SuretyBonds.com
RingEX™ and RingCentral Video Speed Bond Underwriting and Boost Sales
The problem we find with email is there is a delay—and often nobody notices. With RingCentral Video, you hear the ding and that tells you, hey, you’ve got something to check out, which you need to look at right away. It allows us to run faster.
Lamon Warnock
Founder & President, SuretyBonds.com
Fast turnaround on underwriting is an engine of growth for SuretyBonds.com. Keeping the process moving requires tight communication and collaboration, powered by RingEX and RingCentral Video.
The SuretyBonds.Market website is the central hub for thousands of insurance agencies to quote, purchase and issue surety bonds in minutes.
“We’re the only site where an insurance agency has instant access to more than 12,000 surety bonds and full life cycle management of its book of bond business," says Founder and President, Lamon Warnock. The entire process takes about six minutes, he says. “There is no other site in the nation where that happens.”
Higher risk, higher value bonds require manual underwriting, but Warnock strives for efficiency. Where competitors take two or three days to respond to a request, his agent liaison team gets back to customers with a price within the hour. That is where RingEX and RingCentral Video have proven valuable.
The SuretyBonds.Market website is the central hub for thousands of insurance agencies to quote, purchase and issue surety bonds in minutes.
“We’re the only site where an insurance agency has instant access to more than 12,000 surety bonds and full life cycle management of its book of bond business," says Founder and President, Lamon Warnock. The entire process takes about six minutes, he says. “There is no other site in the nation where that happens.”
Higher risk, higher value bonds require manual underwriting, but Warnock strives for efficiency. Where competitors take two or three days to respond to a request, his agent liaison team gets back to customers with a price within the hour. That is where RingEX and RingCentral Video have proven valuable.
Why communication is essential
“One of the key components of making it work is the ability to communicate effectively with employees,” Warnock says. That means tight coordination across his team, including remote workers or employees checking in from their phones. Since 2015, when he relaunched SuretyBonds.Market with an exclusive focus on agency business, the staff has grown from two to 18 employees. Business has doubled over the past year, into the millions of dollars in written surety premiums.
SuretyBonds.Market partners with insurance agencies across the nation as distribution points for surety bonds.
The agency sales force has a choice each day to do business with us. SuretyBonds.Market earns that business by being faster and better.
“RingCentral’s phone capabilities and RingCentral Video’s communication features are of great value to us, Warnock says.
Warnock initially subscribed to RingEX for its cloud phone service. That became doubly important when he began adding remote workers. “We can transfer a call to south Georgia or Ohio, and the agent never knows that we’re not all in the same office,” he says.
RingCentral Video magnified the advantage, allowing employees to exchange a steady stream of communications that don’t require a phone call but are too immediate for email. RingCentral Video is a team messaging and productivity platform, included with RingEX. “The ability for a communication system to scale quickly as we expand is one of the core reasons we use RingCentral products," Warnock says.
SuretyBonds.Market partners with insurance agencies across the nation as distribution points for surety bonds.
The agency sales force has a choice each day to do business with us. SuretyBonds.Market earns that business by being faster and better.
“RingCentral’s phone capabilities and RingCentral Video’s communication features are of great value to us, Warnock says.
Warnock initially subscribed to RingEX for its cloud phone service. That became doubly important when he began adding remote workers. “We can transfer a call to south Georgia or Ohio, and the agent never knows that we’re not all in the same office,” he says.
RingCentral Video magnified the advantage, allowing employees to exchange a steady stream of communications that don’t require a phone call but are too immediate for email. RingCentral Video is a team messaging and productivity platform, included with RingEX. “The ability for a communication system to scale quickly as we expand is one of the core reasons we use RingCentral products," Warnock says.
Making the business responsive
“The problem we find with email is there is a delay—and often nobody notices,” Warnock says. “With RingCentral Video, you hear the ding and that tells you, hey, you’ve got something to check out, which you need to look at right away. It allows us to run faster.”
Team messaging is valuable across the business for keeping processes moving. In addition, RingCentral Video Tasks are particularly valuable for the underwriting process, Warnock says. “A lot of what we’re doing is exchanging the status of an application. An agent can use RingCentral Video to assign a task saying this bond is ready for my review.” If Warnock needs the agent to collect additional information, he may assign a task back to them, along with a message detailing what needs to be done. The benefit is transparency: The team always knows where an application is in the process and what work must be done to complete it.
RingCentral Video “really allows us to have that one-hour window, which is unique,” Warnock says. The faster his organization responds, the more likely it is to win the business, he says.
“It’s all about efficiency for us—being able to complete more tasks faster, particularly underwriting tasks,” he adds. “That translates into time, and time translates into money.”
Team messaging is valuable across the business for keeping processes moving. In addition, RingCentral Video Tasks are particularly valuable for the underwriting process, Warnock says. “A lot of what we’re doing is exchanging the status of an application. An agent can use RingCentral Video to assign a task saying this bond is ready for my review.” If Warnock needs the agent to collect additional information, he may assign a task back to them, along with a message detailing what needs to be done. The benefit is transparency: The team always knows where an application is in the process and what work must be done to complete it.
RingCentral Video “really allows us to have that one-hour window, which is unique,” Warnock says. The faster his organization responds, the more likely it is to win the business, he says.
“It’s all about efficiency for us—being able to complete more tasks faster, particularly underwriting tasks,” he adds. “That translates into time, and time translates into money.”
RingCentral’s phone capabilities and RingCentral Video’s communication features are of great value to us.
Lamon Warnock
Founder & President, SuretyBonds.com
INDUSTRY
Financial Services
HQ
Oakwood, Georgia
YEAR FOUNDED
1999
EMPLOYEES
10