In use since the 1980s, in one form or another, PS4 has helped thousands of commercial lines producers propose and close hundreds of thousands of sales - sales they might not have gotten otherwise. With the software industry perennially paying too little attention to producers and the commercial lines sales process, PS4 has been a refreshing exception - a creative and useful product ever since it was first developed by Kim Smith and Craig Welker.
Years ago at lunch at the Boulderado Hotel in Boulder, Smith and Welker explained the concepts behind PS4 and later demonstrated a DOS version of the software to me. I thought then, and still do today, that most commercial lines producers need and could enormously benefit from products like PS4 that support the entire commercial sales process - from understanding the prospect and its risks through delivering the policy package to the new insured.
Not having looked at PS4 in several years, it was a pleasure, while in Bothell, Washington, recently to be taken through the newest version, PS4 Plus by Smith, product manager, and Becky Clegg, sales manager and product specialist and another PS4 veteran. Clegg provided me with the PS4 Plus demo CD that contains a Flash-based brochure as well as a version of the software one can install and try out for 30 days - a distinct help for agents who want to thoroughly understand PS4 Plus before committing to it.
My impression of the DOS versions, years ago, was that they were competent but a bit clumsy to operate. More recently, as PS4 entered the Windows world, a new version seemed more a collection of routines than a cleanly integrated product. With PS4 Plus, Smith and his crew have gotten it right. It's finally both rich in content and easy to understand and use. My only significant complaint as an Internet evangelist (and I'll cover it more fully below) is that PS4 doesn't take advantage of the Internet, a distressing though not fatal shortcoming.
PS4 Plus - what's different?
Since you may already know something about earlier versions of PS4, it makes sense to look first at what's new and improved compared to previous versions. Most important and obvious as you begin to use the software is that PS4 Plus finally has an underlying database and is account/customer-based. Earlier versions of the software were based around collections of files, one or more for each prospect. It was up to the user to name and keep track of these files and use the appropriate one for the case at hand - too clumsy a system and an artifact of common DOS techniques. Again, unlike earlier interim versions, PS4 Plus is all 32-bit Windows code, thus improving performance and with the potential of taking advantage of all Window's features.
With the software now of a piece, i.e., fully integrated, it's much easier to understand what to do to proceed through a sales opportunity. Push buttons on a left column of the main screen provide entry to major sections of the system, including Risk Analysis, Submissions, Proposals, Certificates/Binders, and Auto ID Cards. Choosing an area leads to a Select a Customer form that in turn pulls up the central navigation screen organizing all documents related to an account.
That main navigation screen will be familiar in concept to Windows users who make use of the Windows Explorer. It features a two-column form with an expanding tree structure on the left and a larger, forms display area on the right. By using an outline metaphor, PS4 Plus makes it easy to view everything relevant to a prospect as a single, though complex, collection of forms and other documents. PS4 uses both left and right mouse buttons. The left is used for familiar Windows navigation functions (e.g. expand, contract, select). The right is used to select new content to put into the tree, for instance to choose business type(s).
Besides significantly improved usability and navigation, PS4 Plus also contains two content areas not present in earlier versions - industry specific agent's guides and safety programs. Using marinas as my business type, I took a look at the agent guide and safety program and found them extensive and well organized. Some phrases in the agent's guides are hypertext links-to-be and will eventually be connected to the PS4 Plus coverage library and other relevant content. The safety program can be an especially valuable producer sales tool and value-add as more and more businesses come under state and federal safety regulation.
PS4 Plus - what does it do?
One way to understand PS4 Plus is to think of it as a combined insurance reference library and a document management system. It's a library in the sense that it contains a great deal of business-type specific insurance information and expertise - addressing more than 650 different risk categories with more than 1,200 coverage definitions. It also contains more than 280 ACORD and custom forms required for submissions and other purposes. PS4 Plus is a document management system in the sense that it supports the populating of the forms in its library as well as their collection and management with other case-related documents.
PS4 Plus is a tool commercial lines producers can use to support their sales efforts. Typically, the first step in that process is to become educated about a prospects risk exposure and then to make a sales call to collect information to drive the submission and sale process later. That first step, risk analysis and interview, is supported through a number of risk-specific tools including a profile, risk general liability and workers compensation code lists, a risk questionnaire, safety program, and a great number of ACORD and other forms. The producer can print out and read the appropriate documents and then take them along on the sales call to guide discussion and collect information. The user can do a great deal of customizing to create a document package that fits the complexity of the business to be visited.
Once the information is collected, it is keyed into PS4 Plus via a submissions section. An account can have multiple submissions and they can be created through duplication and then editing, thus making duplicate entry unnecessary. Submissions, i.e., collections of forms, can be exported for later entry into AMS AfW and Sagitta management systems.
PS4 Plus includes a proposal wizard that helps the user pick appropriate elements for inclusion and then put proposal text into a PS4 Plus Window that in fact uses Microsoft Word. That means the user can do extensive editing before printing the proposal. I had only one untoward experience when using PS4 Plus and that involved Word. I had Word open and was using it to write this article. When I used PS4 Plus to create a risk survey questionnaire, it created a new instance of Word within PS4 Plus and began to create an appropriate text file in that window. While that was going on, I clicked on my article instance of Word and PS4 erased my text and began substituting risk questionnaire text. My article was gone. PS4 Plus apparently stuffs text into whichever instance of Word that's active, rather than always going to the PS4 Plus instance. When I experimented with the similar proposal assembly process, I was careful to let it finish before I clicked on my article Word instance and then had no problems.
The Internet
PS4 Plus is a very useful product and clearly the result of years of evolution and response to producers and their day-to-day needs. And though PS4 Plus is more substantial and easier to use than its ancestors, it could be usefully extended to make use of the Internet. How might that happen? Two ways. First by helping agents make use of some of PS4's relevant content in their Web sites. Commercial lines prospects do go to agents' sites. We know that from the IIAA Future One 2001 Technology Study. Those prospects are looking for useful content and PS4 has that content in spades. Why not find a way to make it available through the agents' Web sites?
Second, why not re-conceive the commercial lines sales process a bit? PS4 Plus is built around the process most producers use today: survey, submission, proposal, sale (with the producer and in-agency staff doing all the work) from paper sources. But some producers and some businesses may want to use the Internet to work a bit differently or to work collaboratively. Were (a revised) version of PS4 Plus put online through the agent's Web site, prospects and then underwriters could be brought into the process, contributing information as needed. This isn't to suggest that producers not make sales calls. They have to. But it does suggest that at least some of the on-going collaborative process could be moved online, from paper and perhaps e-mail, to an online library/document management process. An extended, online version of PS4 Plus could be just the vehicle.
PS4 Plus is a substantial improvement over earlier and very useful versions of PS4. If you're an existing PS4 user or an agent interested in making your commercial lines sales process significantly more effective, take a look at PS4 Plus. Find out more at www.ams-services.com to view a demo and/or request a demo CD.
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