Agency Administration

Agency/Commission Processing

• Online creation, maintenance, and inquiry of Agent Master Files with results of changes and additions immediately available to New Business and Policy Administration.

• Ability to indicate agent status: active, terminated, terminated with full vesting, terminated without vesting, or other user-defined status.

• Tracking of agent license renewal dates.

• Ability to generate agent production history or agent earnings for specific categories and timeframes.

• Processing of miscellaneous charges and credits that can be used to adjust agent's balance or adjust both the balance and the earnings shown in the agent's account.

• Recording of writing agent number on a policy.

• Flexibility to run advances and commissions independently of each other. Advances and commissions can be run on any desired frequency.

• Advances can differ by line of business, level, and contract.

• Advances and commissions reported with or without generating accounting transactions.

• Creation of check extracts or EFT payments, as desired.

• Ability to recover debit balances from both advances and commissions.

• Ability to limit the amount of advance per application by agent.

• Ability to assign commission expense accounts that vary by line of business, duration, and tax qualification.

• Ability to make manual advance and commission adjustments, including any necessary manual accounting entries, agent balance changes, and advance history changes independent of commission runs.

• Agent income tracked from all sources (including payroll) on a period-to-date and year-to-date basis. Advance earnings and commission earnings can be reported separately.

• Consolidated agents' commission statements for all plans of insurance.

• Ability to set minimum check amount rules.

• Automatic generation of commission accounting.

• 1099 reporting

Agent Master File

The Agent Master File contains general information about each insurance salesperson. When agents are associated with new applications or policies, agent information is validated against this file. User-controlled rules specify the minimum amount of information needed to define an agent.

The Agent Master File typically includes:

• Name

• Addresses

• Phone Numbers

• Social Security Number

• Agent ID Number

• Effective Date of Contract

• Hierarchy

• Federal Tax ID Number

• Agent YTD Earnings

• Agent Debit Balance

• Statement Frequency

• Date Appointed

• Advance Rules

• Currency Code

• Agent Status and Date

• Licensing State(s)

• Effective Date of License By State

• Renewal Date of License by State

• NIPR Number

Agent Access

FIMMAS can provide online system access to your agents, brokers, and other authorized remote users. With proper security clearance, field personnel can inquire into policy and customer information, enter data, run reports and extracts, and download information for analysis.

Menus and screens for remote offices can be tailored to show only those fields and functions for which the remote user has security clearance. Reports can be generated and printed at the user location, with significant savings in time and expense. This facilitates strong central control for security, auditing, and data integrity; while giving users maximum flexibility, increased productivity, and fast, accurate service.

Commissions

Flexible Commission Rules

FIMMAS supports commission processing for all product lines. Commission master files include agent master information, agent financial information and statements, hierarchy information, commission rate files, and commission history files. Commission rates can be designated for Gross or Net commissioning and can vary by plan, marketing organization, age, duration, agent level, face amount band, date range, substandard rating, premium type, and agent situations. Commission structures can be tailored to a specific agent on a product level, if desired.

User-defined rules specify how commissions are calculated. Commission calculations can be used to make commission payments directly out of FIMMAS, or as a comparison to commissions calculated by various carriers.

 

Flexible Hierarchies

Up to nine agents can be associated with one hierarchy. Multiple reporting hierarchies can be defined and used concurrently, and can include platform staff, sales assistants, sales representatives, agents, and branch management for commission splits. Hierarchies can be date banded.

 

Split Commissions

Allows up to ten writing agents on a policy or group. Each writing agent may have a different reporting hierarchy.

 

Production Splits

Production credit may be split among writing agents. Splits for production credit do not have to be the same as for commissions, and can be allocated in any way that adds up to 100%. First year and renewal production can also vary between writing agents.

 

Commission Scales

There is no limit to the number of different commission scales. Each combination of benefit, marketing organization, and commission situation code can point to different commission tables, including target, excess, and asset-based.

 

Commission Rate Flexibility

Commission rates can vary by:

• Plan or Benefit

• Marketing Organization

• Age

• Duration

• Agent Level

• Volume Band

• Date Band

• Substandard Rating

• Premium Type

• Agent Situation

 

Regular and Excess Premium

FIMMAS makes distinctions between regular and excess premiums for calculating commissions, using different commission rate tables for the different premium components.

 

Advances

FIMMAS calculates submitted advances and placed advances. Advance rules can vary by marketing organization, plan, product, group, or agent.

 

Chargebacks

Chargebacks are calculated according to user maintained rules.

 

Statement Flexibility

Commission statements can be run at any desired frequency: weekly, monthly, etc.

 

Policy Level Tracking

FIMMAS tracks all items affecting commissions—including advances—at the policy level.

 

Expenses/Adjustments

Entries for expenses and commission adjustments can be made as needed.

 

Debit Balances

FIMMAS calculates interest on debit balances and keeps Debit Balance History to facilitate analysis by agent.

 

Commission History

FIMMAS keeps commission history and statement history online for any desired period of time. This information is available for online inquiry and reporting.

 

Flexible Reporting

All detail and summary information in the database is available for online inquiry and standard or on-demand reports. Reports can include information about group and individual sales, persistency, and not taken/placed lives, premiums, and volume. Reports can provide information by agent, geographic area, state, plan, date, marketing organization, or other user-specified variables.

New reports or queries can be designed at any time for any information in the database. Comparisons to prior periods can be defined to meet new situations. New data selection/sort options and special format requirements are easily handled.

Flexible Marketing Organizations

An agent can belong to multiple marketing organizations. Different hierarchies can be active at the same time, based on different marketing organization relationships and commission situation codes.

Agent Financial Statements

FIMMAS generates an agent statement for each agent, listing all commission transactions; including totals of premiums and commissions for the statement period, year-to-date totals, debit balances, etc. FIMMAS readily interfaces with external check writing or accounts payable systems to produce checks, handle EFT payments, or to extract information for reconciliation against carrier-calculated commissions.

Detailed agent financial information is available for online inquiry and reporting.

 

Commission Blocks

Commission blocks provide special support for group product commissions. Benefits within a group can be paid to different agents, accumulated differently, or paid via different rules. For example, through commission blocks, the same agent can be paid for individual and group products, each with different commission rules.

 

Distributed Access to Information

With proper security clearance, field personnel can inquire into policy and customer information, enter data, run reports and extracts, and download information for analysis. These capabilities require no special upgrades or equipment: standard PCs provide the needed access. FIMMAS also provides control features at multiple levels to ensure system integrity and security. All agency support information is, of course, also available online from the home office.  Menus and screens for remote offices can be tailored to show only those fields and functions for which the remote user has security clearance.