iPipeline Financial and Insurance Solutions vs. MACAW CRM

In my opinion, its a necessary evil. It gets the job done most of the time, but does have finicky parts that take some getting used to. If a carrier utilizes this platform, you really have no choice but to use it, I believe. In my opinion it has prevented us from going with particular carriers because of anticipated issues.

MACAW integrates well with Salesforce. As they say, they manage leads, opportunities, quotes and policies well. The underwriting and rating engines can be integrated if it's required. MACAW is a great solution for combining multiple systems into one and lowering overhead. It is not a great fit for non-technical departments.

Incentivized

• ensures apps are submitted "in good order"
• Has access to all carrier forms in one portal
• prepopulates forms based on questions answered

• Blending of CRM within an insurance flow
• Great Lead Management, Quotation and Underwriting
• High level support for marketing campaigns and setting up successful content strategies
• Great support for legacy back-office system

Incentivized

• must have a very good internet connection. It can run slow and even freeze and kick you out of the system if working on wifi
• Some questions require specific answers before allowing you to move to the next screen. i.e. if you enter bank information, but don't have the correct banks current legal name it won't accept it. I have had to call customer support while with clients to rectify this.
• When trying to collect signatures the system will "think" and load for a very long time. Getting out and back in will work to fix it sometimes. We have had to call customer support and have them manually move to the next screen so we could collect signatures.

• Not very user friendly
• Configuration with older back-office system is a bit of a hassle
• Searches and uploads sometimes take a long time

Incentivized

When I have needed support they answer quickly and fix the issue

Firelight is typically used to Annuity applications. It is arduous and long, but makes sure all forms are complete. iPipeline Financial and Insurance Solutions is much better in my experience because all forms can be signed at once, whereas Firelight will sometimes populate forms that need to be printed and uploaded, defeating the purpose of the online app.

MACAW provides deep integration with insurance-relevant tools, like underwriting and rating engines, which are not supported in shallow CRMs like Hubspot.

Incentivized

• Being able to access forms in one system is the biggest pro.. Going to each carrier individually would be a nightmare.
• Once you elect a carriers forms, there is an option to e-apply right there on the spot from the forms section. That is sometimes useful, it doesn't always carry over the correct agent information for a smooth submission
• Forms are always updated as soon as the carrier has updated their forms.
• IGo e-application is helpful most of the time.

• Allowed work from home due to its web UI
• Made using legacy back-office system easier, except for more complex cases
• Not user friendly and a bit hard to onboard into

Incentivized