Think about some of the interactions with your own insurance agent. You probably know what carrier you use for most of your policies, and even refer to your agent as a representative of that carrier. Some examples of major carriers of auto insurance in the United States are Farmers, State Farm, or Prudential, while in Europe or Latin America you may be familiar with Allianz or AXA. You may have also noticed that if you ask your agent about a new type of policy, such as adding an umbrella or motorcycle policy, he or she may recommend a policy from a completely different carrier. This happens because your agent knows that one carrier may not be the best solution for all types of policies, so they are authorized to sell policies from multiple carriers.
Why is this important? It means the relationship between carriers and agents can be quite complex. APMe manages this by replacing a single entity, the Agent, with three distinct but interrelated entities: the Producer, the Broker, and the Vendor.
As we just saw, a Producer is any entity that sells the carrier’s products, and therefore needs to have the appropriate credentials. These may include licenses, appointments, or continuing education credits. The link between a broker and a producer is done through the L&C Number field on the main broker screen.
A Broker in APM is the entity that is assigned to a customer as part of the Book of Business functionality; in other words, when they sell a policy. The Broker screens and fields may be labelled as "Producer..." but the screen is actually tied to the Broker entity in APM.
Note that the broker and the producer may or may not be the same person or corporate entity, but in APM they are stored as separate entities.
The Vendor (often called Payee or Pay Entity) is the entity which receives the payment voucher. The Broker and Vendor may or may not be the same corporate entity in the real world; similarly, in APMe they can be the same or separate entities.
There are numerous ways these three entities can be related to each other. For example, a single individual can be a broker, producer and vendor. A vendor can be related to a single broker, or related to multiple brokers.
To clarify, let’s go back to the example of Max Martinez. Max is a producer, because he has the qualifications to sell products. He is also a broker, because he has a relationship with the customers to whom he is selling these products. Finally, he is a vendor, because he receives a payment for these sales.
In contrast, Saber Management is only a vendor, because the agency only receives payment.
NoteThat's not to say that Saber Management couldn't also be a producer or broker, but in this case the agent only plays the role of the payee/vendor.
How do you know if the record you are viewing is a producer or a broker, if they can be one and the same? The easiest way to tell is the L&C Number field on the record. This field is the unique identifier for the producer. If the producer and broker are the same, the L&C Number will be the same as the Producer ID. If the producer and broker are not the same, the L&C Number will be different.
Select the link 'Brokers, Producers and Vendors' to get more information.
The Producer record shows basic information about each producer, including status, producer type, and contact information.
To view the broker information, select the Producer Details tab at the top of the form.
The details show information such as effective date, business type, and producer status. You can also add or view the upline producer, which represents the entity above the current producer in the hierarchy.
