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Organizational

Hierarchy

02

Overview

Overview

The NIC Distributor App provides you with a single view of your in-force book of business across multiple Carriers, digital engagement with your Agents and Policy Owners, and tools to grow your business.

 

To get the most out of the NIC Platform, you are strongly encouraged to provide NIC with your organizational hierarchy.

What is it?

What is an Organizational Hierarchy?

02-OG-chart@2x.png

In the hierarchy, your business units are arranged one above the other according to their level in the business structure.

 

A Business Unit in your hierarchy can be an insurance Agent or an office. 

​

An office refers to any company or business group.  An office can be a Branch, a Territory, a subsidiary Distributor, a limited company or any other business grouping. Examples of offices include “Eastern Division” or “John Smith’s Group” or “XYZ Insurance Ltd.”

 

The Hierarchy can be many levels deep or flat or something in between.  Some hierarchies may be very simple with 2 – 3 levels; national, state, agent, others may be very complex with multiple levels and even agent downlines.

Multi-Level Hierarchy Example

Hover over the Business Units to see examples

Distributor

Distributor ABC

Region 1

Fred Rosi

VP. Region 1

Biz. Dev #1

Steve Marsh

BDE Division 1

Biz. Dev #2

Jody Smith

BDE Division 2

Branch

Peter Roth

Manager,

Boston

Agent

Jamie Hill

Agent

Agent

Sammy Smith

Agent

Agent

David Bertolli

Agent

Branch

Joe Smith

Manager,

Austin

Agent

Susan Mac

Agent

Agent

Carly Ray

Agent

Region 2

Jim Brown

VP. Region 2

Biz. Dev #3

Sue Mac

BDE Division 3

Branch

Ellen Brown

Manager,

San Francisco

Agent

Jack Johnson

Agent

Agent

Ali Jackson

Agent

Distributor

Distributor ABC

Biz. Dev #1

Steve Marsh

BDE Division 1

Agent

David Bertolli

Agent

Agent

Jamie Hill

Agent

Agent

Sammy Smith

Agent

Biz. Dev #2

Sue Mac

BDE Division 3

Agent

Jack Johnson

Agent

Agent

Ali Jackson

Agent

Agent

Susan Mac

Agent

Agent

Carly Ray

Agent

Flat Hierarchy Example

Hover over the Business Units to see examples

The Advantages of having a Hierarchy

There are many advantages to having your hierarchy in NIC.  Some of those advantages include:

 

  • Easily find Agents and offices that are downline to a business unit
     

  • View rolled-up level-specific insights at every level and along every branch of your business.
     

  • Make data access simpler e.g. granting a user data access to a business unit also gives that user data access to that unit’s downline. 
     

  • See trends and analysis for larger Agent groupings (e.g sales trends)
    Target communications and marketing programs to a segment of your business by selecting a business unit and its downline

Advantages
Super User

Super User

The Super User can:
 
  1. Give other users data access
     
  2. Make changes to the organizational hierarchy

Your Executive Sponsor authorizes one or more users as “Super Users” to manage the organizational hierarchy and data access. 

 

Super Users include the Project Manager and anyone within your organization who has insights into the organizational set-up, as well as a thorough understanding of your organizational hierarchy and corresponding data access levels. 

 

The Super User will have a significant amount of control and data access, the Super User designate should be very familiar with the business, its operations and distribution network.

NIC Hierarchy Tool

NIC's Hierarchy Tool allows the Super User to maintain and edit your organizational hierarchy. They can create new business units, reassign business units and edit business units. 

How to Manage & Update your organizational hierarchy

Building Your Hierarchy

In order to display your in force policy information by your organizatinal hierarchy, the following steps must take place:​

1.

2.

3.

Prepare a list of your Agents and sent to NIC. 

NIC loads the list of your Agents into the NIC Hierarchy Tool and organized the Agents georgraphically

Agent List Requirements: (.xls or .csv format)
 

  • Agent First Name

  • Agent Last Name

  • Agent E-mail Address

  • Agent SSN

  • Agent NPN (National Producer Number)

  • Agent Business Address

​

NOTE: The above mentioned are absolutely needed for successful 
on-boarding of your Agents and their policies. 

