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Posted on 11 Oct 06
Lanier Upshaw, Inc., an employee-owned agency in Florida, reports doubling their business without huge staff increases through smart investiments in technology and partnering.
Bill Scisciani and the employee-owners at Lanier Upshaw understand that competing in the Insurance industry these days on price alone is not an effective long-term strategy.
“The type of clients that Lanier Upshaw works with such as large property managers and contractors require a very high level of support to produce the many certificates, auto ID cards, and proof of insurance their businesses need to function,” Bill Scisciani, Vice President of Insurance Operations at Lanier Upshaw said. “Our partnership with Artizan is allowing our clients to go online to print these vital documents 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which they want to be able to do,” Scisciani concluded.
Additionally, for many years Lanier Upshaw had an internal claims employee whose primary job was to answer the phones and redirect clients to the carriers they needed to speak with to make a claim on their insurance policy. When this employee moved out of state, it got the leadership of Lanier Upshaw to thinking about a new way to manage that process. “We realized that we had an opportunity to review how we operated in that department,” said Scisciani. “This was a classic case to reinvent ourselves for the betterment of our agency and our clients,” Scisciani continued.
Enter Artizan and their CSR24 product. Now, the routine process of being the first-responder for a claim question is outsourced to Artizan at a greatly reduced cost and expanded 24 hour service. This provides better and more immediate service to clients and allows the agency personnel to focus on the more detailed and service-intensive components of the business.
Lanier Upshaw has been in business since 1941. They have 87 employees who work to service their diverse and growing insurance agency client base. But those 87 folks arent solely employees, they are also owners of the company through Lanier Upshaws visionary Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
This is a unique structure for the insurance industry, but in the case of Lanier Upshaw it has served to make the employees very effective at making their office efficient and customer service focused.
For one example, the agency will now be outsourcing their claims processing
“Our experience in Florida with our partner Insurance agencies is strong and growing,” said Richard Roy, Artizan President and Managing Partner. “Lanier Upshaw, with their innovative and effective approach to customer service, efficiency, and technology, will be a great addition to the Artizan family of agencies, just as they have been to Assurex Global and the Florida Association of Insurance Agents,” Roy concluded.
For additional information on the partnership with Lanier Upshaw and Artizan, visit www.artisan.com.
Service911 and CSR24 are trademarks of Artizan Internet Services, LLC.
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