This publish is a part of a collection sponsored by AgentSync.
Insurance coverage compliance is critical enterprise. Falling out of compliance can have actual penalties for everybody from insurance coverage businesses, carriers, MGAs, and MGUs, to particular person producers, adjusters, and dually licensed broker-dealers.
Whom you select to associate with on your compliance wants issues. Selecting the best know-how associate can remodel your insurance coverage licensing compliance practices from a nightmare right into a dream-come-true.
Selecting the mistaken associate, then again, can result in undesirable outcomes, reminiscent of:
- Spending an excessive amount of cash on one thing that’s not assembly your wants
- Risking compliance and information safety mishaps
- Failing to attain organization-wide adoption and the continued use of guide and error-prone processes
- Dropping workers and distribution channel companions due to how irritating it’s to work for – or with – you
Whereas the business urges insurance coverage companies to undertake extra fashionable practices, many insurance coverage compliance know-how distributors nonetheless haven’t any qualms doing enterprise the way in which they’ve at all times achieved it. Typically, this contains committing some critical “crimes” towards their very own clients. No, we’re not speaking in regards to the sorts of crimes that land anybody in jail, however these transgressions are irritating, expensive, and simply plain mistaken nonetheless.
On this three-part collection, we’ll cowl among the commonest “crimes” we see insurance coverage compliance tech distributors committing towards their buyer base. We’ve already lined crimes of the monetary selection in addition to help crimes. On this third and remaining installment, we’re having a look at know-how crimes. In the event you’ve fallen sufferer to any of those tech-related crimes, then we’re sorry to say it, however the vendor you’ve invested your cash and sources in is a complete dud.
When insurance coverage compliance distributors commit know-how crimes
You may have the ability to forgive the crimes that price your small business more cash and even those that create friction in your consumer expertise, but when the know-how itself doesn’t work, then what are you actually getting out of your compliance tech spend? Investing your time, power, and cash into an answer that doesn’t pay dividends is extra than simply irritating. It could negatively affect each facet of your small business, out of your information safety and popularity to your capability to scale and develop sooner or later.
Set your self up for long-term success by avoiding these generally perpetrated know-how crimes:
1. Soiled and rancid information
Making good enterprise selections depends closely in your entry to good information. The standard of your information is on the core of whether or not your compliance administration resolution is benefiting you or simply costing you. Whether or not it’s as a result of technical errors that enable lacking or inaccurate information into your system, or intermittent syncs along with your information supply, inaccurate producer and adjuster licensing and appointment information will trigger issues for each a part of your small business.
Insurance coverage compliance requirements and laws are always altering and updating. If the answer you sought particularly that will help you sustain with these items isn’t offering you with correct and full information, you may as effectively nonetheless be managing issues by hand. Whereas most compliance instruments available on the market lately sync to the business’s one supply of reality for producer data, do not forget that not all syncs are created equal. Think about how typically the sync happens, the standard of the info acquired, and the way discrepancies are dealt with.
Buyer confession: “We’re discovering that our present resolution’s PDB sync isn’t occurring. There’s this fixed defect they appear to be combating and the data accessible via the product doesn’t appear correct.”
2. Nonetheless requiring spreadsheets
Some insurance coverage companies put up with know-how crimes like dangerous or stale information and compensate for them by conserving inside spreadsheets to double-check the info that’s of their system. That is fairly presumably the largest know-how crime of all of them!
You probably went on the lookout for a compliance vendor within the first place since you needed to switch your spreadsheets with a extra fashionable tech resolution. So why accept a “resolution” that basically places you again at sq. one? No group ought to pay for know-how so unreliable that workers must maintain their very own information and constantly cross-reference for accuracy. Discuss defeating the entire goal of digitization.
Buyer confession: “We ceaselessly want copies of licenses. I can’t get that from the product, so I’m retaining copies of licenses in one other system.”
3. Previous, siloed tech
Your tech stack ought to create efficiencies that assist modernize your small business, not make your workflows clunkier. Trendy insurance coverage infrastructure means being adaptive and making fixed enhancements to your compliance ecosystem. Any resolution that stops enhancing the second the contract is signed ought to increase a direct purple flag.
Options constructed on mainframe code don’t supply the identical flexibility as people who leverage a cloud-native structure. They’re sometimes more durable (and even not possible) to combine with the opposite software program you utilize for day by day enterprise operations and might trigger main downtime and price inefficiencies if you’re able to scale your small business.
4. Processing dangerous transactions
Some producer license administration applied sciences have in-built checks and balances to cease an invalid transaction earlier than it occurs. Others… don’t. Incomplete producer purposes or license renewal varieties can lead to the state canceling the appliance, however nonetheless conserving the related charges. With no system that may flag a doubtlessly dangerous transaction, you’re left with the danger of processing and paying for transactions that wanted additional human intervention earlier than going via.
On the very least, your compliance tech ought to provide the choice to construct warnings, alerts, and “exhausting stops” into your workflows to maintain transactions from being processed when a producer doesn’t meet sure standards. The best compliance administration resolution will save your small business cash in the long term, not add additional (and utterly avoidable) bills to your backside line.
Buyer confession: “The notifications in our present resolution are fairly lackluster, and we’re billed per transaction. Generally we find yourself paying for a similar transaction a number of occasions despite the fact that it solely went via as soon as.”
5. Exposes you to greater safety dangers
The info-driven nature of the insurance coverage enterprise means business gamers have extra cybersecurity issues than most. The success of your group’s information safety relies on the safety and preparedness of any third-party distributors or software program you utilize. In the event you’ve taken the mandatory steps to make sure your individual cyber hygiene, don’t let your compliance know-how vendor take you down with their very own lax safety practices.
By vetting compliance know-how distributors for his or her cybersecurity practices, you possibly can scale back the danger of a knowledge breach and shield your popularity. If a vendor isn’t up-to-date on their cybersecurity necessities, they’re placing you in danger, and that’s simply not the recipe for a great partnership.
Keep away from falling sufferer to know-how crimes out of your compliance vendor
In the event you’re presently working with an insurance coverage compliance know-how that isn’t treating you the way in which you deserve – in these methods or others! – see how AgentSync is completely different. AgentSync’s dedicated to the thought of Buyer Love. This implies honest and clear pricing, help that’s really supportive, and a tech platform that delights its customers and receives common updates and enhancements.
See how completely different insurance coverage compliance could possibly be at your group; try an AgentSync demo as we speak.