This publish is a part of a sequence sponsored by AgentSync.
Insurance coverage compliance is critical enterprise. Falling out of compliance can have actual penalties for everybody from insurance coverage companies, carriers, MGAs, and MGUs, to particular person producers, adjusters, and dually licensed broker-dealers.
Whom you select to companion with to your compliance wants issues. Selecting the best expertise companion can rework your insurance coverage licensing compliance practices from a nightmare right into a dream-come-true.
Selecting the fallacious companion, alternatively, can result in undesirable outcomes, resembling:
- Spending an excessive amount of cash on one thing that’s not assembly your wants
- Risking compliance and information safety mishaps
- Failing to realize organization-wide adoption and the continued use of handbook and error-prone processes
- Dropping workers and distribution channel companions due to how irritating it’s to work for – or with – you
Whereas the trade urges insurance coverage companies to undertake extra trendy practices, many insurance coverage compliance expertise 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, pricey, and simply plain fallacious nonetheless.
On this three-part sequence, we’ll cowl among the most typical “crimes” we see insurance coverage compliance tech distributors committing towards their buyer base. We’ve already coated crimes of the financial variety in addition to support crimes. On this third and closing installment, we’re having a look at expertise 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 expertise crimes
You may have the ability to forgive the crimes that price what you are promoting extra money and even those that create friction in your consumer expertise, but when the expertise itself doesn’t work, then what are you actually getting out of your compliance tech spend? Investing your time, vitality, and cash into an answer that doesn’t pay dividends is extra than simply irritating. It could negatively influence each side of what you are promoting, out of your information safety and fame to your means to scale and develop sooner or later.
Set your self up for long-term success by avoiding these generally perpetrated expertise crimes:
1. Soiled and rancid information
Making good business decisions relies heavily on your access to good data. 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 consequence 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 what you are promoting.
Insurance coverage compliance requirements and laws are continuously altering and updating. If the answer you sought particularly that can assist you sustain with this stuff isn’t offering you with correct and full information, you may as effectively nonetheless be managing issues by hand. Whereas most compliance instruments in the marketplace as of late sync to the trade’s one supply of reality for producer info, keep in mind 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 obtainable by the product doesn’t appear correct.”
2. Nonetheless requiring spreadsheets
Some insurance coverage companies put up with expertise crimes like unhealthy or stale information and compensate for them by conserving inside spreadsheets to double-check the info that’s of their system. That is fairly probably the most important expertise crime of all of them!
You probably went on the lookout for a compliance vendor within the first place since you wished to exchange your spreadsheets with a extra trendy tech resolution. So why accept a “resolution” that primarily places you again at sq. one? No group ought to pay for expertise so unreliable that workers must preserve their very own information and constantly cross-reference for accuracy. Speak about defeating the entire function of digitization.
Buyer confession: “We often 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 what you are promoting, not make your workflows clunkier. Trendy insurance coverage infrastructure means being adaptive and making fixed enhancements to your compliance ecosystem. Any resolution that stops bettering the second the contract is signed ought to elevate a right away crimson flag.
Options constructed on mainframe code don’t provide the identical flexibility as people who leverage a cloud-native architecture. They’re sometimes more durable (and even not possible) to combine with the opposite software program you utilize for every day enterprise operations and might trigger main downtime and value inefficiencies if you’re able to scale what you are promoting.
4. Processing unhealthy 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 kinds can lead to the state canceling the applying, however nonetheless conserving the related charges. With no system that may flag a probably unhealthy transaction, you’re left with the danger of processing and paying for transactions that wanted additional human intervention earlier than going by.
On the very least, your compliance tech ought to provide the choice to construct warnings, alerts, and “onerous stops” into your workflows to maintain transactions from being processed when a producer doesn’t meet sure standards. The correct compliance administration resolution will save what you are promoting cash in the long term, not add further (and fully 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 instances despite the fact that it solely went by as soon as.”
5. Exposes you to increased safety dangers
The information-driven nature of the insurance coverage enterprise means trade gamers have extra cybersecurity considerations 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 expertise vendor take you down with their very own lax safety practices.
By vetting compliance expertise distributors for his or her cybersecurity practices, you may scale back the danger of a knowledge breach and shield your fame. 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 very good partnership.
Keep away from falling sufferer to expertise crimes out of your compliance vendor
In the event you’re presently working with an insurance coverage compliance expertise that isn’t treating you the way in which you deserve – in these methods or others! – see how AgentSync is totally different. AgentSync’s dedicated to the thought of Buyer Love. This implies honest and clear pricing, assist that’s really supportive, and a tech platform that delights its customers and receives common updates and enhancements.
See how totally different insurance coverage compliance might be at your group; check out an AgentSync demo today.
