The Insurance Perspectives Podcast involves contributors outside of HawkSoft. The participants' views are entirely their own and may not reflect the views of HawkSoft.
This recap of the Insurance Perspectives Podcast summarizes highlights of the two episodes about Agave, where HawkSoft host Kenny Hendricks interviews Greg Malin of Agave and Aditya Mehta of All Coverage Insurance, which uses Agave to optimize their agency bill processes.
Aditya and Greg discuss the need for automation technology in the agency bill process, and how service and support is a differentiating factor in today's Insurtech landscape.
In this article:
- Part 1: Agave (Greg Malin)
- Part 2: Aditya Mehta (All Coverage Insurance)
Part 1: Agave (Greg Malin)
Watch the video podcast - Part 1
Question 1: Why does Agave exist? What is your reason for participating in the independent agency channel?
- Kenny introduces Greg Malin, the Chief Revenue Officer for Agave. Greg has been with Agave for 6 years, and has 30 years of experience in financial services and technology, including 5 years as a licensed agent.
- Greg shares that Agave helps agencies modernize their agency bill experience to provide digital payment options for ACH and credit cards, and to simplify reconciliation on the back end.
- He observes that the independent insurance industry has been one of the last to adopt digital payment options, and that many agencies still need help in this area.
- Agave started back in 1997 as a company called Interest. Originally it was not an insurance-specific product, but they eventually identified the needs and pain points there and rebranded as Agave when they began offering their agency bill product. Insurance is now one of only two industry focuses for the company.
- Agave’s vision is to stand apart in how they treat their clients, and to create the best possible digital payment experience for agents and their communities.
- Kenny observes that HawkSoft approaches business similarly to Agave. While neither company is the only option in their field, they differentiate themselves through the outstanding service and support they provide to customers.
“We wanted to separate ourselves and create a persona and a brand that is in lockstep with how we treat our clients, and how we want to give advantage to the agencies, the hearts of community, to make life easy as possible and create the best possible experience for their insurance.”
Question 2: If you had to pick one aspect of Agave that draws in and keeps agencies working with you, what would that be and why?
- Greg feels that the level of support and service Agave provides is what customers love the most.
- He gives the example that Agave staff often see problems before the agency, such as chargebacks, and proactively reach out to assist.
- The development team is also very nimble and is always finding new ways to develop features, update processes or training, and provide relationship-driven support.
- The Agave team has a good understanding of the insurance industry, which helps them understand agency workflows and help optimize their experience.
- Many clients know Agave staff personally at this point, and even have personal chats during their support calls.
- Aditya Mehta agrees that Agave goes above and beyond in their service and support. He shares an example soon after the agency started with Agave, where they were hitting their payment limits for single transactions, due to the high premiums of their transportation policies. After he brought it up to Greg, Agave was able to change it within days.
- Kenny notes how rare it is for a payment provider to be willing to bend to the needs of the companies they service, rather than forcing clients to conform to what’s easiest or most beneficial for them.
“This is a relationship business at the end of the day, and our service folks create those 1-to-1 relationships with our clients where they know each other personally and talk about their lives, not just insurance. There's nothing better than servicing that client and making them happy. That's our reward at the end of the day.”
Question 3: How does Agave approach data ownership with regard to your customers?
- Greg shares that all sensitive payment data is kept in Agave’s system, which is a PCI level 1 provider, so that agents can rest assured it’s secure and they don’t have to assume the risk of handling that data themselves.
- Agave also makes a lot of reporting and transaction data available to customers, and allows for the customization of fields, such as allowing them to align the names of fields with QuickBooks to make the reconciliation process easier.
“We don't want any exposure to agencies or HawkSoft or anywhere we're connected with the payment information. So as a PCI level 1 provider, we capture and hold payment data on our system and our platform to protect our clients, agencies, and partners from being exposed or breached.”
Question 4: What is the hardest part of working with insurance agencies?
- Greg feels one of the obstacles he faces the most is that agencies settle for solutions that are familiar, popular, or “good enough” over trying something different or new that may be a better fit for them.
- Aditya mentions that on the agency side, it can be difficult to find a good fit with a vendor. If the vendor is too new or small, they may not be able to offer the features the agency wants, but if they’re too big or established, they may not be willing to offer enough customization and service to meet specific agency needs.
- He chose Agave because he feels they offer the capabilities of enterprise-level providers without sacrificing service or engagement with the customer.
- Greg mentions that Agave has the mindset of treating the smallest client like the largest, meaning that they don’t want to cater to only one type of client or workflow. Their solution is usable and scalable for all agencies, regardless of how extensively they use it.
- During the hard market, Agave is seeing more agencies starting to turn to agency bill lines as an option to increase profitability. Agave tries to prepare them for some of the difficulties they may experience, and lets them know if it might not be a good fit.
- Kenny agrees that tech providers need to find the balance between helping agencies achieve their goals and not misleading them if their solution isn’t the right fit.
“The hardest thing is to get agencies to quit settling. ‘It’s good enough’ is something I hear often. Why settle? In your personal life you look for things that can help you enjoy your life better. Why not with your business?”
