SIS Partner Platform vs. Zywave Sales Cloud - Agency Management

Not suited for a heavy commercial lines agency and/or one that has large, complex accounts. Too much policy detail isn't available within the system, so you end up having to either 1) go to carrier websites to pull copies of policies to determine accurate coverage, which is a hassle, especially if an active, endorsement active account or 2) go into documents to pull up copy(ies) of policy/endorsements to determine coverage or 3) keep a master copy of the policy, as issued (as a PDF) and note every endorsement change on that PDF, so you have one place to easily access how coverage stands at this point in time.

prospects easy to find; however not all current information is listed. The process for importing prospect lists into the agency management system could be streamlined.

Incentivized

• Downloads
• Personal lines
• cheaper

• It's very flexible. You can add custom fields easily and create/update workflows and activities quickly.
• The layout is easy on the eye. The dashboard is laid out well and helps you stay on track with renewals and activities.
• Emails attached to an activity are easily viewed and housed within the activity on a separate tab.
• Adding and reviewing policy info is simple. The tabs make it helpful to find and view info quickly.

Incentivized

• Prospect side of system lacks functionality of the client side.
• No search function in notes/the main area to view all activity (not just documents, but any additional notes such as logs of discussions with producers/clients/prospects, logged phone calls, etc.). Should have same search functionality in Notes as in Documents.
• "Quick Summary" profiles lack functionality of true client profile area.
• No ability to turn off downloads..........wipes out too much underwriting detail. Too many lines of business don't download (not sure whether SIS Partner issue or carrier side issue). No Garage, Crime, Equipment Floaters, Builders Risk-Installation Floater, etc.
• From a commercial standpoint, their policy detail really only addresses the five major lines of business, i.e., Property, GL, Auto, WC and Umbrella. Other ancillary lines, there is no where to input policy detail (other than in a General Remarks section), which doesn't show up on the "summary" detail.
• Very apparent this system was developed for Personal Lines and not meant to handle large, sophisticated Commercial Lines accounts. When you deal with their Help Desk folks........they are totally insurance unknowledgeable, and often don't understand what is being asked of them.
• Help Desk "pat" answer is "we'll add it to the enhancement list", but there are thing requested long ago and still not fixed/changed.

• Training for new employees and follow up for all employees.
• Importing into agency management system is several steps.
• Not all information on prospects is given, although most have adequate information.

Incentivized

I think it is a great system if a policy and or changes download. After that, in our experience, all the manual entry is very difficult. In my opinion, it appears to be built by tech people and not insurance people.

The Zywave Customer Support team is phenomenal! Never any complaints. They resolve things quickly. You can call and talk with a real person, submit a chat question, or email them. Their training videos are good—short and sweet. We still use multiple Zywave products in our Benefits, Commercial Lines, and Marketing departments. They are a great company to work with. The implementation/onboarding for all products has been amazing! Training for products has always surpassed the training we received from other vendor partners.

Incentivized

Horrible! There are other systems that would have been better than this, even if management didn't want to spend the $$$ to upgrade to Epic...

We moved from BrokerageBuilder (BKB) to Epic in June 2019. Epic pros over BKB: You can use Epic for CL, PL, Bonds, and Benefits—one system for your whole agency has a lot of advantages. In Epic, you can drag and drop emails and documents to clients, policies, and activities. Epic has an auto-save feature. Reporting in Epic is better. Epic cons compared to BKB: The design aesthetic of Epic is not as nice as BKB. Navigating Epic is clunky—everything is in multiple layers. Epic is less flexible for custom fields. Epic is designed for CL/PL, so it's not ideal for a Benefits user, although they are improving/investing in the benefits side. BKB is just better for a Benefits user.

Incentivized

• downloads
• technology
• Reports

• Sales team reluctant to use.
• Initial training was fine but could use some follow-ups.
• ROI has not been measurable.

Incentivized