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Questions About InsureZone
Questions About InsureZone's Partners and
Customers
Questions About InsureZone's Technology
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What is InsureZone's mission?
InsureZone's mission is to be the premier insurance e-commerce
solution, using a combination of leading-edge technology,
knowledgeable, real-time customer service and high-quality products to
enable financial institutions, Web portals and other organizations to
private-label online insurance services to their customers nationwide.
InsureZone's goal is to make life easier across the industry spectrum -
from a consumer or small business wishing to comparison-shop for
various types of insurance online, to the largest financial
institutions seeking services ranging from fulfillment to establishing
a complete Web-enabled and branded e-insurance presence backed by
licensed sales and call center capabilities.
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How did InsureZone start?
John Pergande, InsureZone's Chairman, founded the company in 1999. John
is also a general partner of Buena Venture Associates (BVA) of Fort
Worth, a venture capital firm that first explored the idea of
Internet-based claims processing but found the market for selling
insurance over the Internet to be far more lucrative. In 1999, that
idea became InsureZone, with financing from BVA. During research into
what software would enable online quoting and binding of insurance
policies, John met Peter Henry, the founder of Lexica of San Francisco.
Lexica had not only a vision of selling insurance online, but also a
vision of using XML to manage the entire sales process for an insurance
policy, end-to-end, from marketing all the way to handling a claim.
InsureZone then merged with Higginbotham & Associates, the nation's
118th largest insurance broker, to allow InsureZone to provide the
services of a highly regarded agency licensed to sell insurance from
coast to coast. InsureZone has since graduated to become a
standalone
company with our own appointments with top national carriers, and our
own complete underwriting and policy service departments.
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What is InsureZone's most
important message?
Financial institutions and insurance carriers need to evolve their
businesses in the future to take advantage of technology enabled
fulfillment solutions as well as the online market. They also need to
look to the Internet to cut costs, become faster and more efficient -
while still maintaining the human touch that studies show is highly
desired by consumers.
InsureZone can help virtually any business that wants to launch or
enhance their existing online business offerings with a wide range of
insurance solutions. This e-insurance presence marketed under a
business's brand is what InsureZone calls its "private-label" product.
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What is InsureZone's solution
to selling insurance online?
InsureZone offers the right combination of "clicks-and-mortar" to
ensure quick, easy purchase of insurance online coupled with any
necessary "human touch" through the transaction.
The need for InsureZone's easy, turnkey online insurance solution has
grown significantly since Congress's repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act,
which had previously blocked banks and brokerages from selling
insurance. Financial institutions and entrants to the e-insurance
marketplace now seek to offer insurance to customers in conjunction
with their other financial services. Their challenge is to determine
how best to do this: buy, build or outsource.
InsureZone's outsource solution is enabling the industry to benefit
from the Internet via a swift yet smooth, cohesive and inclusive
evolution, as opposed to a potentially disjointed and disruptive
revolution. InsureZone is leveraging the valuable services of a
traditional, top-flight insurance agency, as well as continually
evolving, leading-edge Web technology to provide a complete insurance
marketplace.
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Why does InsureZone use a
"clicks-and-mortar" approach?
Studies have shown that Internet-based technology, while capable of
everything from quoting to binding a policy, is not enough for a bank
or other institution to be successful selling insurance online. Today,
only a tiny fraction of insurance policies are sold over the Internet.
However, online insurance sales are expected to soar to $4.1 billion in
2003, and more than $11 billion in sales will be influenced by the
Internet, according to Forrester Research. The personalized customer
support of licensed agents must back up any technology solution.
InsureZone is really the best of both worlds: the latest technology to
streamline the insurance buying process, coupled with real live
professionals to provide business owners and consumers assistance on
demand.
On the "clicks" side, InsureZone leverages the most advanced,
end-to-end online transaction processing technology in the e-commerce
arena.
On the "mortar" side, our complete underwriting and service departments
allows us to provide all of the services of a large, respected
insurance agency licensed in 49 states and the District of Columbia.
These services include a state-of-the-art customer contact center, with
licensed agents standing by to answer questions and help customers make
the right choice - via phone, fax or e-mail.
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What successes has InsureZone
enjoyed with its "clicks-and-mortar" model?
The financial services industry is confirming that InsureZone's
combination of Internet technology and personalized services as the
model that works. Major money center banks like Wells Fargo are
selecting InsureZone to enable them to sell insurance online.
InsureZone has also announced partnerships with B2B Web portals such as
BuyerZone.com to serve their customers. The analyst community has taken
notice. And more announcements are forthcoming.
Despite the initial excitement about Internet-only insurance
marketplaces, and the expenditure of millions upon millions of dollars
spent on advertising attempting to establish them, that model was not
successful. Today, the model that is desired looks
a lot like InsureZone — the traditional "bricks-and-mortar" insurance
agency supercharged with online technology to enhance its multi-channel
capabilities.
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Who are
InsureZone's partners and customers?
InsureZone is a full-service, online insurance solutions provider. Our
customers are:
- Private-label and co-brand e-commerce partners,
that is, any company seeking to offer insurance online under its own
brand, including:
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Any
financial institution |
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Any
Web portal seeking to broaden its online offerings to insurance and
direct their customers to a reputable insurance Web site
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- Existing insurance agencies seeking to
establish or upgrade their Internet operations.
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What obstacles do insurance
companies and financial institutions face in successfully marketing
insurance on the Internet?
