“A lot of organizations have tried to apply technology to the underwriting process, but their efforts usually focus strictly on the carrier workflow or the agency workflow,” she points out. She explains that FirstBest was founded in 2006 with a mission to “transform the commercial lines electronic underwriting process. That FirstBest has achieved these accolades in relatively short order shouldn’t come as a surprise, Primes notes. It eliminates the back and forth phone calls or e-mails.”ĪCORD and IASA have applauded the efforts of FirstBest and honored them with the Innovative Implementation Award and the Technology Achievement Award, respectively. The agent and the underwriter can each access the system from wherever they are and have the application open at the same time. “Let’s suppose that the agent has a couple of questions about sections of the carrier’s supplemental application. “We do this by providing a ‘virtual room’ where the carrier and the agent can work together on a piece of business,” she continues. “So rather than making agents and underwriters follow a tightly scripted sequence of screens and pre-ordained content, an Underwriting 2.0 approach such as our UMS encourages genuine interactivity, a nonlinear workflow, as well as the ability to add your own content.”Īdditionally, with an Underwriting 2.0 approach, producers, CSRs, and underwriters can all work together on a shared process-in real time. “It’s a collaborative business system,” explains Meira Primes, vice president of marketing for FirstBest. What does interactive information sharing via the Internet have to do with insurance? It’s the basis for what FirstBest® Systems, Inc., is bringing to the marketplace with its Underwriting Management Systems™ (UMS)-a commercial lines electronic underwriting solution. If you told your kids (or grandkids) that when they spend time on Facebook they’re actually collaborating with their friends using Web 2.0, they’d give you “that look.” But that’s what social media applications like Facebook offer-interactive information sharing via the Internet. He used his back-up plan, which was to have a delivery captain bring her the rest of the way from Charleston.FirstBest Systems enhances agent/carrier electronic collaboration for commercial lines He had just 2 weeks available time and hoped to get to the northern Chesapeake, mostly by ICW. I have a friend whom purchased in Daytona and it took him 2 weeks to get to Charleston in March. How far do you think you can get by the end of December? January would probably be the end of the road, wherever you happen to be if it is north of North Carolina. I'm guessing that you would travel as far north in December as you can with tolerance for cold before leaving in the water for storage. There are marinas as far north as Haverstraw that will store in water during winter. We can't store our boats in water, but they let this one resident live on his boat while he works at the marina over the winter. They run bubblers in temps below freezing. I've seen the lagoon iced over just 1 winter out of 5. Our marina in Barnegat has a boat that is down from Canada in the winter with a live-aboard. How far south is it that people don't winterize their boat when it's in the water and left unattended? I am under the assumption that as far north as Annapolis, you would winterize your boat in the water if you are going to leave it unattended. "Suck it up Buttercup" Nothing like a Foul Weather Jacket, a watch cap, hot coffee and a cigar on the bridge in the North Atlantic but those tools will do you well on your trip. Bundle up, have some heating available and stay in marina's on the way up where you can hook up to shore power and have an electric heater going at night. You're going to have a potentially cold trip depending on when you get started in November anywhere north of the SC/NC border. I left mine in the water on a small protected bay off the South River in Annapolis for the winter in 2012-2013 with no problems. If you are going to leave it in the water you could do that in the Chesapeake as far north as Annapolis just as easily as NC. A few days either way from New Bern won't make that much difference in transit time to Lake Champlain if that is the ultimate destination. I assume that is what you are planning to do? Leaving it in the water unattended has its own risks. I'd find an "inexpensive" (in boat terms) place to have the boat hauled and stored during the winter, even if its a little further north or a little further south than NC.
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