Challenge: Staying current on changing regulations

The rules, regulations, laws, and risk assessments guiding the insurance industry are constantly changing. For agents, the information they share affects their clients’ homes and their livelihood. For EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants, their guidance is their reputation.

With expertise covering property and casualty, employee benefits, specialty programs, and private client services, EPIC needs access to current, authoritative information they can rely on. 

“We're presenting information either to our clients, the underwriting community, or to the claims community, so I can't go in with ‘our best guess is ...’” says Managing Principal Renae Parent. “I need something that is backed in factual information.”

Solution: Insurance intelligence, plus citations

EPIC knew that providing answers alone wasn’t enough. They needed fast answers, backed by trusted references that clients and industry partners can verify. 

Using conversational search capabilities in ReferenceConnect AI, users ask a question, receive an AI-powered answer, and can continue to refine their search until they find exactly what they need. 

ReferenceConnect AI is built on insurance specific information from industry-leading sources:

• 75+ insurance industry-specific publishers, 
• Over 1 million up-to-date documents, including forms, manuals, and industry trade information,
• Proprietary information shared by carriers.

By pulling from industry and carrier publishers, EPIC can provide answers from the same manuals underwriters use, giving their team the confidence that the information they are using is consistent, accurate, and verifiable. 

Outcomes

Insurance leaders make defensible risk decisions

Managing Principal Renae Parent helps clients and internal teams make coverage decisions that reduce the total cost of risk. When a client has a complex coverage question, she finds ways to solve it. 

When a client needed affirmative coverage was blocked by exclusions in the standard market, Parent used ReferenceConnect AI to quickly confirm the coverage limitations.  EPIC was able to focus its marketing strategy on carriers more likely to provide the coverage the client needed.

Parent was able to solve the issue much faster, and more confidently, than she would have with traditional search. Overall, ReferenceConnect AI users get answers up to 80% faster than agents who don’t use an insurance knowledge base.

The ability to get fast answers with citations just makes my job and my team's job a lot easier.”

Trainers onboard new agents with no wrong questions

The insurance industry is experiencing a talent crunch. Many new hires are also new to insurance, some to the workforce entirely. 

“I see the value in those greener employees and take the time to educate them and mentor and provide them with the resources they need to succeed,” says Business Applications Trainer Stephanie Milanes.

ReferenceConnect AI provides a way for new employees to take ownership in their learning, Milanes says. Onboarding moves faster, and they can independently find answers to any question without relying on the time of a mentor or senior staff member. 

There's a tool where no question is a wrong question. You can ask whatever you need and feel confident."

Agents gain insurance information to clear their to-do list

As an associate broker at EPIC, Evan Povolni handles requests ranging from new business placements to assisting with remarketing or creating due diligence reports for large prospects.

ReferenceConnect AI has been a massive time saver, he says, estimating the AI search cuts the time spent on tasks by about half. Rather than using a search engine or a generic AI large language model, Povolni uses ReferenceConnect AI to find the insurance-specific answers he needs so he can help clients and move on to the next task.

I think that's ultimately the value here: saving time and helping you navigate that vast library through a simple search.”

Challenge: Turning complex insurance agency information into strategic insight

With a variety of practice groups, Starkweather & Shepley can cover nearly any risk their commercial clients have. For agency leaders, that breadth requires accurate data to get insights into what is happening in each part of the business. 

If a practice group is growing, Starkweather & Shepley needs to know whether to give it more attention. If an acquisition brings in new clients, the agency needs to understand the business impact.

Agency Operations Manager Kate O'Toole says her role gives her a special view of what's going on at the agency. She works with departments throughout the business to understand operational needs, connect information across systems, and surface the insights leaders need to make informed decisions. 

To make sense of it all, she often needs customized reports. Out-of-the-box reporting tools don't give the nuance O'Toole is looking for. Starkweather & Shepley needs something that will give them the ability to collect and report on the information that is unique to their agency. 

Solution: Data fuels work for agency leaders and agents

Customized reports deliver the right information

Starkweather & Shepley uses a tech stack built around Vertafore solutions and third-party integrations. The agency relies on Sagitta as an accounting tool and as a central hub for its client and policy data. O'Toole relies on Sagitta to get the detailed information the agency would struggle to find anywhere else. She says Sagitta gives the agency the flexibility to collect the specific information it needs from its business groups and report on anything.  

