As one of the largest SIS Partner agencies, Harrington Insurance serves families and businesses in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine. The owner, Gary Milliken, first acquired the agency in 2002 and has since successfully grown the business from two locations to 11 offices around Massachusetts through strategic acquisitions. This expanding agency now has over 40 employees in Bradford, Braintree, Brockton, Fall River, Lawrence, Methuen, North Andover, Oxford, Taunton, West Boylston and Worcester.

When Milliken first began acquiring smaller agencies around the state, he found they were all using different management systems, one of which was Partner. Milliken reviewed the various systems used at each office and ultimately decided Partner was the perfect fit.

"Partner clearly was the best value," Milliken explained. "It provided the same functionality as some of the bigger vendors, but was more cost-effective. Additionally, many of our CSRs said they preferred the ease of use of Partner after they switched. More importantly, when we call SIS, someone answers and helps us right away. With other vendors, customer service response times don’t match the level of SIS."

Beginning in 2003, Harrington Insurance purchased Partner as the common management system to be used across all offices. Milliken began the implementation process slowly, converting one office at a time. Users initially learned to use the system through the computer based training CD (CBT). Then, implementing a train the trainer approach, as an employee became adept at using Partner, they assisted with training other offices. This training method has continued as Milliken has acquired additional locations.

Milliken is such a believer in SIS that he is currently an elected board member of the user group, NASPA. He explains his commitment to the user group saying, "An agency management system is one of the most important tools our people need to make our agency successful, so its future development is something I am passionate about. Being a NASPA member allows us to pick up on new ideas of how to use Partner to its fullest. An agency that is using less than 50% of Partner’s functionality is not taking advantage of its investment."

Even though Harrington Insurance has multiple locations, the company didn’t need to install Partner in each location. Instead, Harrington is able to connect its multiple locations to Partner through Terminal Services, a product from Microsoft® (for more information on this tool, visit Microsoft.com).

The server is located in a central office. "The beauty of this is that our personnel don’t have to spend time on systems responsibilities such as updates, backups or upload/download issues," Milliken said. "It allows our agents to do what they do best —and that’s selling and servicing insurance."

It also allows Harrington Insurance to serve as a major community supporter, something Milliken values. His agency contributes to various charitable and civic organizations. From sponsoring bike safety days for children to coordinating an annual care package program for local overseas military personnel during the holidays, Harrington Insurance strives to be an active participant in their local communities.