I can’t believe that it’s been almost five months since we touched base to let you know what we’ve been up to at Agency Systems. We’ve been hard at work building new features and tools to make your life easier and here’s a quick update.

As you know, we merged with Connect Technologies on July 1st, 2019. This merger doubled the size of Agency Systems and gave us the opportunity to grow in new ways. Through the merger, we significantly increased our software development capacity and inherited their expertise with the cloud. These new skills have taken root, are showing growth and will soon be in full bloom.

You can see some of the fruits in our new web portal at AccessMyInsurance.com. The portal is available in our digital bundle and already includes secure messaging, secure document sharing, secure texting, email marketing, web forms, certificates of insurance and electronic signatures. Over the next few months, we’ll be adding a mobile app, producer portal, electronic payments (through ePayPolicy) and a CRM. We believe that we’re pulling together all of the features that you need and fully integrating them with Newton. This should save you time and money to make you more effective in serving your customers and running your business.

We’re also seeing our Cloud expertise take off. We launched Newton in the Cloud about six months ago and we’re onboarding new agencies every week. This service allows you to move costly and burdensome IT infrastructure (servers, operating systems, computers, firewalls, backups, etc.) from your office to the cloud. We partnered with Amazon Web Services to build a simple, secure and reliable solution for your agency. All you’ll need to connect to your cloud system is an inexpensive desktop, laptop, chromebook or tablet and an internet connection.

I hope you see that, even though we’ve been quiet, we are trying to make some noise in the industry. We’re working hard to be better at what we do every day so that we can provide you with the best computer systems and service available. Stay tuned. We plan to keep the innovations coming.

If you’d like to talk, please call or email. We’d love to schedule a time to give you a demo and get you set up to take advantage of these new features.

Chris Taylor
President & COO

Please update your records with our new address listed below:

Agency Systems
715 N. Main St.
Bryan, TX 77803

Looking forward to continuing our work together,
Agency Systems

I hope by now you’ve had a chance to learn about some of the groundbreaking features included in the latest version of Newton. If not, please give us a call to schedule the update for your agency. This release will impact your operations more than any other before it. As always, we’ll provide all the training you need at no cost.

Perhaps now more than ever, we’ve all come to appreciate the value of having a flexible and remote work environment. Today, I’d like to tell you more about a service that can provide the flexibility you need without sacrificing the quality and productivity that your clients expect. We call this service “Newton in the Cloud” utilizing Amazon Web Services (AWS).

“Newton in the Cloud” offers three distinct advantages over your current solution:
1. Complete Flexibility – Give your staff the ability to work from anywhere, at any time, from any device with consistent experience and performance in all scenarios.
2. Unrivaled Security – Your Newton data will be stored, backed up, and protected in real-time by Amazon against software threats like viruses, malware, spyware and hardware failures and errors.
3. Outstanding Support – Direct all your cloud support needs to the same Newton support team you already know and trust. You’ll have a single contact for both Newton and the cloud – fast-tracking any support issue that may arise.

We wouldn’t offer this service if we didn’t trust deeply in its benefits. In fact, earlier this year we moved all our own systems to the AWS platform, and we’ve been blown away by the performance and reliability we’ve gained.

Call or email us now and we can get you set up within a week.

Thank you,

Chris Taylor
President and COO

I hope this email finds you and your loved ones safe and well. I want to take a moment to remind you that we are up and running at full strength. While most of us are working remotely, in some ways we’ve become even more effective than ever before. Perhaps this event will demonstrate to us all that a more flexible workplace can be achieved without a sacrifice in productivity or quality.

I also want to fill you in on what’s been happening at Agency Systems as we move nearer to a sense of normalcy.

Since the merger between Agency Systems and Connect Technologies, I’ve been heavily engaged with Agency Systems operations and fully immersed in Newton.

I want to assure you that Newton sits atop our priority list, and this will not change. There are many exciting things happening as a result of our merger, and I can’t wait to tell you about them.

In the coming weeks, you’ll hear more about:

1. Amazon Web Services – the world’s #1 cloud platform available to host Newton for your agency. Thus, saving you money, delivering unmatched performance, and supported by the same staff you’ve come to know over the years.
2. Access My Insurance – the first fully integrated web portal for you and your customers that you’ve heard so much about. It comes bundled with a new agency website and a hands-free, agency-branded email marketing program.

