Rand Insurance Brokers

Allan Duff is one of the insurance industry's most experienced brokers, having been an Executive Consultant during his 20 years with Liberty Life, thereafter founding his own independent brokerage, Rand Insurance Brokers, in 1995.

The financial service industry has seen some extensive changes over the last 30 years and by embracing them, mostly through outsourcing and technology, Allan has turned them to his advantage.

“My success is based on exceptional client service, up-to-date qualifications, and very good practice management”, says Allan. “I am also partnered up with professionals who are legal experts in wills and trusts.”

For the daily administration of his brokerage, Allan employs the services of Claire Ranger. Claire provides off-site Professional Administration Management to financial advisors and insurance brokers. “I knew Claire from my time at Liberty. When she told me about her new business I realised that her offering covers my back office requirements cost-effective and efficient” explains Allan.

“There was one disadvantage though, with Claire being located in Kuilsriver and I having my office in Noordhoek. We were challenged to overcome the communication gap between us. Tasks needed to be scheduled and reported back on when completed. There was a great deal of emails and phone calls going backward and forwards.”

Data replication between the two locations seemed the obvious solution. With that in mind Allan began shopping around for a replication-enabled software suite. Says Allan, “It needed to be a one-stop-solution that included record keeping, task scheduling, to-do lists as well as integration with Astute and of course Financial Planning.”

“When I first looked at PROFIDA I was really impressed and frankly, a year later, I still am. PROFIDA takes care of the workflow challenge between our two offices by first replicating the Astute information downloaded in Kuilsriver to my office. Then it replicates specific tasks created – sometimes related to a policy, sometimes the whole portfolio – in Noordhoek to Claire's office. Both our notes, completed tasks and, of course, new business is replicated back and forth up to 5 times a day. I now have a highly sophisticated, integrated solution that lets me record all interactions with my clients. ”

“The Astute download facility is excellent! It works seamlessly, is quick and accurate. PROFIDA’s reports are neat, concise and very presentable to clients. The integrated Financial Planning Facility rounds off the complete picture. And there is so much more - statistics, data segmentation, label creation and mail merge campaigns, to name a few features.”

“PROFIDA’s replication process even considers the exchange of files stored under a client’s record. A positive side effect of replicating data is that an automatic, off-site backup of data and documents is obtained. This satisfies the compliance demand of keeping duplicate records at an off-site location.”

“I'm really not sure how my office functioned before PROFIDA”, exclaims Allan.

“Not only is PROFIDA’s replication technology very stable and reliable, it is also inexpensive. It removes the need to employ and maintain expensive software and special setups like VPNs”, says Daniel Putra, Managing Director of software development firm Computer Science Software. “This makes replication much more effective and affordable in the industry.”

“The same replication principles used in Allan’s case are applied for on-the-move marketers who exchange data between their laptop and office desktops, and for medium and large advisory firms replicating data from local branches to head office and vice-versa,” says Daniel Putra.

Another strong point for Allan is the exceptional client care and assistance of the PROFIDA Helpdesk. “The research and support team are always approachable. This is a big plus for PROFIDA. The software is so versatile I can virtually have my own version to suit my office and clients’ needs.”