Jared Flack of Mennonite Mutual Insurance Company, a carrier specializing in farm owners and faith-based business insurance, explains how the company adopted the Finys Suite after a failed software project. Beginning in 2018, they rolled out multiple lines over several years, creating a reliable, fast, and easy-to-use system for independent agents. Jared highlights how minimal training needs, positive user feedback, and a collaborative development process make Finys a strong choice for insurers seeking customizable technology.
About Mennonite Mutual Insurance Company
Mennonite Mutual Insurance Company provides property-casualty coverage for farm owners and faith-based businesses. With an exclusive independent agent distribution model, the company requires systems that are fast, reliable, and easy for agents to use.
From Failed Implementation to Successful Rollout
After experiencing reliability and performance issues with a previous software implementation, Mennonite Mutual began development of the Finys Suite in 2018. The rollout was staged—launching the first line in late 2019, adding more throughout the following years, and continuing to expand product lines as recently as this year.
Meeting Independent Agents’ Needs
For independent agents, ease of use and speed directly impact where business is placed. The Finys Suite’s intuitive interface and reliable performance have earned positive feedback, especially from farm agents who frequently quote policies directly in the system.
Collaborative Development and Customization
As a developer, Jared values Finys’ collaborative approach. Working with a proven base product, Mennonite Mutual has been able to customize solutions to fit their needs without being forced into rigid system limitations.
Full Transcript:
My name is Jared Flack, and I work with Mennonite Mutual Insurance Company, a property-casualty company specializing in farm owners and faith-based BOP programs. So we started development of the Finys Suite in the middle of 2018, and we worked on that for probably about a year and a half. End of 2019, we went live with our first line, and then later on that year we followed up with two more, and then just this past year we added two more lines in the end of first quarter, and then we just had another line we just released recently. Our primary reason with going with Finys was that we were looking for a solution to replace a failed implementation. In the implementation that we had done, we had tried to leverage some existing software that we had, and we ran into some issues with reliability and with speed and processing and that sort of thing.
We sell primarily, well, exclusively through independent agents, so when we’re selling a policy through an agent, they can write with us or they can write with somebody else. Having a system that’s easy to use, that’s fast, that’s reliable, helps because typically the most efficient system, the most pleasant user experience. A lot of times, we’ll color where an agent may direct an insured, assuming all things are equal. On the coverage side, the feedback’s been great, especially from our farm agents who do a lot of direct quoting in the system. We’ve had a lot of positive feedback with the user experience as far as when they get in. We didn’t have to do a whole lot of training, and that was one of our goals – to develop a system that was intuitive to use and easy to use with minimal training. I would definitely recommend Finys. For us, it’s been nice being able to build things collaboratively. Being a developer, it’s nice to have some input in how things are built and designed rather than just being forced to squeeze yourself into somebody else’s mold. And it’s been a pleasant experience to be able to just take a base product they offer that they’ve tested with other people and kind of make it our own.