Starkweather & Shepley can get useful insights and speed up its reporting processes so it can adapt quickly to business opportunities and make smart decisions. O’Toole and other agency leaders can identify the precise business information they need and get reports as needed so the agency can adjust nimbly to changes in their book of business. That insight helps the agency operate more efficiently and serve clients better.

"It really drives business decisions, not just internally but how we interact with our clients, too," O'Toole says.

Outcomes: Better strategy and a solid foundation for growth

Visibility into the book of business

A common challenge for O'Toole was that coverage lines or client category codes wouldn't make it clear what business group managed certain relationships. O'Toole created custom collection options to capture that information and clarify business relationships. 

Once that custom data is collected, it can be included in reports. Book-of-business reports now provide the business group information along with the rest of the client and policy data.

The result is a clearer view of where business sits, how each segment of the business is performing, and where the agency should focus next.

Without having the data points in there, I can’t start to make decisions. I can’t start to create strategy around how we keep growing,”

_{Kate O'Toole, Agency Operations Manager}

She says the data Sagitta provides sets the agency up to have great conversations that power their strategy for the future.

More informed action on acquisitions

Starkweather & Shepley often grows through acquisition. In order to see the success of those acquisitions, the agency tracks how they contribute to the business. By adding customized fields in Sagitta for acquired clients, leaders can clearly see the business impacts.

“We can look back and say that book of business came from this acquisition, it gave us X percent of lift, it brought in this much more to help contribute to the overall success of the agency,” O’Toole says. Those insights allow leadership to evaluate which acquisitions are contributing to long-term growth. “It’s just incredibly valuable because your data tells your story, and accurate data tells the right story.”

Power your agency with Sagitta

Challenge: Drag from manual handoffs and disconnected tools

Trucordia has hundreds of offices across the country, but the organization focuses on giving clients local service.

Internally in the Midwest office, they were spending more time than they realized working through their own processes. It wasn’t clear they had a challenge until they saw what was possible with AMS360, says Holly Sutherland, agency management coordinator at Trucordia.

Not all of their tools were able to communicate with one another, and staff found their own ways to work around the limitations. One staff member’s organized spreadsheet might clash with another’s reliable notetaking system. Manual document handoffs took time and energy.

“We were experiencing drag between trying to get information in and out of our AMS, and it took time to have to go and attach a document or find a solution around the system,” Sutherland says. “Once we moved to AMS360, we connected those dots.”

After the launch of AgencyOne, Sutherland saw the potential to build upon AMS360 and continue to improve efficiency at Trucordia. “It was the time savings, being able to do things a lot faster, being able to standardize workflows and have the information accessibility of the dashboard,” Sutherland says. “Our agency reached out to our corporate and said this is something we wanted to investigate.”

Implementation: Custom dashboards helped change
work habits

Sutherland had seen what Trucordia would be capable of with AgencyOne. After seeing a demo of the platform, she knew it could pull data where servicers needed it and that staff could personalize the layout of their dashboards to make sure they could instantly see the information most relevant for their roles. But she also needed to build excitement among her team.

AgencyOne’s customizable dashboard puts data front and center for servicers to see client information on one screen without having to change view options or run reports. She saw how renewals could change once they were able to connect the web of information sources: Data from clients, carriers, and producers could all come together without manual data entry.

“Nobody likes change,” she says. She initially got only one volunteer to start using AgencyOne, so she held a demo for the staff.

I showed them what the dashboard had, and by the end, every single person had raised their hand and said, ‘Sign me up.’”

_{Holly Sutherland, agency management coordinator at Trucordia}

Solution: Fewer screens, less data entry, and better visibility

Connecting their technology gave staff more visibility and control over their work, reduced manual effort, freed up time for better client service, and positioned the business to keep evolving without creating the same operational drag again.

Servicers gain more control

With AgencyOne, servicers at Trucordia navigate everyday processes with more agility and control. Data can move into and out of the AMS more easily, whether it comes from a client, producer, or carrier.

Servicers are able to prioritize what needs attention at the moment but also get a 60- or 90-day snapshot of what’s coming up.

"Having a customizable view of their day is helping them feel that they have power over their work," Sutherland says.

