I hope you enjoyed a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends, and good times!

I’m writing to update you on some changes CMS has undertaken in order to improve the way we support your opportunities. As you know, we have used RPM for many years as our commission tool and the feedback from our agents has always been appreciative and positive. However, we chose not to take advantage of the quote and order tracking functionalities until we felt certain they would allow for consistent and quantifiable results across our carrier portfolio.

You may have begun to notice that we are reaching out to you and your staff on a more frequent basis to request status updates on quotes or contract paperwork we have provided. This is because RPM’s quote and order tracking modules enhance our efficiency and now allow us to provide more detailed information to our agents. But of course the information we can pull from RPM is only as good as the information that is input into the modules. Because of that we are asking that you and your sub-agents provide us with as much detail as possible in regards to the status of your quotes or orders so that we can effectively update our records. This will allow us to gain a better understanding of the factors that contribute to winning (or losing) your opportunities.

We are under a contract with the solution providers in our portfolio and within our contract language we have committed to close a certain amount of business each month, but as you know, we do not hold you to any type of quota with regard to placing business through CMS. However, we do need your commitment to provide opportunity updates while we are partnering together to win the business in order to maximize the potential for a successful outcome.

There are several reasons for this. CMS has made a commitment to provide opportunity analysis to our carriers in order to assist with and improve win ratios and just as importantly, we need to qualify the viability of the opportunities we submit. Our contracts and support relationships are very important to us and can be jeopardized if we submit for pricing or engineering assistance for business that can’t or won’t be sold. Constructive and consistent feedback is essential to CMS and our solution partners.

The CMS staff and I would like to thank you in advance for your cooperation. We look forward to working with you in the coming New Year!


Gene Foster, President and CEO