Video Walkthrough:
Linking Personal Contacts:
An individual contact -- for example, Cynthia Olgren -- will always be set up as a personal contact in Better Agency.
- This means that someone can be a personal contact even if they don't have any personal policies with your agency.
- This is also a good way to manage individuals with multiple businesses that should be linked together, like a property owner.
- Having someone set up as a personal contact will also ensure that all communications across multiple businesses are centralized.
On a contact, you'll see all linked accounts, including businesses and linked primary or secondary contacts.
If you ever want to unlink a contact, select the pencil icon. This will allow you to unlink other personal contacts when needed.
From the edit screen, you can also add a new personal or commercial contact. Creating a new personal linked contact would represent another person who may be linked to the insured and their policies, like a spouse or child. This will add them as a secondary contact on the account and link them to the primary.
In instances where the secondary contact now needs their own account -- for example, a child who was formerly under their parent's policy but now has their own policy with the agency or a spouse who has passed away -- you'll have the option to switch them to primary.
Promoting them to a primary will allow for them to have their own policies while still being connected to their family. You can also unlink them if you'd like, which will save you the step of having to create an entirely separate account.
If you do not want this contact to be the primary for any reason, you can map a policy to them as a secondary contact. The policy will then designate them as an 'Additional Insured.'
Linking Personal and Business Contacts
As shared above, even if a contact is tied to a business, they will always have a personal contact profile in Better Agency in addition to their business profile. This allows for multiple businesses to be tied back to the same person and centralizes a communication log with those individuals.
If you have multiple businesses under the same LLC, but need to represent them as separate entities in Better Agency, use the DBA field that is available on the Business Details section of the Business Contact. We recommend putting the physical address of that entity in the DBA field.
Note that on the business profile, the business name Halloween Town is reflected, but the DBA shows 1545 N Portsmouth Rd. On the personal contact, it reflects the DBA field, allowing you to discern which locations or entities are reflected.
If your agency is currently a Better Agency AMS client, and you receive carrier downloads from IVANs for the business policy, they may show up as unmatched for you when reviewing your policy downloads report. To avoid this, ensure that the policy was created as a commercial policy and listed on the commercial account.
Adding a DBA will also show up when you search for the customer, which can confirm that you're going to the commercial account. This will also allow you to search by an address.
You also have the option to rename the policy type, which is another way to distinguish between properties and policy types.
Finally, you can rename the policy number to include the address as another option for distinguishing between properties. Be advised that if you choose this approach, any policies downloaded from IVANs will not be matched.
Linking and unlinking contacts can be a helpful way to connect individuals and businesses together, solving for a variety of use cases. If you're ever curious about how these features can be leveraged to optimize your business processes, please reach out to your customer success manager.