My First Toastmasters Speech

Posted on December 5, 2012 Written by Nibby Priest

The first of November we started trying to organize a Toastmaster group here in Henderson KY. I have nothing but praise to say about this organization and those that are working to get Henderson KY Toastmasters a fully chartered chapter.

Thank you Louann Clark for all your efforts in getting this club going in our community. We need 20 members to charter and we are very close to that goal.

I volunteered on November 28, 2012 to give my ice breaker speech. In Toastmasters, the Ice Breaker speech is usually the first one people do, and it is one where you talk about yourself and your life.

If you know me well, you know that I love Dolly Parton- so my speech was about her but really not- it was about me!

“The Day I Met Dolly Parton”

It was spring of 1986 and the opening weekend of Dollywood – my senior year at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond Kentucky. I had earlier attended and graduated from our Henderson Community College with an associate of arts degree in 1984 and prior to that a 1982 alumni Henderson County Senior High. Ok so you don’t have to do the math, I am 48 years old.

That spring weekend in April of 1986 was a beautiful weekend. It was the weekend before the last finals of my college career.

I arrived in Pigeon Forge TN early that Friday afternoon to grab a good spot to see Dolly, who was giving a benefit concert that evening. I did manage to study some and I found myself shoving my books under the seat just moments before she came on the stage.

Well, in case you haven’t figured it out yet –I have a lifelong admiration for the superstar Dolly Parton. I like her not only because of who she is or her music but how she handles herself and shows genuine kindness. Like one of her quotes say- she has a brain under that blonde wig and a heart under those boobs!

I have met Dolly several times over the years and always am taken by her gentleness and her quick wit.

When it came my turn to greet her one time at a benefactor luncheon, she saw my name tag and asked, “Where did you get a name like Nibby?” I knew she didn’t have a long time, and I offered her a quick response, and since Dolly wanted to know I will share it with you all as well.

My parents Norris and Mary Elizabeth Priest were married in August of 1958 at the First Baptist Church –the same one I am proud to say that I was raised in.

They moved to an apartment in the 300 block of N Main St. They were quickly told of the McLaughlin spinster sisters that lived next door and that they were sometimes cranky and hard to get along with.

That didn’t bother my parents.

They heard that one of the sister’s Miss Elizabeth was having a birthday. My mother as a young bride baked Miss Elizabeth a birthday cake. The rest was history. My parents quickly became the best of friends to the old maid sisters. Miss Elizabeth died shortly after that and left Miss Mable. Later, my mother became pregnant with me. Miss Mable was so excited. Her middle name was Nisbet and my parents gave me her middle name. She before I was born shorten the name to just plain Nibby. Over the years the name like my personality has been unusual and memorable. Even Dolly thought it was unusual.

In 1988 personal computers were the rage. I had the Computery a personal and business computer store here in our downtown. Many Henderson people had their first encounter with PC’s through that store. I taught over 2000 people from 1986 to 1994 how to use such software as WordPrefect and Lotus 1-2-3 at HCC.

My interests are quite varied. The past few years I have been doing a lot of work with social media. Twitter is my favorite. Through social media, I have met a lot of nice people and one of them is with us here today, Becky Durham. Social media has taught me to think some before I speak. Though social media I have become more aware of our community Henderson, and all that it has to offer. I have become a community advocate and voice for all things Henderson and of the downtown area.

I really enjoy bicycles and enjoy riding every chance I get. I am a bicycle to work commuter– I know I just have less than two-tenths of a mile commute if that.

I enjoy food and good cooking. The past two years I have participated in the areas only CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).

I built a unique home on the downtown river front in 2004. Downtown living is the best, I feel that in the next few years, there is going to be huge movement to downtown communities from subdivision dwellers.

My faith community means a lot to me. I am staff organist and member of Community Baptist Church. I have had an organ playing job in various churches for over 28 years.

I sell insurance- auto homeowners business life and health. I work in my family insurance agency Vaughn Insurance. My college degree from Eastern Kentucky University is in Insurance.

My family also owns the L&N Bed and Breakfast. Both businesses are on North Main Street.