You now have the option to either:

a) Use the NIC Hiearchy Tool to edit/add
     to the uploaded hierarchy
b) provide a detailed hierarchy in the form
     of an Excel file (see 'The Hierarchy Excel
     File' for more information)

The Hierarchy Excel File

If you choose to create your organizational hierarchy within an Excel file, the following steps need to be completed by you or the Super User preparing the file:

1.

2.

Prepare three separate spreadsheets and list the following on each:

Spreadsheet 1: Agents

Spreadsheet 2: Offices, and

Spreadsheet 3: Other users (who are not Agents) who will have access to the Distributor app. These are usually staff, admin users, managers, etc. 

Agents, users and offices profile information:

  • Name (Company name or if a person; first name, last name, middle name and nickname where applicable)

  • Address (including street name, city, state and zip code)

  • Contact phone number

  • E-mail (optional to provide alternate e-mail)

  • Government Tax ID (SSN for Agents, TIN for offices​)

  • Agent NPN number

  • An office type description (optional) such as Region or Sales Manager group

  • If the office is a corporation with a Managing Principal, provide the Name and ID (SSN or NPN number) of the Managing Principal

Information absolutely required:

  • Names

  • Tax ID or NPN number 

  • E-mail 

​

NOTE: The above mentioned are absolutely needed for successful on-boarding of your Agents and their policies. 

3.

4.

5.

For each Business Unit, indicate the parent office. You can also designate the Distributor as a parent. Each business unit (except the top unit) must have only ONE parent. This determines the Organizational Hierarchy.

If an Agent does business under a corporate name, both the Agent and the corporation should appear in the file. NIC considers the Agent as the 'Owner' of the corporation. 

Managing Principal: an Agent doing business under a corporate name.

For users that are not an Agent, indicate their data access by listing the appropriate business unit they will have access to.

  • You can give users an optional title

  • Indicate the Super User status explicitly by writing 'Super User' as the title

Once you finish creating the Hierarchy file, please send it back to NIC. 

NIC Hierarchy Tool
Hiearchy file load

Loading the Hierarchy File

Once you have submitted the Hierarchy file back to NIC, a NIC on-boarding team member will engage with you to verify it's accuracy

1.

a) NIC on-boarding team will analyze the Hierarchy file and check for       
    attributes that are deemed essential

b) Any missing information and/or errors are communicated back to you to
    address and re-submit updated file. 

2.

Once the file is acceptable:

a) The file is loaded into the NIC Distributor pre-production environment

b) Business units outlined in the file are set up and linked accordingly

3.

NIC will set up you and any other Super User on the NIC platform and send login credentials via e-mail.

NIC on-boarding team member will also reach out and schedule time with you to walk you through the NIC Distributor App and verify your hierarchy structure. 

Data Access

Granting Data Access

Every Agent in your hierarchy should be invited to the NIC platform and given access to their book of business. 

​

In addition to Agents, you would want to give other users access to the NIC platform. Some of these users may be given access to every business unit in the hierarchy. Other users may be granted access to just a branch of the hierarchy.

Data Access

See 'Agent
On-boarding' chapter for more details

  • Agents see their book of business in the NIC Agent App
     

  • Managing Principals also see their corporations in the NIC Agent App
     

  • Distributor users will log into the NIC Distributor App
     

  • Users on the NIC Distributor App can only see policies written through the Distributor's BGA codes
     

  • A Distributor user can be granted data access to any business unit
     

  • A user granted access to a business unit also has access to every business unit in its downline. Modifying a business unit's downline will modify a user's data access
     

  • A user can be given access to the entire Distributor Hierarchy and see all downlines
     

  • Distributor users listed in the Hierarchy file are invited to the NIC Distributor App via e-mail by NIC on-boarding team. 
     

  • All users will be required to go through the Multi-Factor-Authentication (MFA) process every time they log in, unless they are using Single-Sign-On service

Removing Data Access

  • The Super Users can remove or suspend data access of any user of the NIC Distributor App

  • In the case where the business unit is removed from the hierarchy, all data access to the units must be removed first

  • The Super Users cannot:​​

    • remove Agents from the NIC Agent App

    • remove Agents from having access to their own policies (i.e. those policies where the Agent is deemed to be the Servicing Agent)

    • remove users' data access to Agents' book of business if those users have been invited by the Agent to the NIC Agent App.

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