Percent of business in Illinois by line:
Personal: 100%

Are you currently appointing new agents? Yes, selectively.

What type of agency is your company looking for? Professional agents with a history of profitability looking to a partner with a company to grow their business.

What are your premium volume requirements? $250,000 in written premium for personal lines.

Are you currently doing any niche-marketing program? Drive One is a driver improvement program that is offered exclusively through MetLife Auto & Home. Agents can offer their prospects and clients the unique opportunity to save up to 10% on their premium for 3 years by completing a home video Life Saving Defensive Driver Course.

What is your company's most aggressive line of business? We have a broad portfolio of competitive products. Our most aggressive line of business is automobile.

Do you use credit scoring? Yes - on new and renewal.

Do you currently download/upload with your agencies? Yes.

What methods do you use to distribute your insurance products? Approximately 85% of our personal lines business in Illinois is written through Independent Agencies. We also sell through our Group Account and captive agents.

What do you think makes your company different, or stand out from all the rest in Illinois? Why would an agent want to contract with your company? We offer our Independent Agencies unique revenue opportunities such as access to our Financial Service products. We offer a strong brand identity, outstanding service through local and regional offices; marketing managers dedicated to personal lines; differentiated personal lines products; and we are committed to the use of automation to improve efficiencies for both the agency and the company.

What are the major ways in which you are interfacing electronically with your agents today? Are you pleased with the results? MetLife Auto & Home interfaces with it's agent population by using ARS (Agent Resource Site), our internet-based suite of agent tools. Agents are able to submit new business (Quote & App), as well as perform Servicing, Reporting, and Billing functionality. Bridging capability with ARS is also available (based on state). Also, MetLife Auto & Home offers Download capability to our agent population.

Are you planning enhancements in these interfaces in the future? MetLife Auto & Home is continuing to work with agent panels as well as internal business partners to enhance and improve ARS. We are keeping an eye on the industry regarding trends and technology, and are planning enhancements within ARS. These enhancements are intended to assist the agent with Ease Of Doing Business, Billing, Enhanced Communication, Documents & Forms, States & Products not currently supported, Manual Conditions, User-controlled Underwriting, and Bridging.

ACT Perspective:
oAssist agencies with the implementation and effective utilization of all company applications. As a company, MetLife Auto & Home utilizes the Agency Interface organization to accomplish this. Our teams work to assist in developing applications, training agents, communicating releases, and monitoring the site utilization. MetLife Auto & Home supports a 1-800 number set up exclusively for agent technology questions, assistance and advice. A team within Agency Interface also trains agents on our technology using internet-based tools such as Placeware. We also consistently host technology panels where we gather agent feedback on our tools and work to implement enhancements based on their feedback.

oCooperate with vendors creating integrated environments for agents. Each Agency Interface team within MetLife Auto & Home is responsible for vendor contracts and relationships, as well as working with the vendors to assess new agent products.

oProvide consumer services agents can integrate into their out-facing services. MetLife Auto & Home is developing an e-Business site and strategy that agents will be able to utilize.

oDevelop single-step workflow and make it available to agency multi-company environments (as at least one channel of deployment). As a company, we offer this capability through one-step bridging to those agents electing to take advantage of the service.

oWork with agents and vendors to better manage mid to large commercial insurance processes through collaborative computing. Not applicable to us, as we are a Personal Lines provider.

oProvide information on computing through a variety of channels and devices. Our overall strategy is based on continued development and utilization of our internet-based Agent Resource Site (ARS). We are also actively investigating industry SEMCI offerings.

oWork with agents and vendors to implement computer-based personalized marketing and sales. The Agent Resource Site provides access to all of our marketing materials, brochures, and forms for our Independent Agents. Quote proposals also contain personalized agency name and address information.

oDevelop a business strategy that strengthens your agency business partners and their brands through company and agency use of the Internet. We have developed an Agency website locator that identified our independent agents within a specific geographic area. Also, Independent Agents that are licensed to sell MetLife financial products have access to those products from the Agent Resource Site.

oParticipate in industry dialogue and search for common ground. We are actively represented within ACT, as well as several key industry councils and User Groups.

oKeep abreast of legislative issues that may affect the use and implementation of technology by agents, companies, and/or vendors. We schedule and attend all major industry conferences, including ACT, AMSUG, ASCnet, ACORD and IVANS, as well as regional conferences and User Groups.