IENetwork to IXN- Letter from our CEO
July 11th, 2016
Dear Member of Insurance Experts Network,
I am very happy to introduce our new brand to you – IXN. IXN, just like its predecessor IENetwork, stands for Insurance Experts Network. The change in our brand introduces a series of positive changes that will be felt throughout our 15 product offerings and among our more than 13,000 members and agencies! I’d like to thank all members of Insurance Experts Network – agents, agencies, and carriers – for your support in making Insurance Experts Network what it is today. There are many members of the Insurance Experts Network who have helped us get where we are and we greatly appreciate your efforts. I’d like to talk a little about why we decided to make the change to IXN.
So I’ll be honest – the main reason for switching to IXN is because it is much cooler! We polled a random sample to ask which designs and logos look better. As always, the results came back mixed. Some people still liked IENetwork and some people were in favor of IXN. That must be why we’ve always been given the advice to never “design by consensus.” Many of you have probably experienced this in your organizations; once you get the opinions of everyone and try to find the least common denominator, you normally end up with the least favorable option. In any case, we hope you like the change. We want IXN to be a brand you are proud to wear or showcase to your agents and customers. It is important to us that IXN stands as a symbol of quality and innovation; a brand that we are all apart of, being members of the Insurance Experts Network.
As in any business, it’s important that customers know what you do. The new URL for Insurance Experts Network is now https://ixnprod.wpengine.com. You type “ixn.tech” into the address bar of your browser and you arrive at our site. We decided to make use of the new types of domain names that are allowed now. This helps bring better clarity as to what we do as IXN – we are a tech company!
There is one milestone we have achieved that regardless of branding changes creates a new company out of Insurance Experts Network. Over the last 5 years, we have been working very hard to work directly with insurance carriers to get quoting rates, forms, underwriting guidelines, and other important information. Almost half of our 15 products rely on this information. We now have direct connections with over 30 insurance carriers and will add more carriers as needed. With this information, we can now roll out new features and really drive new innovation in the rates, forms, and product info side of our business.
In conclusion, I’d like to talk about where we hope to take IXN. As a wearable and iconic brand, we hope IXN becomes more of an association, team, or literal network that insurance agents feel they are apart of rather than just another technology company. To accomplish this, we plan on providing collaboration tools that help agents share ideas and network. We plan on not only developing innovative products, but also giving ideas on how to implement the products with real case studies on how agents have found success. Whether you are using one of our products, or a competitor’s product, together we can help all of these technologies connect and hit the pavement to create real traction in your insurance business. In the end, it is the members, not the technology products, that drive the real power behind the network effect of IXN. It is the agents themselves that can connect with people out there to make sure proper insurance coverages are in place to protect loved ones.
Stay tuned for more and feel free to reach out to us with any questions, comments, or concerns.
Nathan Collins
CEO/CTO