What Analysts Are Saying About FirstBest

"As an industry, insurance is moving forward and working to reach its potential. It is making great progress in using and seeing the value of technologies such as self-service portals, rating engines, and BPM. It has earned the respect of some of its former critics and deserves a passing great for its efforts." - Deb Smallwood, Founder, SMA Strategy Meets Action

Pursuing the Alchemy of Insurance Data Transformation

“Then what should insurers do to improve the underwriting processes? FirstBest's AppReader offers a solution to both elements - discipline and efficiency. On its own it helps insurers achieve some degree of underwriting efficiency because it reduces errors, speeds up the process and so enables insurers to reach a decision faster about accepting or rejecting the risk.”

“FirstBest is also offering AppReader as an integral component of the vendor's underwriting management system (UMS) and in this way, it helps insurers manage underwriting discipline.” - Barry Rabkin, Principal Analyst, Insurance Technology © Ovum 2010

“Technology vendors providing underwriting solutions will need to offer solutions which provide deep integration and real-time collaboration with the P&C business acquisition processes to counter the FirstBest AppReader/UMS combination of fast and functional data alchemy.”  Barry Rabkin, Principal Analyst, Insurance Technology © Ovum 2010

“Pursuing the alchemy of insurance data transformation” - Barry Rabkin, Principal Analyst, Insurance Technology © Ovum 2010

Novarica Cool Capabilibites US Insurers Q4 2010

"By leveraging PDF, which any agency management system can print to already, this capability solves the straight-through-processing problem for application submission without requiring the agents to change their behaviors or technologies.

Download the Novarica Cool Capabilibites Report US Insurers

Novarica Vendor Solution Review - FirstBest Underwriting Management System

"FirstBest’s UMS is an extremely robust agent portal and underwriting platform. It provides strong collaboration capabilities while supporting all of the transactional functionality required in an agent portal. The comprehensive underwriting solution has helped clients increase new business while maintaining or reducing underwriting costs. UMS is an especially good fit for small to midsize commercial carriers who focus on mid-markets or more complex lines." - Martina Conlon, Principal, Novarica

Download the Novarica Vendor Solution: FirstBest UMS

Hype Cycle for P&C Insurance, 2009

Now Is the Time for P&C Insurers to Invest In Underwriting Workstations

"FirstBest Systems is the only vendor that provides a collaboration tool, a real-time analytics dashboard for underwriting business processes, and an underwriting workstation." - Stephen Forte, Research Director, Gartner - Stephen Forte, Research Director, Gartner

Underwriting Workstation Power Analysis and Collaboration for Commercial Line P&C Insurers
 
“For commercial line P&C insurers, underwriting functionality through legacy policy administration falls short of meeting strategic business goals such as underwriting profitability and pricing/risk accuracy.” - Stephen Forte, Research Director, Gartner

Beyond the Traditional Short List: Up and Coming Property and Casualty Insurance Technology Firms Class of 2008

"FirstBest has developed a strong brand that is synonymous with next-generation Underwriting Systems and quality customer service. The FirstBest UMS is enabling P&C carriers to write more profitable business by collaborating in real-time with their agents…technology that is desperately needed in the industry." - Barry Rabkin, Senior Research Analyst, Insurance, Financial Insights
 

Hot Insurance Tech Companies To Watch In 2009: Profiles Of Technology Companies That Are Reinventing Insurance IT

"Forrester has identified seven companies as ones to watch in the insurance technology market in 2009. FirstBest's UMS capitalizes on key carriers’ needs: winning business; creating a better experience for the independent agents and brokers; optimizing the productivity and know-how of the dwindling pool of underwriters; and flexibility to respond to customer, agent, and carrier requirements at the speed-of-market." - Ellen Carney, Senior Analyst

Gartner

Hype Cycle for P&C Insurance, 2008,
by Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, Vice President Distinguished Analyst

According to Gartner’s report, "The use of EBUW (exception-based underwriting) solutions will help P&C insurers reduce subjectivity, improve data collection at the point of sale and improve consistency in underwriting decisions. Low-level decisions and underwriting for straightforward product lines…can be completely automated… while complex product lines can benefit from using EBUW to automate manual tasks and simple decisions, which will improve the workload for underwriters. Collaborative capabilities between agents/intermediaries and the underwriters can also result in such benefits as quicker underwriting completion, which may drive increased revenue and agent satisfaction."

Market Navigator™ US Property/Casualty New Business solutions 2008 (Q4)

“Improving ease of doing business for agents is a major focus on insurers' competitive strategies, and the bar for using technology to enable the new business and underwriting process is continually being raised. Even in a down market, our research show that insurers are continuing to invest in this critical area.” - Matthew Josefowicz, Director, Insurance, Novarica

"At its base, each of these solutions includes an Agent Portal, which provides a web-based environment for agents to submit new applications through an electronic form, as well as perform other activities like messaging with underwriters and managing client information."

"Some of these solutions also include Underwriter Workbench elements, providing an environment for underwriters to interact with submitted applications, or Rating Engines, which generate rates." - Matthew Josefowicz, Director, Insurance, Novarica

P&C Insurers Turn to Strategic Technology Investments to Beat the Soft Market