I have been involved in numerous organizations in Henderson. OVAL, DHP, Chamber, Friends of the Library. In 2007 my family and I were awarded the Heart of Downtown Award from Downtown Henderson Partnership.

My biggest goal right now is to strategic plan for the insurance agency’s future and to encourage young professionals that Henderson Kentucky is a place to put down your roots and stay.

A question that Dolly Parton gets often is “What do you want people to say about you 100 years from now?” in her countrified voice, she quips “’dang, doesn’t she look good for her age?” I don’t know if I want to “look good at 100” but I sure do hope Henderson Kentucky does.

AMS360 and the iPad

Posted on February 20, 2012 Written by Nibby Priest

Writers Note: This blog post is written for those in the insurance sales and technology industry, the rest of you may not find it interesting. However, If you need an insurance rate quote, please contact me.

I have really been pressing Vertafore to be more iPad friendly over the past few years. What I really would like to do on my iPad with Vertafore AMS360 is simply this:

Look up a client name, phone, email and or address
Verify policies in force
Record an activity and or look up previous activities
See existing claims

Really my list of requirements are rather simple and basic. I was glad to find out today that some of this I can do. I tried it and it does work. It is much faster however from a workstation and fully functioning computer.

Vertafore’s official word to me about their support for AMS360 and the iPad is this:

With AMS360 v6.0 you can launch your browser on your iPad or ANY mobile device with any browser to login to AMS360 and navigate within web-forms ( AMS360 web-forms are pages that have an actual URL address in AMS360, like Centers ). This means navigating from Center to Center and ability to launch a dec page. That is the extent of AMS360 functionality and usability with any tablets, be that an iPad or Samsung Galaxy.

This means the win-forms (the pages in AMS360 where you enter or edit data and have no URL address) will not load on these tables. Win-forms require AMS360 Client REV 3 and Net 3.5 sp1 and these component do not load onto tablets, UNLESS, they’re loaded on tablets with Windows Operating System.

The only way to fully utilize AMS360 on iPad or similar tables is to use any remoting apps ( like LogME in, Webex, PocketCloud, etc… ) which connects you to your local desktop at the office, and there are many apps like those. You may want to check several threads on NetVU NCOM for those who have tested and are currently running these environments.

Other than that, there are no immediate development plans for full AMS360 compatibility with any Apple products.

Read Vertafore press release about Vertafore AMS360 v6.0 and that it Delivers Enhanced user Experience and Mobile Access.

GoVaughn.com Insurance has used Vertafore systems since 1974. The vendor has had many names (Safecom, AGENA, AMS now Vertafore).

Below is a promotional video that Vertafore has released about using AMS360 with a iPad.

[tentblogger-youtube KutPRUMXQ4s]

How would you like to see AMS360 work on a iPad? Have you tried the option above? Has it worked well for you?

Vertafore PL Rating vs. Semcat Quoting Solution

Posted on September 23, 2011 Written by Nibby Priest

Note: This blog post is written for those in the insurance sales and technology industry, the rest of you may not find it interesting. However, If you need an insurance rate quote, please contact me.

This week our local group of independent insurance agents met for our bi monthly agent’s meeting. One of the topics for discussion was comparative rating applications that we all were using. There were five agencies represented.

One agency spoke up and said they were trying out a product that I had never heard of called Semcat Quoting Solution. I immediately came back to the office and did a little research on Semcat and from their website signed up for a 2-week trial. I was promptly called (less than 10 minutes) by Brandon (did not give his last name) about my inquiry. He was quick to offer me a screen sharing overview of how Semcat did comparative personal lines’ rating.

In my brief overview (less than 30 minutes) of the Semcat Quoting Solution, I saw several things that I really liked. They have 100% accuracy. That is a true statement because they get the rates direct from the company website. I liked that they can connect with my agency management system Vertafore AMS360.

They have a feature called “pipeline” (sales management) where they can track the sales process.

They track who was quoted, and if they made a purchase or not. They have a module that reports what agents are using the quoting software, what insuring companies are winning most of the quotes and other helpful statistics about the quoting/sales process. This feature is nice to see who in your agency is using the rater and who is not. These reports are complete with color graphs and charts.

