Tag Archives: email

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New ACT Webinar

Protecting Independent Agent Clients with Secure Email Using TLS (Transport Layer Security)

Protecting clients’ and prospects’ personal information is becoming an increasingly important issue. Most insurance agencies do not currently take any steps to protect or encrypt information that they send by email to a third party. Unsecured email and attachments are like sending an open postcard through the mail. State privacy, security, and data breach laws are increasingly requiring that email transmissions, including sensitive consumer information, be encrypted.

The Agents Council for Technology (ACT) recommends independent agents and carriers implement TLS email encryption wherever possible to protect the sensitive client information being emailed between agents and carriers and even agents and major clients, such as commercial lines applications. TLS is available on most up-to-date in-house email servers (such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes).

ACT has developed a new webinar to encourage agencies to implement secure email and to use TLS to do so. The first 30 minutes of this webinar is designed for agency business leaders and the second 30 minutes will get into a more technical discussion regarding implementation of TLS on Microsoft Exchange servers. The webinar will take place on Tuesday, June 23 at 1:30-2:30 PM EDT. It will be presented by Jim Rogers, Director of Distribution Technology, The Hartford and Tim Woodcock, President, Courtesy Computers.

There is no charge for agents or others to attend these webinars. After you log on to the Internet session, you will be able to listen to the audio through your computer headset or speakers. If you would prefer, you will also be provided with a toll number you can call to listen to the audio.

Register for the June 23 session of the webinar (1:30-2:30 PM Eastern time) now.  After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

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Easily Send Video Emails

Getting your message through to clients and prospects takes creativity. Anything you can do to make your message stand out in overloaded Outlook inboxes is a good thing. Eyejot is a Web-based service that allows you to quickly and easily send video e-mail (v-mail) to anyone. All you need is a Webcam and an Eyejot account. The best part is that the basic service is free (at least for now).

Once you have a Webcam and an Eyejot account, creating and sending a v-mail is as easy as clicking “record” and speaking to the camera. The actual video is stored on Eyejot servers and an e-mail is sent to the recipient. The recipient clicks on a link in the e-mail to play the video message. The sender is then alerted when his or her video message has been viewed.

Consider using Eyejot in your agency to communicate with clients. If you like it, the PRO Plus version is worth the $100 per year price. With the PRO version, messages can be five minutes in length, you can upload pre-recorded video, you get extended message storage time, the video won’t contain advertising, and you have the ability to attach and send documents. You can also brand several Eyejot notification elements with your agency logo and color scheme.

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Understand Your Email

A new, free plug-in module for Outlook called Xobni and pronounced “ZOB-nee” which is inbox spelled backwards) adds some social-networking and data-mining features to your existing Outlook e-mail. Once installed, it lives as a vertical panel on the right side of your Outlook screen and doesn’t block or intrude upon Outlook’s own panes or functions.

Xobni indexes all of your stored e-mail, starting with the most recent messages. Once your e-mail is indexed, the Xobni sidebar shows a profile of the sender for any e-mail you have selected in the message list in your inbox or other folders. Each profile is divided into different sections, including a search box that is much faster than Outlook’s search function.

Other sections include the name of the sender for any e-mail you have selected, with a photo (if available), a phone number, and a bar chart showing how many e-mails you’ve received from that person, as well as times of day when that person appears to be most or least active on e-mail. Also included is the sender’s e-mail network—other people included in e-mails to you, “Conversations” which display e-mail threads (other e-mails you’ve exchanged with the sender), and a section which lists all the files that are attachments on received e-mails.

Give Xobni a try! It might make your Outlook e-mail more useful.

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FTC Issues Updated CAN-SPAM Rules

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has issued updated provisions to the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act. These new provisions became effective in mid-July.

In the updated rule on consumer opt-out requests, e-mailers are prohibited from complicating the opt-out process by charging fees to consumers wishing to be added to opt-out lists. It also prevents e-mail marketers from requiring consumers to provide information other than an e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender.

Other updated provisions include:

  • Clarifying the definition of what constitutes a “valid postal address.” Under the revised rules, businesses may publish a P.O. Box or a private mail box in a commercial e-mail message to comply with the valid physical postal address requirement provided that either address is “accurately” registered with the U.S. Postal Service or with a commercial mail-receiving agency established pursuant to U.S.P.S. regulations.
  • Clarifying the definition of “person” to include individuals, groups, unincorporated associations, limited or general partnerships, corporations, or other business entities. The FTC confirmed that both for-profit and not-for-profit businesses that send commercial messages are within the scope of the CAN-SPAM requirements.
  • Clarifying the definition of “sender.” The modified rules clarify which of multiple advertisers in a single message is responsible for compliance. The FTC’s clarification allows multiple marketers in a single e-mail to designate a single sender for purposes of CAN-SPAM compliance. The benefit from this rule is that a single opt-out link and single valid physical postal address can be displayed in a multi-advertiser e-mail. The sole sender appearing in the “from” line becomes the designated sender of the e-mail and is responsible on behalf of all advertisers in the message for complying with key provisions of the act.
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Apple Opens iPhone to Business Users

Apple recently announced plans to enable the iPhone to support the Microsoft Exchange Web e-mail client and to provide new features that have been demanded most by business users. Apple CEO Steve Jobs and senior executives provided more details about the company’s plans to open the iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit) by June to support the development of enterprise-grade applications. Version 2.0 of the iPhone software, due to be released in June, will provide native support for push e-mail; push calendar; push contacts; global address list; support for Cisco IPsec Virtual Private Network, certificates and identities; the WPA2/802.1x security standard; enforced security policies; mass device configuration; and remote wipe.

In addition, the iPhone will gain “native” support for Microsoft Exchange by licensing the Microsoft ActiveSync protocol. This will allow the iPhone to work directly, through firewalls, with the Exchange server. All Exchange features will integrate into the iPhone’s native mail, calendar, and contact applications.

With these enhancements, the iPhone will become a popular choice for agency staff, especially younger producers. Agency IT departments should take the lead and integrate the iPhone into the overall communication framework.