What if you are looking for a new management system, but you don’t want to change rating vendors? Or you want a portal for your distribution force to access your systems? Or what about accepting payments online that update to your system?
Finding solutions that support all your automation needs for marketing your programs, quoting your business, handling accounting, generating invoices and commissions, monitoring claims, and managing your vital documents requires software applications that work together with your management system seamlessly.
Integration of software products continues to be one of the industry’s biggest obstacles to a smooth workflow for MGAs, MGUs, and program administrators. Well-crafted systems integration connects various components (often from different vendors or data providers) to work effortlessly as one. That’s where Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) come in. APIs define the interactions between multiple software applications with specific rules as to how they work together and share data.
MGAs are unique in how they go to market and the technology solutions they need to enable their business. At Vertafore, open integration empowered by APIs allows you to tailor your solutions to meet the specific needs of the ecosystem.
Spotlight: MGA Systems
MGA Systems is a management system designed specifically for program administrators and MGAs, which enables you to address your unique needs for managing ultra-specialized risks, distribution models, and third-party integrations. We believe it’s important to be responsive to our customers’ requests, so we integrate with any products that are necessary to their success.
For example, we have a client with international offices who has an API that connects MGA Systems to access an exchange rate service for paying claims in different currencies. Other MGA Systems clients use the ePayPolicy integration for electronic payments to improve accuracy, and security and save time for the MGA and its distribution force. The Agent Portal is another integration that provides 24 x 7 access to real-time data and powerful self-service capabilities. All of these are examples of integration projects that support our clients’ needs.
How can you ensure a successful software integration project?
-
Start a conversation: Determine the applications you need to integrate and get all service providers talking with one another.
-
Work together: Share the APIs between the development teams. Include any API documentation. For example, a data dictionary defines the fields being called by the API. Better yet, provide a developer API toolkit, with the API, sample code and documentation. Some vendors even post the toolkit on their website.
- Start coding: Allow the development teams to do their work to call the APIs and verify a successful data exchange.
- Test the integration: Be sure the end users put the integration through its paces, so you are sure the process is working end-to-end as expected.
- Modify the integration as needed and retest: Keep refining the integration until it is accurate.
We believe management systems should connect the technologies you choose, not try to do everything. Using the best technologies helps you grow, and we want to help you get there with our best-of-breed products and partners.