Cross Insurance Chooses IntelAgree for CLM Software Built to Keep Pace with AI
Cross Insurance, one of New England’s largest independent insurance intermediaries, used IntelAgree to centralize nearly 2,000 contracts into a single searchable repository used by more than 30 people — with managed access controls, consolidated carrier contracts, and fast retrieval of key dates like term and termination.
“It is important to us, especially with our CLM solution, that not only is the security where it needs to be, but that there’s continual evolution. That’s something we’ve cared about a great deal and have enjoyed about the product.”
The challenge
About Cross Insurance
Cross Insurance is a family-owned insurance agency based in Bangor, Maine. Since its founding, it has acquired more than 150 operations and now runs more than 40 offices across the Northeast. With more than 1,200 employees, it is one of New England’s largest independent insurance intermediaries.
The challenge
At Cross Insurance, the legal team manages contracts across many entities, and finding a single detail inside dense agreements started feeling like an uphill battle. The company’s contracts had previously lived in secure shared drives, then briefly on a system whose customer support hardly provided answers.
As an insurance agency, Cross Insurance weighed security and access control heavily when choosing a CLM platform. Legal Operations Manager Maria LaFrance and Digital Workspace Product Manager Stephanie Noble led the evaluation and rollout of IntelAgree.
- Contracts with no central system to organize them
- Lack of efficiency with contract access and review
- No simple way to see which contracts were active or expiring beyond manual tracking
“We wanted a CLM platform that keeps up with the times, especially with AI growing across every industry. Our CIO is very pro-AI, so we wanted a vendor that matched that ambition.”
The solution
Choosing a Platform Built to Scale and Evolve
Cross Insurance wanted a searchable, secure location for its contracts that could scale with the business.
“We wanted a CLM platform that keeps up with the times, especially with AI growing across every industry,” said LaFrance. “Our CIO is very pro-AI, so we wanted a vendor that matched that ambition.”
Since going live, quarterly check-ins with their customer success manager and product webinars have kept Cross Insurance current on how IntelAgree is growing and given the legal team a steady point of contact for questions.
“It is important to us, especially with our CLM solution, that not only is the security where it needs to be, but that there’s continual evolution,” said Noble. “That’s something we’ve cared about a great deal and have enjoyed about the product.”
Governed Access and Fully Searchable Contracts
Insurance work relies on sensitive information, and at Cross Insurance, many corporate departments touch contracts. Those stakes shaped what the team looked for in a CLM platform.
“Making sure that the correct people are accessing the correct areas of the platform, that was really important to us, because we couldn’t really offer that in our previous tenant,” said LaFrance.
As the person who administers applications across the company, Noble especially needed to know how IntelAgree’s permissions worked.
“I like to use the word ‘translate’ when it comes to an IT perspective, because ‘users’ can mean a different permission level from one application to another. IntelAgree did a phenomenal job laying that out and explaining it clearly,” said Noble.
That clarity was crucial to Cross Insurance’s attorneys, who valued knowing exactly what the system could and could not do.
With contracts stored in one location, the team leans on the platform’s reporting and granular search capabilities to immediately find key terms. LaFrance and her legal assistant are building a report of the company’s active contracts, with IntelAgree’s input on the best way to extract the data.
“If we need a term or termination date really quickly, it comes right up thanks to IntelAgree’s OCR capability,” said LaFrance.
A Smooth Implementation and Hands-On Training
Cross Insurance came into the implementation bracing for the slow, messy process that switching platforms often brings. The team was pleasantly surprised with the organization and ongoing support IntelAgree’s team provided. Structured task spreadsheets and a pilot phase helped ease the migration and rollout as additional staff members were granted access permissions.
After a previous system that left them making their own how-to videos, Cross Insurance finally had real training behind its CLM platform. IntelAgree University and live training sessions — run separately for legal and general users — helped each team learn how IntelAgree could be tailored to how they work.
“From the spreadsheets that kept us on track to the overall support of the implementation team, it was one of the best project cadences I’ve been a part of by far,” said LaFrance. “There was no wasted time.”
Today, Cross Insurance trusts IntelAgree with its contracts and plans to expand its use of the platform as the legal department grows. It’s a partnership the company chose deliberately, and one built on more than what IntelAgree offers today.
“We trust the vision for where the platform is going, and how IntelAgree uses certain technologies is fascinating and insightful,” said Noble. “It really matters that we partner with an organization that has that growth mindset.”
“From the spreadsheets that kept us on track to the overall support of the implementation team, it was one of the best project cadences I’ve been a part of by far. There was no wasted time.”
The results
Today, Cross Insurance stores nearly 2,000 contracts in one searchable system used by more than 30 people with managed access controls. Every executed contract now goes straight into IntelAgree, giving the legal team a firm handle on every agreement it manages.