Staff time savings turn into client wins

The time Trucordia’s Midwest team is saving is already adding up and turning into time that servicers can spend with clients.

Vendor integrations are making information more accessible and speeding up workflows. Team members can now share data across solutions, and tasks like copying information out of an email went from time-consuming manual tasks to automated ones.

By shaving off small steps in tasks that get repeated throughout the day, servicers wind up with more time that can be spent on strategic tasks or having more time with their clients.

“Any time we can give back to them and give that personal touch—more interaction, more conversations, being able to provide better service—that makes a huge difference,” Sutherland says. “Our employees try to shove a lot into a small amount of time, so for them to be able to have even 5 minutes back in their day, over time that adds up.”

Integration makes Trucordia future-ready

Sutherland’s office focuses on the Midwest region, but Trucordia has locations across the entire country. Sharing information across locations became easier. “We could all work cohesively in one platform. Our agency can be further along in implementation than someone else’s, and we can all collaborate and work together in the same system,” she says.

The office is now ready to integrate essential business solutions from other providers and has the flexibility to adopt new technology as needed without disrupting the work they do every day.

“Business needs change, technology changes. As you grow and you evolve, you have to also evolve and grow your systems to meet that need,” Sutherland says. “I feel like over time, new things will be developed, new products will come out, so I think it’s ever-changing. The possibilities of new integrations are endless.”

See how AgencyOne speeds workflows

Challenge: Turning AI curiosity into practical agency transformation

Since the early days of generative AI availability, Relation Insurance has made AI innovation part of its culture.

The agency, which is active in all lines across the U.S., launched RelationGPT in January 2025, just a year and a half after ChatGPT made its large language model publicly available. RelationGPT gave the agency’s team the flexibility of ChatGPT while staying secure within Relation’s tech stack. When Relation made the tool available to its 1,400 team members, the agency was purposeful about change management, giving employees time to explore the tool and develop trust in it.

But in 2026, AI is no longer optional. And agencies don’t have as much time to convince staff to use AI tools. 

You have to have a strategy, AI tools are the only thing I’ve seen since the Internet that are that profound and that transformational.” 

_{Mike Toran, Chief Information Officer of Relation}

As Relation pursues other AI opportunities across its business, it needs to be able to develop and deploy new tools quickly, trust that they will work with the agency’s data, and be able to track and report on metrics to Relation’s parent company, Bay Pine. 

The agency also needs to be confident that any new AI tools meet the security and compliance requirements of the insurance industry. Relation needs flexible technology built for insurance.

Solution: Vertafore strengthens the data foundation that AI needs

Relation is relying on Vertafore as a key partner in its next stage of AI progress. The partnership is focused on addressing how AI capabilities fit into the agency’s actual business and technology strategy. 

Vertafore’s work on data has helped fuel Relation’s AI initiatives, creating a stronger foundation for the agency to pursue more advanced automation and agentic workflows. Relation uses RiskMatch to see industry mapping, relationships, and market appetite, connected to RelationGPT, so they can quickly find out how much business they’re doing in a certain place. And connections between Vertafore’s AMS360 and Salesforce help Relation report key metrics to its parent company.

“Vertafore understands they’re not building a walled garden ecosystem of AI,” Toran says. “They understand what we’re building, and they’re making some of the tools agnostic to the platform so we can plug and play and build out the AI strategies together.”

That collaborative model helps Relation move faster and think more creatively while building a tech stack around what works best for them. 

Partnership: Innovation moves faster when ideas can become demos

The pace of AI development has changed what partnership can look like. Leaders from Relation and Vertafore have been able to come together and work through ideas in open conversation, discuss what would and would not work for Relation, and explore how new capabilities could connect across systems. Toran describes the partnership with Vertafore as “a working session instead of a SKU.”

As AI innovation accelerates, businesses no longer have the luxury of taking time to plan, develop, and onboard staff to new tech. Now, ideas can become working prototypes much faster. 

“These are not nine-month solutions anymore; they’re nine hours,” Toran says. “It’s compressed that time down so we can iterate and do prototypes very quickly.”

That speed makes openness and curiosity more important. Relation wanted a partner that is willing to iterate, test, and learn alongside the agency. They see that same mindset in Vertafore’s product and technology teams.

