Allstate Financial launches network for producers. (Technology: Technology Notes).

Allstate Financial, a business unit of the Allstate Corp., recently developed a network technology program for Allstate's national network of 350,000-plus independent producers.

Allstate, which wanted to extend its five existing policy management systems for access by its independent producers, used Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET, the .NET Framework, Windows 2000 Server, SQL Server 2000 and BizTalk Server 2002 to harness the power of extensible markup language Web services along with other technologies, including Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition connectors. Allstate said these technologies enabled the company to integrate its systems and services while achieving its information technology business goals.

AccessAllstate.com was developed as a strategic technology solution to integrate multiple information systems and services to enable producers to more easily transact business with the company. Through the site, agents are able to service accounts, catalog forms, retrieve product and policy information, and access sales support around the clock. This allows agents to not only efficiently service customers, but it helps the company reduce operating costs and increase revenues.

"As of January 2003, 20,000 users were registered to the system, with about 4,000 coming to the site each day," said Patricia Coffey, vice president of technology at Allstate Financial.

In addition to decreasing call center and mailing costs, the ability to cement a relationship with agents and making it easier to do business with them has been possible because of the network, said Coffey.