Policies submitted with wrong or incomplete addresses will experience a delay in processing or rejection/cancellation for lack of underwriting information.

You can use one of many free websites to verify the address such as http://maps.google.com or any of the others.  Thanks!

Policies that have ‘renewed into’ Britecore will be on one Commission Statement which is automatically emailed to you (and looks VERY different from what you are used to seeing). Policies that have NOT renewed into Britecore will be included in on the old statement.

One change you will notice in the new system is that in order to include a commission on the statement the premium has to be paid AND the policy be effective. In the old system, commissions were paid solely of the occurrence of premium payment regardless of when the policy became effective.

This new accounting wrinkle (of which is based in the software) may reduce your commission amount for the first month or so until the accounting catches up with the premium flow.

Once you sign into Britecore at https://meramec.britecore.com ,
you will notice the Dashboard offering you six choices:

1. QUOTES – This option at the present time will link you back to our quoting website at https://iwsquotes.com/meramec where you continue to
   1) quote and submit New Business,
   2) submit Endorsement/Change requests, and
   3) submit Claims.
   Eventually, all this will be integrated into the main Britecore site itself.
2. POLICIES – Here is where you go to view your policies that have ‘renewed into‘ Britecore with effective dates beginning July 1, 2011 and all New Business dated since July 1, 2011.
3. CLAIMS – As mentioned above, Claims are still submitted through the website at iwsquotes.com/meramec like in the past, but all claims associated with policies that have ‘renewed into’ Britecore will show up here.
4. PAYMENTS – Once your agency submits the proper paperwork to do Payment Sweeps, you will be able to do those in this tab. Individual Customer and Agency Payments by eCheck, Debit, and Credit Cards are still accomplished through the Payment page at iwsquotes.com/meramec as usual.
5. STATS – Here you can go to get information on Loss Ratio, Commissions, and Application Volume. Again, this will build over time as business is renewed into Britecore and claims associated with those policies merge in.
6. SETTINGS – This is where to go to change your Login Name and Password. Due to the sensitive nature of the information of your clients in Britecore, we recommend frequent changes to your password.

1. Gives you a level of protection in the event of an E&O Claim by logging in the exact time and date of the submission.
2. Gives you control to advise your insured. Many times we get claims submitted that are below the insured’s deductible. This is a waste of time for the insured and it immediately causes them to lose their CLAIMS FREE DISCOUNT.  This causes insureds to get very angry at you, the agent, for not warning them when they get no payment and then get surcharged on top of it.
3. Gives us a level of protection as well and allows us to closely document times by which we are expected (statutorily) to comply.
4. Immediately informs our Claims Manager via Text Message of your claim submission. We have many instances where the insured was contacted within moments by our staff AND many have been seen the VERY SAME DAY. This provides immediate service that is second to NONE in the insurance industry.

So, please do NOT have the insured call our office. As you can see, using our system benefits everyone and speeds up the entire process.

Thanks for working with us in this matter.

• To view, simply left-click and it will open up in this window.
• To save it to your computer, right-click and “Save As” onto your computer for future reference….

2011 Underwriting Rules

This PDF file is also available on the page above under the REFERENCES tab.

Q: What’s wrong with the stories we hear about the 1811 and 1812 New Madrid earthquakes?

Seth Stein: A lot of what you hear is hype. For example, you hear that these were the biggest earthquakes that ever hit the U.S. In fact there are about 15 earthquakes of the same magnitude somewhere in the world every year. Similarly, the story that they rang church bells in Boston isn’t true. Actually, there’s no record that anyone in Boston felt them. There’s also the story that the Indian chief Tecumseh predicted them. Actually, after the earthquakes he told his followers that they proved that the Great Spirit was on the Indians’ side.

Q: The government says that earthquakes will again happen in the Midwest and cause a huge natural disaster unless we start preparing now. Why do you disagree?

S.S.: Twenty years ago every geologist thought that. We knew there had been big earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, and geological studies showed that there had been earthquakes in about 1450 and 900 AD. So it looked like earthquakes happen about every 500 years. We couldn’t test that idea until about 1990, when the Global Positioning System–GPS–came along. That let us put markers in the ground and measure the position of the Midwestern fault lines using a fancier version of the GPS systems used in cars and cell phones. Geologists started making measurements near faults all around the world where there was a history of earthquakes. They discovered you could measure the ground moving as it stored up energy for a future earthquake. To our surprise, measurements at the New Madrid earthquake zone showed that the ground wasn’t moving. We concluded there is no sign that a big Midwestern earthquake is on the way.

Q: Don’t the small earthquakes happening in the Midwest today prove that a huge one is coming? S.S.: Our results show that most of those small earthquakes are aftershocks of the big earthquakes from 200 years ago. It makes sense because they happen on the faults we think moved 200 years ago.

Q: How can it be that the New Madrid fault is no longer active?

S.S.: The idea that faults can turn on and off seems surprising, but it’s catching on quickly for a couple of reasons.

First, it explains a lot of the puzzles about New Madrid. We know that the faults at New Madrid are hundreds of millions of years old, but throughout their history they haven’t moved most of the time. If faults move a lot they make topography like mountains, and the Midwest is some of the flattest land in the country. It didn’t square with what we see.

Second, once geologists started looking, we realized that faults within other continents–China, Europe, and Australia–also switch on and off.

Q: Knowing this, how can the government claim that the Midwest is in as much earthquake danger as California?

S.S.: That conclusion made sense with what we knew 20 years ago, but we know so much more now. Now it looks like the danger of earthquakes in the Midwest is about 1/10th that of California’s. Of course, we’ll keep studying the area, but from what we know there is no point rushing into expensive California-level preparations. More modest preparations would cost less and let resources be used other ways that do more good.

Q: Even if the risk is much less than the government says, doesn’t it make sense to prepare

S.S.: Remember President Reagan’s line that the scariest phrase in the English language is “we’re from the government and we’re here to help.” The problem is that the preparations the government wants communities and business to take are very expensive. Bringing one hospital in Memphis up to California standards cost about 100 million dollars. Bringing all the buildings in the area up to this standard would take billions of dollars. Spending that money on other social needs would do a lot more good. Similarly, requiring businesses to spend money this way is a huge tax with little benefit. It’s likely that many buildings in California will be seriously shaken by an earthquake during their lives, while a building in the Midwest is very unlikely to be.

Q: So, what’s your overall advice about Midwest earthquakes?

S.S.: We should keep learning more about them, but don’t need to rush into expensive precautions. The government is pushing communities to spend money that can be better utilized elsewhere for greater social good. As the old joke goes, “do you want it right or do you want it now?”

Now, when you make a Change / Endorsement to a client’s policy, you will receive a return email outlining the changes you’ve requested.

And, it  has worked.

• Since September 2007, we have experienced 53% growth in our total policy count.
• Since September 2007, we have increased Policyholder Surplus by 53% and Company Assets by 64%
• With a better experience with our reinsurer, our reinsurance costs are down to  24.2% of our Total Assessments (Premium) (down from 31% in 2000) and we have dropped our Total Expenses (as a percentage of Total Assessments) as well.

We are more financially sound now than at any time in our company’s history and are looking forward to many more years of solid growth!  Thanks to all the agents who have helped us by writing solid profitable policies.

THE FIX?

When you want to make a payment and you are not signing on right then and there, we recommend you quickly log OUT and log in right before you make the payment.

We are talking to the programmers now to see if there is anything else we can do to remedy this situation. When we find this out, we’ll let you know.

If you do not get a CONFIRMATION screen pop up after making the payment, you cannot assume that the payment went through. Call our office if you have any doubts about the success of a payment.