We have a joke internally: demos instead of memos. Getting to that show-it-to-me stage matters, and Vertafore has that same innate curiosity as we do.”

_{Mike Toran, Chief Information Officer of Relation}

Outcome: Less friction, more time for customers

The agency is looking at AI as a way to help employees work more effectively, reduce repetitive or manual tasks, and spend more time understanding clients and their needs. That human-centered goal is central to how Relation talks about AI internally and externally.

“We’re obviously not looking to reduce headcount,” Toran says. “We’re looking to engage with our customers more. We want our people to get rid of the frictional work and spend more time getting to know the customer and understanding the customer’s needs.”

That shift is already influencing the agency’s culture. Employees have seen what RelationGPT can do, and Relation is giving more advanced tools to teams in other departments. Employees are also beginning to imagine their own agents and use cases. The agency can then evaluate which ideas should be scaled and brought into the enterprise.

With Vertafore helping strengthen the data foundation and bringing a collaborative AI approach to the partnership, Relation is better positioned to keep evolving its strategy. The agency can evaluate new workflows, connect new capabilities, and continue building toward an AI-enabled future where employees have better tools and customers receive better service.

For agencies still deciding whether AI belongs in their strategy, Toran says the tools are too useful to ignore. “The tools are just so good. You’re going to find value in your organization.”

Explore Vertafore's approach to AI in insurance distribution

Challenge: The more time an agent spends onboarding, the less time they have to sell

To get agents working as quickly as possible, Westfield would typically set up an agent to sell in multiple states, even if it wasn’t clear the agent planned to operate in each of them. “Back over a year ago, we had been appointing everyone in every one of our operating companies before they ever sold us business,” says Jennifer Garner, Information Technology Manager at Westfield. “There’s a big cost for that.”

Westfield needed a solution that would bring down agent onboarding expenses and eliminate drag in a process that required sending a lot of information from one place to another over several days. They needed the process to be fast and seamless.

Westfield has a reputation for being a technology innovator, adopting a cloud-based core system and using AI tools to grow from $30 million in premium to $950 million. To overhaul their onboarding workflow, Westfield applied a tech-forward approach and partnered with Vertafore.

Solution: Just-in-time appointments scales onboarding

With Sircon for Carriers, Westfield automated appointments and centralized producer compliance across nearly 25,000 agent and agency relations.

The entire process was transformed, from initial vetting to writing a policy. From the moment distribution relationship managers begin interacting with an agency, they collect and validate details for background checks and onboarding. With just-in-time appointments, Sircon checks the agent’s license data and appoints them only when they first write business. The agent never sees a hitch in the process.

It’s one of those wonderful things that happens behind the scenes, and the agents don’t notice it because we let them keep running."

_{Jennifer Garner, Information Technology Manager at Westfield}

Outcomes: Faster producer readiness and long-term savings

Optimized expenses

Westfield created a faster, more scalable process that aligned the spend on appointments to the actual business coming in the door. Sircon also helps Westfield terminate producers from states where they are pre-appointed but never sell policies. Now, Westfield’s appointment costs tie directly back into revenue.

Westfield is realizing real savings in labor, too. Garner says the carrier’s distribution team handed off thousands of transactions each day to automation through Sircon so they can focus on the strategic work that supports agent relationships and business growth.

Foundation for growth

When credentialing and appointments happen in the background, producers can keep their attention on the end-insured, rather than on compliance.

When a producer updates their records, Westfield gets the data immediately, and their systems are updated automatically. Garner says Westfield’s distribution team no longer has to manually interact with state websites to resolve licensing issues. Producers have a better experience with Westfield, which turns into more business.

Looking forward, Westfield is partnering with Vertafore to further refine the onboarding and credentialing process. The relationship is helping Westfield manage producer relationships throughout their lifecycle—from initial onboarding to ongoing updates such as license, name, or location changes—so they never run into a roadblock wherever their career or life takes them.

More confidence for IT

For Garner and Westfield’s IT team, Sircon provides reliable connectivity and reduces the burden of maintaining a high-volume compliance process. 

"We did no customizations, and the system just works,” Garner says. As the carrier continues to grow its tech stack and build AI capabilities, they benefit from a partnership focused on service and workflow enhancements. That reliability gives Westfield confidence that it can grow without also needing to grow their headcount.

