Percent of business in Illinois by line:
Commercial: 83% Personal: 15% Life/Annuity: 2%

Are you currently appointing new agents? Yes, on a limited and selective basis.

What type of agency is your company looking for? Well-established agencies that have a proven history of profitability, solid growth pattern, and plans for perpetuation.

What are your premium volume requirements? Our profit sharing level for property and casualty is $150,000 of written premium; life is $5,000 of earned calendar year commission.

Are you currently doing any niche-marketing program? We are considered to be a generalist company and don't have any niche programs.

What is your company's most aggressive line of business? Small package automotive risks and artisan contractors.

Do you use credit scoring? Yes, we use credit scoring for new business as only a part of our underwriting process.

Do you currently download/upload with your agencies? Yes. Personal lines and on a limited basis with commercial lines.

What methods do you use to distribute your insurance products? We are committed exclusively to independent agents distribution system.

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? Besides competitive products and outstanding personnel, we have a profit sharing agreement that out performs most of our competitors if the agency is profitable and grows. We feel we have the ability to be flexible and develop long lasting relationships with our agents.

If we had agents agree to sell homeowners policies with actual cash value endorsements, would you write more business in southern Illinois? We don't make underwriting decisions based on geographical location. If we had an ACV endorsement, we would offer it in the entire state.

What are the major ways in which you are interfacing electronically with your agents today? We are interfacing through IVANS and our website. Even though the IVANS system has been successful, we feel website interfacing will have the best results in the future.

Are you planning enhancements in these interfaces in the future? We are moving towards application entry on our proprietary website for personal lines policies. This along with upload from Applied and AMS/AFW management systems will be the only source. WE will then no longer accept paper applications.

ACT Perspective: This is a very complicated issue. The industry has been going round and round trying to come up with a solution that will allow SEMCI, which is a taboo word these days. The more politically correct title is "Once and Done". The goal of entering information only once is complicated by the fact that various systems can't communicate and the cost factors are high. The cost has been pushed from the agency to the company to the vendors, etc. No one is really willing to take on the entire cost and it is often not feasible to share the costs. Real time doesn't seam to be a huge factor at this point in time for our agencies as far as issuing policies. Many companies have legacy system that batch process and it would be a major undertaking to change that. We are not saying that it is a bad idea, but it would be a tremendous cost and effort. The Internet is a tempting media because it is free, but there are security concerns. We do have real time rating available.

The past cooperation to develop standards has allowed the current system to work, but we think most people would agree that it has not met its expectations. The key is that we must have cooperation and agreement among all groups for this to work. The past track record is marred with examples of individual groups doing their own thing. That is capitalism and we feel that it will always stand in the way of a single solution for the Industry. Our company has tried to go with the Industry standards and we aren't satisfied. We are working on proprietary solution at this time, but we are always open to new and better solutions. We feel that this is the best position at this time.

Additional Comments: United Fire and Casualty has 40 agencies in Illinois-10 of those are in Chicago. The company's total premium in Illinois is 23 million.