Question 5: What is the best part of working with insurance agencies?
- Greg loves getting to build personal relationships with agencies from all walks of life, as well as partners. He loves hearing their stories and learning from them.
- He admires HawkSoft’s CEO Paul Hawkins and how sincerely he participates in and advocates for the independent insurance industry.
- Kenny says he’s noticed that at events, the Agave team are always some of the last people there having conversations with agents. He appreciates their commitment to genuine relationships with agencies.
“I've always been a 1-to-1 relationship person, where you get to engage all walks of life. People that know a lot of things and open our eyes to what we can do better, and give us a chance to listen to the stories and journeys that agencies have taken to become how big they are. That's where the reward comes.”
Part 2: All Coverage Insurance (Aditya Mehta)
Watch the video podcast - Part 2
In this episode:
Question 1: Tell us about your agency. How long have you been in the business, and how did you get into the business? Do you have any specializations? What gets you excited about insurance?
- Aditya Mehta is the owner of All Coverage insurance in Virginia. The agency was founded in 2008 by his father, who had previously been in the captive market and wanted to be able to provide better service to his customers.
- The agency initially focused on commercial lines, but offers personal lines as well. They focus on the Mid-Atlantic region and have six full-time employees and two virtual agents.
- The agency joined HawkSoft in 2018, and Aditya took ownership of the agency in 2021. Since then, his focus has been on modernizing the agency and streamlining operations, while keeping his father’s ideals of transparency, integrity, and exceptional service.
- Aditya is passionate about the continual innovation in the insurance space, and the opportunities for problem solving with unique situations and coverages, as well technology needs.
- He finds it exciting that the insurance landscape is now starting to see drastic evolution with technology after being starved for technology over the last decades.
“I love the continual innovation that happens in the insurance space, both on the product side and on the capability side...What drives me is the landscape that continually changes.”
Question 2: What was your agency looking for when you first encountered Agave?
- Aditya met Greg at the first HUG conference in 2021. He was looking at payment providers as part of his modernization effort.
- He evaluated a number of payment vendors at the conference and felt Agave stood out due to Greg’s deep personal knowledge of the insurance industry, which allowed him to recommend solutions for Aditya’s specific problems, as well as carriers to partner with.
- Greg mentions that he loves making connections between agencies and others who can help them in the industry, whether or not they’re clients of his.
- Aditya is excited about Agave’s roadmap for integration with HawkSoft and the opportunities it will unlock for the agency.
“I evaluated a lot of payment vendors, and Agave stood out for a number of reasons. Not only did the solution have the capability to meet our needs, but Greg had a depth of experience that could go beyond that solution to help us even after the sale.”
Question 3: What is your agency able to do now with Agave that you couldn't do before?
- Aditya shares that the agency is able to process single payments at a higher limit, rather than having to break them into multiple payments.
- Previously, the agency had multiple systems for credit card processing and ACH, which made it difficult for reconciliation. Now, everything is handled in one location with Agave, which reduces manual entry for the staff.
- Agave also has a self-service customer portal that the agency is planning to implement so that customers can make payments at any time, even before being prompted by the agency.
“Before Agave we had two different systems for credit card processing and for ACH reconciliation and management, and it was a nightmare. How much do we charge through the credit card system? How much do we charge through ACH? How do we balance it? What invoices are outstanding? Having one central place to look for that data and pulling those reports really cut down the operational burden on my staff.”
Question 4: What is one thing that you would change about Agave if you could?
- Aditya mentioned the only thing he feels is missing is integration between Agave and HawkSoft. When customers make payments, he would like them to be logged back into HawkSoft automatically and create a task to close the invoice.
- From a customer perspective, he’d love Agave’s customer portal to be linked to their policy, so the client can see all activity on their policy view any outstanding invoices that need to be paid.
- Integration could also potentially make it possible to have Agave update the amounts being invoiced if the premium changes on a policy.
- Kenny acknowledges Aditya’s desire for integration and mentions that HawkSoft has been in conversation with Agave around this. He shares that one difficulty is that financial services operate very differently than most of HawkSoft’s API partners, and the Partner API is missing functionality in this area.
- HawkSoft’s partner team is making significant progress on API functionality for financial service partners, which will allow access to the data Agave would need for integration.
“There's so much opportunity with integration, like once a payment is made, having it automatically go into HawkSoft and close out the invoice. Somebody on my team has to do that right now, so there’s a lot of opportunity that integration could provide.”
Question 5: How would you describe the value that Agave brings to your agency?
- Aditya points out that the agency processes 100% of their agency bill payments through Agave, which has made a clear difference in the ease of reporting and reconciling payments in one place.
- He also loves the aftersales support and service the agency receives from Agave.
- While the change has been positive for customers, the agency doesn’t force customers to pay digitally. He feels it’s important to allow options for both those who want the convenience of a digital experience, and for those who prefer the service of having it taken care of in the way that’s best for them.
“We literally used to have to take out the fax machine phone line to plug the credit card machine in. It’s a night and day difference. We’re in a different league now.”
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