Vertafore helped us realize a significant savings that we’ll see year over year until we stop writing business."

See how Sircon for Carriers optimizes distribution management

Challenge: Searching for growth opportunities through data

As SeibertKeck Insurance Partners has grown in offices, associates, and carrier partners, the agency wanted to make its operations more efficient and give teams better visibility into the business. Because the agency has 20 locations and writes business across all 50 states, even small process slowdowns cause drag that ripples throughout the business and creates systemic inefficiencies.

Like many agencies, SeibertKeck accumulated a significant amount of documentation and data over time. As they expanded their tech capabilities, they sought ways to make information easier to access, trust, and use in daily work.

“In the past we’ve created—and from an industry perspective, maybe all agencies have created—our own problems. We think we have to document too much,” says Joyce Sigler, Vice President of Acquisitions and Technology at SeibertKeck.

The agency sought ways to reduce the time staff spent searching for information, support employees with more intuitive tools, and create a stronger foundation for future planning and client service.

Solution: Integration brings order to data

For more than a decade, SeibertKeck has built its tech stack around Vertafore solutions. The agency runs on AMS360 and uses Vertafore solutions to power internal workflows, manage external communications, and uses Vertafore partners for additional solutions.

“We are a true Vertafore shop,” Sigler says. “It’s a lot more intuitive to have a product and one partner than 50 different partners.” 

With Vertafore’s AgencyOne, SeibertKeck wanted to capitalize on that foundation with a platform that connects their data, systems, and employee experience in one place.

By adopting AgencyOne, the agency was able to cut down manual data entry across multiple solutions, surface the right data at the right time in their processes, and free up staff to spend more time on building relationships with clients. In addition, AgencyOne helps SeibertKeck use its data to better understand their own business and plan for the future.

Vertafore has put the power back in our hands to understand our clients and our customers."

_{Joyce Sigler, Vice President of Acquisitions and Technology at SeibertKeck}

Implementation

SeibertKeck took a deliberate approach to rolling out AgencyOne across the organization. The rollout started with its leadership team before expanding to teams closer to day-to-day operations, including claims.

Before widespread adoption, SeibertKeck also focused on data cleanup, organization, and quality so everything would work once deployed.

Once staff began training on AgencyOne, they could work with their own clients and data and see how it worked within their workflows. That helped create a stronger foundation for employees to trust and use the information available to them in AgencyOne. “We’re seeing people being excited about their jobs and knowing there's a partner helping them do their jobs better and faster and with a keener eye to the things that are important.”

Outcomes: Operational efficiencies fuel client relationships and agency growth

Technology as fuel for growth

As SeibertKeck grows, it’s mindful of the workforce shift happening across insurance. AgencyOne’s modern, intuitive interface makes it easy to onboard newer employees and give staff faster access to the information they need to do their jobs. AgencyOne has also been useful for onboarding employees at acquired agencies. The intuitive platform helped new team members quickly orient in a new environment.

The visibility into data also helps employees challenge assumptions, work with more confidence, and adapt more easily to industry changes. As Sigler puts it: “That access to information allows you to think differently and to not fear the shift in the tenure in the agency and in the industry.”

Better client visibility

SeibertKeck is seeing change in their client relationships as a direct result of having AgencyOne’s data dashboard.

Previously, customer service calls might involve staff splitting their attention between the person on the phone and menus on their computer screen.

With AgencyOne, key client data is at the forefront, including their relationship history with the agency, recent claims, and other interactions. That means staff can give clients the attention they deserve at a time when they need it most.

Instead of searching, clicking and kind of trying to juggle all of that, AgencyOne allows you to put your arms around the customer."

_{Joyce Sigler, Vice President of Acquisitions and Technology at SeibertKeck}

Operational improvements

The rollout of AgencyOne at SeibertKeck is boosting excitement about where the agency can go in the future. Employees see how automation and AI can enhance their work, give them more time to focus more on client satisfaction and retention, and help them strengthen their relationships with both clients and carriers.

“I think that’s the exciting piece,” Sigler says. “We have a tool that allows us to focus on what we’re here for and what we’re good at, and we can let Vertafore focus on giving us those tools to just make us better and better.”

Learn more about AgencyOne