Converting to TAM or Epic doesn’t have to be painful! (Tip#1)
You can save yourself a bunch of headaches by cleaning up your data long before you even begin your conversion process.
Tip #1 – Not many have fully embraced the use of Issuing Companies (Applied) or Writing Companies (Vertafore products), even though our proofs of coverage aren’t valid representation of the coverage if the correct Issuing/Writing company isn’t used. No worries but deal with it and clean up your act before you go into a new agency management platform. Run your expiration list, including both the Issuing/Writing and the Billing/Parent companies and sort it by your account managers/CSR’s and have them research and cleanup your source system now to make sure it accurately reflects who’s neck is on the line, so it’s not yours if the proof is ever questioned.
Sure, this means you may have to add some Issuing/Writing companies in your current system, but you’ll live ;). While you’re doing it, streamline your company names to reflect the AM Best standard naming standards (find it on their website or guess what your dec-page shows it (even from a broker) because the company has already done this work for you…whew)
Don’t stroke out if you find a ton of the policies that all show the same Billing/Parent and Issuing/Writing companies. Data mapping and special programming scripts during your conversion processing might be an option so check in with me or your vendor about it before you go touching a ton of policies unnecessarily.