In the meantime, we are rolling out our latest Newton release. We’ve built important new features in this release, several of which will transform how your agency does its daily business. There are too many features to detail here, so let me encourage you to get this update scheduled early to avoid the rush.

I’m anxious to get to know you and I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Sincerely,

Chris Taylor
President and COO

Letter from the President and COO

I hope this email finds you well. In these uncertain times, I wanted to reach out to you personally with a few updates related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

We have three key priorities during this time:

• Ensuring the health and well-being of our colleagues
• Supporting public officials and our communities to minimize COVID-19 impact
• Continuing to serve you as effectively as possible

Like most of you, we are closely monitoring and adapting to developments as they occur. However, we anticipate no major disruptions to our services in the coming weeks. Our services will remain available to you as normal, Monday – Friday from 8:30am – 5:30pm.

We’ve equipped our staff using multiple digital channels to work remotely until further notice, and we’ll identify and resolve any minor disruptions as they occur. As such, we are confident that our development cycle, member services, and solutions support will remain relatively unaffected.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns. We are here to serve you.

Stay healthy,

Chris Taylor

President and COO

In an effort to protect you and your agency, we want to highlight a cyber threat that you may face in the coming weeks. The most common way for a cyber threat to reach your agency is through email. Often, scammers will include malicious links or attachments in emails that look harmless. To protect yourself and your agency, please don’t 1) reply, 2) click links or 3) open attachments in email messages from unknown senders that may reference “Coronavirus”, “COVID-19” or related terms in the subject or body of the email message.

On another note, if you would like to give your staff the ability to work remotely, we can help.  We can provide you with an Amazon Web Services based desktop as a service solution to move your staff’s desktop computers to the cloud.  This will give your team the ability to work anywhere, anytime, from a variety of devices. Call us today at (979) 260-9702 to find out more.

Thank you,

Agency Systems

On behalf of all of us at Agency Systems, I hope this message finds you safe and well.

As a national company, we have decided to implement an “as needed” work from home policy for all of our offices.  We are taking this step in light of the ongoing pandemic.

Our main priority is to continue providing you with the tools you need and the service level that you expect.

Wishing good health to you and those around you,

Chris Taylor

I wanted to inform you about ACORD’s new licensing policy. Effective January 1, 2020, ACORD will require all insurance agencies to directly license and pay membership fees to ACORD for the usage of the ACORD Forms. This licensing decision, made independently by ACORD, still requires Agency Systems and all other solution providers to obtain a license for the use and distribution of ACORD Forms; however, ACORD also now requires all agents and brokers who continue to use ACORD Forms after January 1 to obtain licenses directly from ACORD.

We have also been advised that under ACORD’s new licensing policy, members of The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (Big “I”) and/or National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) that have a group gross revenue of under $50 million will be eligible for a license from ACORD as part of their membership(s), with no additional payment necessary. Additional information for Big “I” members can be found in their FAQ and for PIA members in their press release.

Users who do not qualify for a license under their Big “I” membership, PIA membership or a qualifying ACORD membership are able to purchase a stand-alone End User License from ACORD. For additional information, please review the ACORD membership programs.

As always, thank you for selecting Agency Systems as your trusted technology partner.

This link is a very thorough explanation by Steve Anderson of the Acord situation for those wishing to learn more.  It also includes links to the Big “I”, PIA and Acord.

Regards,

R.H. Bud Allen

Director

Newton by Agency Systems

Effective July 1, 2019, Agency Systems/Matrix Software, Inc., announces the acquisition of Connect Technologies, a software development company of web-based software solutions. “Immediately available as a result of the merger are web-based software solutions for Property and Casualty insurance agencies across the country”, said R.H. Bud Allen, Managing Director at Agency Systems.

Positive Impact on the Insurance Agency Management Systems Arena

Many wholesale and retail insurance agents have already benefited from the deployment of Connect Technology insurance solutions. “We look forward to bringing these and other web-based enhancements to the Newton platform”, said Allen.

Availability

Newton by Agency Systems is a 30-year Agency Management Systems provider with products driven by long term customer feedback. With the merger of Connect Technologies, a 15-year web solutions provider, Agency Systems has acquired the capacity to deliver proven web-based solutions in a speedy and cost-effective fashion.

Under the same ownership for over 30 years, Agency Systems has serviced thousands of Property and Casualty insurance agencies with technology you cannot outgrow. This merger ensures the continuance of a technology leadership position in the industry.