The biggest hurdles are the technology, expense, time, licensing and
regulatory issues that must be dealt with to build an online insurance
system. Additionally, there's the complexity of connecting all the
participants - the private-label partner, the licensed agent,
third-party data suppliers, carriers, reinsurance companies, etc.
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How does InsureZone help these
companies overcome these obstacles?
InsureZone's multi-channel insurance solutions overcome these problems
through a combination of technology, licensed agents providing
real-time customer care and quality carrier relationships.
InsureZone connects various businesses, suppliers and consumers so that
insurance products can easily and cost-effectively be sold online and
offline. These include insurance distributors such as banks and Web
portals, insurance suppliers such as carriers and reinsurance companies
as well as third-party data providers and insurance agencies.
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Briefly, what does InsureZone
offer companies?
By partnering with InsureZone, companies that want to offer their
customers access to insurance online don't have to build and license
their own insurance agency. Nor do they have to incur the nearly
insurmountable expense and complexity of developing the complex
transaction technology themselves. By partnering with highly rated
carriers, InsureZone makes it very easy for the customers of a
financial institution, insurance carrier or Web portal to get the best
value in insurance coverage throughout the nation. And InsureZone
serves these customers on a one-to-one basis by offering help from a
real person before, during and after any transaction.
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What are InsureZone's specific
value propositions?
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Private-Label/Co-brand
Partners: We offer the requisite technology,
outsourced insurance agency services, and proven management team to
enable the sale of multiple-branded insurance products to its existing
and new customers with minimal outlay and risk.
Visitors to a bank's Web site can click on "Insurance," and the next
screen they see will show the banks' logo and introduction to its
insurance offerings. At this point, InsureZone's e-insurance technology
and call center take over, but the customer retains the sense that he
or she is still within the bank's Web site, and speaking with the
bank's staff.
Visitors to a bank's Web site, or any Web portal linked to the
insurezone.com site, can get a quote and bind a policy online currently
within one business day or less.
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Insurance
Carriers: We offer a new, efficient Internet distribution
channel that marries "channel harmony" (e.g., still selling through
licensed agents) with the strength of a targeted private-label network
of branded partners with huge customer bases.
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Insurance
Agencies: We deliver the working tools for an agency to
efficiently expand its territory, markets, and products sold via
InsureZone.
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Business
Owners and Consumers: We offer the ability to buy a policy
with: 1) a choice of multiple-brand-name carriers; 2) accurate quotes;
3) "customer advocate" service from licensed and trained agents in our
Web-enabled call center; and 4) complete privacy and security — all
currently within one business day or less.
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What technology does InsureZone
utilize and market for e-insurance?
InsureZone has developed technology for end-to-end Internet transaction
processing. We're confident that the highly regarded MarketSecure
platform will be the preferred foundation of insurance e-business. It
provides the most robust solution for running online insurance
marketplaces available today.
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What is InsureZone's technology
designed to accomplish?
Our MarketSecure platform is taking traditional insurance industry
operations and customer service to the next level of speed, efficiency
and convenience. The platform leverages a technology called XML, or
Extensible Markup Language to offer an unprecedented level of
flexibility. While XML provides a structured way to organize, verify,
process and exchange information electronically, our web site allows
for dynamic interaction through the online interview process by
marrying XML Schema's and HTML on-the-fly. Companies using our MarketSecure
platform can leverage their XML capabilities to process information from many
different sources as well as embrace future changes in the business
environment.
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How does InsureZone's
technology address the ongoing changes in the financial services
industries?
Since the financial services industries are converging, the traditional
divisions between banks, insurance companies and securities firms are
rapidly eroding as corporations "converge" to offer a mix of products
and services. With MarketSecure,
firms can position themselves to take advantage of this trend since its
XML technology provides a clean path for exchanging information across
lines of business and tying e-business transactions together.
InsureZone is leveraging their technology, which is highly scalable and
adaptable to evolving demands, to position itself as a leader in this
emerging business environment.
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What capabilities does
InsureZone's technology provide for insurance distributors?
For distributors such as banks and Web portals, InsureZone provides a
flexible and cost-effective way to offer insurance products to their
customers under their own brand. The power of this approach is that
InsureZone allows these organizations to completely tailor and control
the customer buying experience with little overhead or outlay of
resources.
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What problems does InsureZone's
technology solve for insurance carriers?
High-quality insurance carriers that allow for competitive insurance
product offerings, nationwide, are critical to rounding out the value
proposition for InsureZone's target market. InsureZone's
state-of-the-art platform enables these carriers to conduct business
with these emerging online markets. One of the major obstacles has been
that many insurance carrier computer systems were never designed to
handle business over the Internet. InsureZone's technology supercharges
these older systems and connects them to this exciting online world.
InsureZone's "private-label" product brings to carriers millions of
potential insurance customers they might otherwise not have reached
through traditional methods. These customers come through large,
reputable financial institutions and other organizations with whom they
already have a financial services relationship. They can be targeted
for various insurance services in a highly segmented fashion, which
results in significantly more insurance sales for the carriers.
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InsureZone's technology sounds
great, but what's the bottom line?
We thought you'd never ask! The ultimate benefit of InsureZone's
technology is evidenced by the numbers: InsureZone expects to
effectively eliminate five percent of all overhead costs, which
typically run as high as 25% to 30% in the insurance industry.
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