Seven of the new Equinox installations are in Quebec
TORONTO, Nov. 21 2005 – CoVirt Inc. (Canada) announced today the completion of the set up and the move to production of 20 Equinox Financial Services network-member Marketing Centres to CoVirt’s VirtGate as their client management solution. These distributors are, in alphabetical order:
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All Canadian Insurance Services Inc., Vancouver, BC
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ARC Financial Group Ltd., Rothesay, NB
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Brokerage Express Canada Financial Group Inc., Edmonton, AB
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Courtage H�bert & Caron Inc., Saint-Wenceslas, QC
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CustomPlan Financial Advisors Inc., Vancouver, BC
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Equinox BC Interior, Kelowna, BC
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Equinox Financial Group (Prairies), Winnipeg, MB
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Equinox Lifeplan Financial Services Group, Victoria, BC
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Groupe CGL Inc., Pintendre, QC
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Groupe Cloutier (Laval) Inc., Laval, QC
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Guidance Financial Services Inc., Burlington, ON
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HBO Financial Services Inc., St. Laurent, QC
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Le Groupe Financier Lemieux Inc., Sherbrooke, QC
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Marathon Financial Group Inc., Waterloo, ON
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MaxPlan Financial Services Inc., Saint-Laurent, QC
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Merit Financial Corp., Winnipeg, MB
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MGA Canada Inc., Toronto, ON
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Ontario East Insurance Agency Ltd., North York, ON
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Rudy Mallari & Associates Financial Services Inc., Richmond, BC
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Services Financiers Fillion & Associ�s Inc., Charlesbourg, QC
Tim Fitzpatrick, President of CoVirt Inc. (Canada) said: “Each Equinox Marketing Centre is an independently-owned insurance agency that works through Equinox to sell products for its insurance company partners. Each Marketing Centre has a standalone VirtGate database and supporting web site and each has a direct service agreement with us at CoVirt, like any other MGA. Both the Equinox and non-Equinox business is managed through VirtGate. The primary difference is that Equinox is the first-level service provider to the Marketing Centre for VirtGate, on CoVirt’s behalf. In doing so, Equinox goes beyond the normal slate of support from CoVirt and provides value added services to the Marketing Centre. It is an excellent model.”
Tim Traill, Director, Technology Solutions at Equinox Financial, confirmed the smooth implementation by saying, “You hope for the best of course, but the conversion to VirtGate has gone very well. The learning curve in particular is very short so our Marketing Centres were up and running quickly. They continue to discover exciting new features every day in VirtGate.”
Daniel Dessureault, General Manager for Equinox Financial, agreed that the process is going well by saying, “Our Marketing Centres are in the business of marketing insurance and investment products. Most importantly, our Marketing Centres want their back office system to work flawlessly with no hassles, no delays, no excuses and no surprise costs. This is exactly the experience in working with VirtGate, thereby freeing our Marketing Centres to concentrate on sales, support and recruiting.”
Tim Fitzpatrick made an interesting observation as to how VirtGate has become a truly Canadian system by saying “The seven new Quebec Equinox sites combined with our direct client accounts puts VirtGate on par in Quebec with any other agency management solution. What’s more, there are over 50 VirtGate client sites across all of Canada and we are still growing rapidly. This wide Canadian base benefits all VirtGate clients since our fast pace of development of new features can continue unabated.”
“We have been in production with VirtGate for over two months now and I’m loving it. I have barely scratched the surface, however, just thinking about things we can do gets me excited” said Jennifer Kingsley, Life & IP New Business Administrator, Merit & Associates.
Sylvie Blais, Directrice G�n�rale at Groupe Cloutier Laval perhaps said it best, “VirtGate is just great to work with!”
About Equinox Financial:
Equinox Financial Services brings together financial product suppliers (including AIG Life of Canada, Standard Life, RBC Insurance and Manulife Financial) and member distributors (MGAs and Brokers) and provides added-value services to both groups. The independently-owned member distributors of Equinox make up a national network distributing a range of financial planning products and services. Equinox was established in 1991 and operates independently as a subsidiary of The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company.
About CoVirt:
CoVirt supplies VirtGate, a total integrated solution for advisor and client management, to a rapidly growing list of brokerages freeing them to focus on the fundamental core expertise that drives their success. VirtGate ties as many offices, trading partners and users together as our clients wish with no user fees. VirtGate includes integrated online document management for the paperless office. All that is needed is a standard web browser and access to the Internet – nothing is installed on the user’s machine nor does the brokerage have to maintain a server. www.CoVirt.com
