Individual Associations

Numerous states require carriers and firms to track and manage agent-to-agency affiliations. Some states allow firms to share an appointment with affiliated individual producers, allowing the agents to conduct business under the firm's appointment and potentially reducing a carrier's appointment fees in those states.

Use the Individual Associations data section of a firm producer record to review information about agency's or brokerage's active and inactive associations or affiliations with individual producers.

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To review a producer's Individual Associations, click the Individual Associations link in the Quick Links box of a firm producer record that is open in the Review/Update Producer page.

The Individual Associations data section offers the following controls:

  • Add New Individual Association: Click to open the Add Individual Firm Association/Association State page, where you can add a new association between the selected firm and an individual producer.

  • Add New Individual Association or State Association: Click to open the Add Individual Firm Association/Association State page, where you can add a new association state to an existing association between the selected firm and an individual producer.

  • View Individual Associations: Click to open theIndividual Associations Inquirypage, where you can view a roster of individual producers associated with the selected firm.

  • Terminate a State Association: Click to open the Terminate Individual Firm Association State page, where you can inactivate an association between the selected firm and an individual producer in a selected association state.

  • Correct Association Data: Click to open the Correct State Association Data page, where you can hard-correct or "data fix" individual-to-firm association information in a selected association state.

Warnings

All data that is added or updated using this page will apply only to the affected record in Producer Manager. The data will not be transmitted directly from Producer Manager to states nor update state records.

Notes

Note: A list of individual affiliations does not display directly in the Individual Associations section of a firm producer record. To view a roster of individual producers associated with a selected firm, click the View Individual Associations link. The Individual Associations Inquiry page will open, where you can compile a list of associated individual producers in a separate window.

Note: When a producer holds at least one active individual-to-firm association in a state, the Status field in the Details data section of the Individuals recorded in Producer Manager as being actively associated with a firm may be selected to be included on a shared firm appointment request submitted to Arkansas. A shared appointment requires the selection of at least one affiliated (associated) individual producer, typically an agency principal. Once a firm's shared appointment request is submitted, the shared appointment automatically will populate the Appointments data section of the selected individual's producer's record and the firm record. For more information, see Add Appointments.

Note: producer's record will hold a value of Active. This condition persists even after the producer no longer holds an active state appointment. To set the Status field to Inactive, you must terminate all active appointments and individual-to-firm associations.

Note: You may submit a firm association transaction to certain states using the Vertafore Compliance Express Individual Association Maintenance service. To access the service through Producer Manager, select Service Requests from the Express Services menu, and then click the Association Maintenance - Individual link. For more information, see Service Requests and Compliance Express Online Help.

Note: When you add an association between an individual producer and a firm, and the associated firm has an active agreement, the system automatically will add an indirect agreement with the associated firm to the Agreements data section of the individual producer's record. Note, however, that if you terminate the association, the system will not automatically inactivate the individual producer's indirect agreement with the associated firm.

Tips

Firm association information can be loaded to a batch of producer records through a custom data load, performed by Vertafore Managed Services. For more information, consult your Vertafore representative.

Individual-to-firm affiliations recorded in the Individual Associations data section is just one way to track producer relationships in Producer Manager. Depending on your business objectives, you may also use Business Units, Agreements, External System IDs, and Locations and Departments to logically group and record business connections among individual and firm producers.