EZLynx : Everything you need to know

EZLynx: Everything you need to know

About EZLynx

EZLynx is an insurance agency software provider. Since opening its doors in 2003, the firm has set out to address the key challenges and pain-points impacting the independent agent in the P&C industry.

The Lewisville, Texas-based insurance technology firm states its mission is to streamline agency workflows and to “fully automate the exchange of information between the insurance carrier, independent agent, and end-consumer.” To achieve that goal, EZLynx provides solutions that reach every aspect of agency life, including: comparative rating, consumer-facing quoting & self-service, customer life-cycle management, automated email marketing, and website solutions.

How did EZLynx begin?

Chief executive Nag Rao described the birth of the firm as “truly one of those instances where a solution met a problem.” He added: “I was working on an idea that involved understanding the internals of a web application and at about the same time a current EZLynx carrier sales representative came up with this idea of building a new system to help agents input quote data once and get multiple rates. Something about the idea really appealed to me.”

Rao came up with the idea for EZLynx in early 2003, and the team developed a full working prototype late that year. The first customer signed on in early 2004.

In March 2021, insurance software company Applied Systems completed the acquisition of EZLynx. The deal was first announced in January 2021.

Below is a list of EZLynx’s core products.

The flagship product - EZLynx Rating Engine

The EZLynx rating engine is an easy-to-use comparative rater, which provides quotes for home and auto insurance in real time - and all from a single data entry point. The solution, which is used by more than 20,000 agencies across the US, provides more than four million home, auto, and package transactions in 48 states via 210 insurance companies every month.

EZLynx Management System

EZLynx’s second flagship product is its agency management system. The software firm states: “As your book of business grows, it becomes increasingly important that your data aids in your daily workflow rather than hinder it.”

The cloud-based agency management system is built on the EZLynx rating engine, meaning users can save time by leveraging one system to manage new applications, quote, create proposals, complete ACORD forms and certificates without duplicating data.

It has a number of built-in features, including:

Agency Workspace – a collaboration tool that includes, notes, tasks, reminders, and notifications.

Brenna Johnson, vice-president of product management, at EZlynx, said collaboration and agreement across goals and tasks can help agencies make gains in productivity. She explained: “If an insured calls the agency saying they have a question about their red Corvette, but they can’t remember who they spoke to before or what was discussed, an agent can run a quick search in the Agency Workspace and pull up documentation of the entire discussion about the red Corvette.

“Client servicing doesn’t happen in a silo. It could include email correspondence, phone calls and text messages. Having all of that together in one place helps give the agent important context so they’re not asking the insured questions for answers they should already know.”

Agency Pulse - a monthly analytics report that provides performance metrics to monitor and improve agency health.

Policy Sync – updates a rating application with current policy information at renewal time for fast re-quoting.

Policy Compare – enables agents to make side-by-side comparisons of policies in order to explain premium increases, coverage gaps etc.

Policy Downloads - customer policy data is downloaded to the EZLynx account and automatically matched to existing personal and commercial customers.

Commercial Quote Tracking – enables agents to manually record commercial quotes in applicants’ EZLynx accounts.

Commercial Policy Entry – records commercial policy information based on ACORD standards. It guides agents to the ACORD forms needed for each specific line of business.

Commercial Application Entry – agents can enter an application into the system in order to automatically create an ACORD form.

Commercial proposals - automatically creates commercial proposals for multiple LOBs to present to prospective customers.

Claims – all claim activity is recorded in EZLynx customers’ accounts.

Accounting – agents can track commissions earned, owed, and paid for both agency bill and direct bill policies.

There are also special features in the EZLynx agency management system that agencies can buy separately. These include:

Retention Center – a patented tool that uses predictive analytics to identify and manage high risk renewals for an agency. It gives agents a consolidated view of upcoming renewals sorted by the risk of losing the business, so they know exactly which accounts to focus on.

Johnson told Insurance Business: “If you take the renewal process as an example, a lot of agents spend a tremendous amount of time pouring through deck pages trying to find tier changes that might help them explain the answers to their insureds’ questions. Our EZLynx Retention Center tool automates that process, runs comparisons and checks within seconds and then summarizes those changes for the insured. Instead of spending hours reading through deck pages, the agent can spend more time with the insured, explaining why their current insurer is a good fit for them or not.”

Sales Center – a pipeline management tool that simplifies the supervision and tracking of the insurance sales process. If an agent runs a quote through the EZLynx rating engine, that action is picked up and recorded in the sales center.

Insurance website design services

Every insurance agency needs a website. If your website is clunky and difficult to navigate, then consumers will take their business elsewhere. EZLynx helps agents to create slick and easy mobile-optimized websites that will attract and retain insurance shoppers. The firm also offers inbound marketing advice, quarterly meetings with a website analyst and access to a website specialist who will monitor site performance.  

Online insurance quoting service

This is a lead portal which automatically records, tracks and follows-up every time a customer searches online for a quote. It includes features like mobile quoting, Facebook quoting, and automated drop-off email campaigns, which ask shoppers to complete unfinished rating applications. 

Communication Center

The EZLynx Communication Center helps agents to stay in touch with clients with targeted

and timely communications. Agents can use this technology to send out bulk campaigns, drip campaigns, text messages and eSignature enhanced documents for signing.

Client Center

EZLynx’s Client Center is a place where customers can go to get 24/7/365 access to their policy documents and ID cards. They can also print and share confidential documents easily and securely online, as well as request policy changes and view coverages.