthusiastic about so I was thrilled with the opportunity. The topic was “Portals or No Portals”, not a ground shaking topic to everyone in attendance but one that was important for them to hear and understand. Rarely speaking to such large audiences, I was a bit nervous but realized to get better at presenting I needed to embrace the opportunity.
The conference is very family oriented and I was encouraged to bring along my family. So to begin my presentation I decided to break the ice by sharing the exciting road trip my wife and four kids made from Saint John to Mont Tremblant. My youngest two are twin boys and they provide my wife and me with no shortage of great stories.
On the way we decided to stop overnight in Drummondville. We just got nicely settled into our room when the boys noticed that across the street was the biggest collection of school buses we’ve ever seen. The boys share a complete love affair for school buses. Bus, Bus, Bus, Bus was all that we heard until their heads hit their pillows that night. For them it was the greatest moment in their lives. For my wife and I, and anyone within earshot of our room, the noise was a nightmare. But the funny thing about memories are how soon we forget the bad and remember only the good. I fondly remember that moment and their excitement and will cherish it forever.
I highlight this point because it’s important to sometimes step back from the moment to realize how good things actually are. Brovada has been working diligently for over 6 years now to provide insurers and brokerages single entry solutions. We’ve made enhancements, added functionality, and created new solutions to allow for an effective transition to a utopian world of SEMCI.
Along the way we’ve had to deal with competitors - some reputable, others not. We had to convince brokers that our goal was the same as theirs even though they may have felt otherwise. We had to remove the image that we were doing something suspicious when it came to making portal usage more productive. And most importantly we’ve had to keep a balanced approach to the way we do business so as not to alienate either our insurer or broker customers.
As I think about what we’ve accomplished in the same light that I remember the school buses I am proud of our successes and the successes our customers have had using our solutions.
P.S. One specific sense of excitement looking back is that we have always pushed the fact that vendors (including ourselves) need to allow brokers the choice of whichever third party solutions make the most sense for them. This was a common philosophical agreement we shared with Vertafore and Ebix - the number 1 and 3 leading suppliers respectively of brokerage management solutions in the world. That philosophy also is shared with our Canadian partners. An article in Canadian Underwriter written by Pat Durepos of Keal titled Whose Data Is It Anyways? from June of 2007 is bang on. In the article Pat states that the data in the brokers systems belongs to the brokerages and should be freely available to them to utilize as they see fit.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Chaos Creates Opportunity
I was recently in Costa Rica meeting with some colleagues. Rather than go to the famous resort area in the north I visited the authentic part of the country far removed from the serenity of the vacationer’s retreat.
San Jose and the surrounding towns and cities that I visited were in all essence a chaotic environment. The country is blossoming into a prosperous country which is putting pressure on the old infrastructure and way of life. Driving around the cities is like running a gauntlet which is made up of a large number of accidents, nonexistent civic addresses, narrow and unmaintained roads, regular pedestrian deaths, blatant infringement of motor vehicle laws and lack of police enforcement.
In addition to all this, the city I visited, Cartago, is built on the side of an active volcano that destroyed the city in the early 1900’s. Break-in and enters happen frequently enough that most houses have bars and razor wire wrapped around them.
However as bad as this may all sound, after a couple days you begin to overlook the bad and only notice the good. This is mainly because you begin to realize that the country is thriving and growing beyond its third world status. The locals, known as Ticos, are capitalizing on the opportunities that are being presented to them. Tourism is a large industry and based on the sheer beauty of the place will always be, but other industries that you may not even realize are playing a pivotal role in the transformation of the country.
Information Technology is one of their best successes. Intel and HP have large operations in San Jose and with the downturn cost sensitive corporations are looking to Costa Rica with their large base of highly trained cost effective resources. The universities focus heavily on churning out more and more engineers with the right skill sets to fill the growing demand.
More recently I’ve been reading a book by Malcolm Gladwell titled Outliers. In the book Gladwell highlights the importance of effort over natural ability and argues that everyone is capable of success if they simply put enough effort into something (10,000 hours is the rule of thumb). In one example he states that if it wasn’t for the Beatles playing 10 hours sets at a strip bar in Germany, they would never have been successful. His argument being that without the long sets they would have never have had enough training to become the great band they were. It was for this foresight that the Beatles saw the opportunity in playing longer than the typical 1 hour set in the chaos of a strip bar that set them apart from the bands that never make it big.
These two examples highlight the ability to find opportunity in even the worst chaos imaginable. The insurance industry, with the current market meltdown and economic recession, is also enduring the chaotic environment that will breed opportunities.
Some of the best ideas come from a dire need to deal with an extenuating circumstance. Our cherished public healthcare system is an example of this. It was the depression and a minority government that formed the catalyst and allowed this great idea to become reality.
For the insurers and brokerages dealing with large losses, unacceptable home evaluations, reduced premiums and fluid books there is no better time to invest in solutions that improve productivity, guarantee a technological advantage, invest in people and invest in new areas of growth. The result is immediate reduction and elimination of the negative impact, while positioning themselves for growth after the calm returns.
It’s survival of the fittest where the leaders will invest in the future and where the losers will struggle to exist.
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