Semcat has a nice and robust password manager for all your partner companies and keeps them in one place for ready access and updating. The service interface was clean and easy to navigate.

They connect to many Internet lead generators such as NetQuote. I have used NetQuote in the past but the leads I consistently received in my area were poor.

In a nutshell, how their system works is that you enter the rating information into their thin client site/desktop application, and then you open respective tabs for a insurance company (again inside their thin client software). When you open the tab for the company that company’s agents portal website appears, and the client data is prefilled to the site. Very similar to the way a longstanding software Roboform works. They call this technology “Data Streaming.” Semcat speed types all the information from the data entry screen to the companies’ site. On particular fields that the information is unknown Semcat highlights the information, and this gives the agent the ability to complete the missing or inaccurate company-specific

Each company is then quoted separately. Vertafore PL Rater quotes all companies at one time. This to me is a disadvantage and time waster for Semcat to request each company quote separately, but then again, it is a 100% accurate quote because it is on the insuring companies’ site.

Semcat offers link to capture quote requests from the agency website at no additional charge. When a client completes that form on the agency website, an email notification is sent to the agency and preloaded information is loaded into the quoting engine. This form does not give the client a rate quote- it only gets their basic information. Vertafore’s Consumer Rate Quote product does give an auto rate with four of our partner companies immediately. See an example of this working on the GoVaughn.com Insurance site.

Some things that I didn’t too much care for with Semcat was that they require you to install a small thin client application on your workstation and get to their services through that client. The processing and rating are actually taking place on their servers using a browser they dictate (a customized Mozilla browser). I really like using my own browser either it be IE9, Chrome or Foxfire. We as agents need to insist that all insurance agency applications be a browser agnostic. I want to use an Apple Mac Book Pro so bad in the agency.

Semcat also lacks the ability to query and enter automobiles information and drivers in the household. With Vertafore PL Rating once you enter client’s personal information the site automatically goes out to respective databases and pulls all vehicles (with VIN numbers) and drivers in household (with the birthdays and driver’s license number) into the quoting site. Agents don’t have to retype or even ask for that information. This really helps the quoting process go faster since many prospective clients requesting rate quotes do not have all information for every auto and driver in the household. It is now easier than ever to quote a personal lines home and auto. With the data services that Vertafore PL Rating offers all we need to know to quote both home and auto are: Name, Address, Birthday and possibly Social Security Number- the rest of the information is entered automatically to PL Rating.

It is true that the Vertafore Personal Lines Rater (true product name Vertafore PL Rater) once was a bad, cumbersome and inaccurate product but over the past two years they have really stepped up to the plate and offered a stellar service to us agents who use it. Our agency quotes every personal lines risk with this software and highly recommend Vertafore’s PL Rater to any agency looking for a comparative rating solution. If you are an agency that has not tried Vertafore PL Rating recently you owe it to yourself to give them a second look.

The success of this product is mainly due to the many insurance companies signing on with them to provide real-time rates. Many of the companies have complained about the exuberant costs involved in getting their systems talking to Vertafore PL Rater. Some company’s large national companies have even said the costs are well over $100,000. The companies are putting a lot of money into these systems, and they expect us agents to be using them and quoting all of them every single time. Vertafore maintains a list of insurance companies that are offering real-time comparative rating.

If you are looking forward to buying a comparative rater for your agency, you might be interested in purchasing The Anderson Report on Premium Comparison Systems, 3rd Edition by Steve Anderson. Steve writes many publications that review many of the Premium Comparison Systems available to agents nationwide.

GoVaughn.com Insurance has used Vertafore systems since 1974. The vendor has had many names (Safecom, AGENA, AMS now Vertafore).

Tell me about your agency’s experience using Comparative Raters?

See video below about the Vertafore PL Rating Product.

[tentblogger-youtube scJN4zn2JFE]

So Me For the Good

Posted on August 16, 2011 Written by Nibby Priest

“Social media tools have changed the way I communicate and network for the good. They have opened doors and started conversations that never would have opened otherwise.”

Nibby Priest, as quoted by Travelers Insurance in their social media guides for agents.