Industries
IT for insurance brokerages
Renewal season, undisturbed.
Insurance brokerages run on a broker management system, Applied Epic, Applied TAM, Vertafore AMS360 or Sagitta, and when that system is slow, the whole office is slow. happier IT supports brokerages across Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario: the broker management system and the workstations around it, carrier portal access, email checks where premium money moves, and a change freeze that holds through renewal season.
Who it's for
The brokerage stack, and where it rubs.
Applied Epic and TAM, Vertafore AMS360 and Sagitta
The BMS (broker management system, the platform holding client files, policies and activity notes) is your file of record. The friction lives in performance, scanning and printing to carrier forms.
Carrier portals and CSIO downloads
Every carrier has a portal with its own login rules. CSIO (Centre for Study of Insurance Operations, the Canadian body setting data standards between brokers and carriers) standards are what let policy data download into your BMS instead of being typed twice.
The client file as evidence
E and O exposure, errors and omissions, the professional liability cover that responds when advice or documentation is questioned, attaches to what is in the file.
Licensing records
Individual and agency licences, continuing education records, and the provincial insurance council that oversees them.
What's included
What we do for a brokerage.
-
The broker management system, supported as a platform
Workstations, printing, scanning, integrations, performance, and the vendor queue. We are not a replacement for Applied or Vertafore's own application consultants.
-
Workstations built for the way brokers work
Multiple monitors, a scanner that works first time, a printer that produces carrier forms correctly.
-
Carrier portal access with a leaver process
Portal logins inventoried, tied to individuals rather than shared, and closed the day a producer or account manager leaves, including the portals nobody remembers signing up for.
-
Documents that reach the client file
Scanning, email filing and e-signature configured so a signed document lands in the file automatically.
-
Email authentication and payment verification
SPF, DKIM and DMARC, three checks letting mail servers confirm a message really came from your domain, plus a rule that changed payment details are confirmed by phone.
-
A change freeze you set
Your peaks go into the plan at the start; nothing is migrated, upgraded or rebooted during them.
How it works
How we take over a brokerage.
-
We measure the BMS before touching anything
How long a client file actually takes to open, from which desk, at which time of day.
-
We close the quiet gaps
Multi-factor authentication (a second check, usually on a phone, before a login is accepted) on email and remote access, a restore tested from backups, dormant portal logins closed.
-
We agree the calendar
Renewal peaks, carrier deadlines and quiet weeks go into a shared plan. Project work happens in the gaps, and the gaps are yours to define.
What it costs
What a brokerage pays.
Brokerages sit at the higher end more often than not, because client financial and personal data raises the security floor and carrier questionnaires need evidence someone has to produce. Our pricing guide explains the three models.
Hosted BMS changes the shape
If Applied or Vertafore hosts your system, your server footprint shrinks and your internet connection becomes critical infrastructure. The IT bill usually drops; the need for a second connection path usually appears.
Why us for this
What we can show you, and what we cannot yet.
Insurance and financial services is one of the sectors happier IT knows best.
Verifiable today: Microsoft, Cisco and Citrix certifications, and a security operations centre staffed by our own employees in Canada, relevant, because carriers now ask where your data and monitoring sit.
Go deeper
- IT for finance and insurance The parent page: sector-wide failure modes, PIPEDA and carrier requirements.
- Phishing prevention training The training half of the email problem.
Questions
What people ask before they sign anything.
Our Applied Epic is slow in the afternoons. Is that fixable?
Usually, and the cause is rarely the application: network latency between the workstation and the data, antivirus scanning the wrong folders, or a shared internet connection saturating when everyone downloads policy documents at once. The fix starts with timing a file open from several desks; guessing leads to hardware that changes nothing.
What happens to our E and O position if a client document goes missing?
Errors and omissions defence leans heavily on documentation, so the practical answer is to remove the human step: scanned documents routed to the client file, email filed from the mailbox, e-signature returning the completed document directly.
Can you avoid making changes during renewal season?
Yes, and we ask for your peaks in writing before the agreement starts. Commercial books often have a January first crunch separate from personal lines renewals, and both go in the calendar.
How should carrier portal logins be handled when a producer leaves?
Individual, inventoried, and closed the same day, the same standard as email. Nobody ever has the full list, so we build the inventory first, then make portal closure part of the leaver checklist.
What does IT cost for a 25-person brokerage?
Related
Where to go next.
Want to know what this would look like for you?
A 30-minute call. No slides, no audit fee, no obligation. We ask what is breaking and tell you honestly whether we are the right fit.