(Newswire.net — December 17, 2021) —
A lot happens in the back-office of an insurance firm, but one department that all other departments depend upon is policy administration. It enables the management to get considerable insights into business performance and helps the entire staff be on the same page.
If you are an insurance business owner and your firm follows traditional, manual practices for policy management, you might be vulnerable to risks and lose staff productivity due to time-consuming processes. In addition, policy management has become even more challenging these days due to changing and growing customer demands, the emergence of new remote working strategies, changing market trends, etc.
However, you can meet these challenges, and for that, it is essential to bring transformative improvements in policy management functions.
Tech-driven transformation helps meet most policy administration challenges
We are just about one month away from entering 2022. Today’s consumers expect rapid responsiveness from the company they make purchases from, and insurance is not at all an exception. They want to check and compare policies online, get their queries resolved in real-time, buy the best possible policies at the lowest possible prices without wasting any time.
Depending upon legacy insurance systems, handling processes manually, processing paper-based forms, and unorganized information come up as barriers to delivering fast customer services in real-time. In addition, rapidly changing customer expectations indicate that you need to focus a little more on retention. You can do this by eliminating some pain points that customers often encounter, such as:
Long waiting times for connection
Long hold times
False call-back promises
Slow response via emails
Getting incorrect or insufficient information
Next-gen insurers are delivering excellent customer experiences with the help of technology. You can also do the same by carrying out a tech-driven transformation of your insurance policy administration; here’s how technology brings an impactful difference.
- Phone systems integrated with core data systems can help customer care executives know which customer is calling, when they last called, and what their concern is if they have already submitted a query. This can speed up and streamline functions like quote preparation, endorsements, issuance, renewal, and other associated everyday tasks.
- Online forms are easy to use and mobile-friendly – best for next-gen insurance buyers. They do not need data to be entered manually as auto-fill tools help fill forms quickly and accurately if the information is already stored in the systems.
- Notification features in the new-era policy management systems can help customers get notified about their policies and their statuses via text messages, emails, etc.
- Version control tools enable you to easily track all changes done to policy-related documents and relevant materials.
- Self-service portals for policy management enable users to have more control over their accounts and details, allowing them to modify the information (address, phone number, policy preferences, etc.) quickly whenever needed.
- Automatic resource allocation powered by machine learning (ML) helps assign tasks to team members on the basis of their availability, expertise, and priority, nature of work.
- The latest policy management systems provide dashboards and analytical tools, which can be used to get quick, real-time insights into individual policies, operational processes, performance, profitability, and whatnot.
- Policy management tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can help make quick decisions. They can review, correct, and issue policies automatically and faster or forward any to relevant personal if approval is pending.
Now, let’s read some tips on best policy management practices in sync with technology to improve the entire process and relevant procedures.
Best insurance policy management practices
Insist on a centralized system
By using a modern insurance policy management system, you can build a centralized repository where you can generate and manage policies – all in one place. This repository will work as a center for all the policies, enabling you to access any required policy-related information in real-time from anywhere.
Use automation
By having a centralized location for policies, you can monitor policy management operations quite easily and effectively. You can set automated workflows, ensuring the right professional will review the right policy at the right time before it gets issued. Additionally, version control automation can help smoothen the review process by allowing approvers only to check the latest version of a policy made.
Save time using small, impactful tools
By integrating small, easy-to-use, and impactful insurance business tools with your policy management system, you can prepare policies and send them to key people for further proceedings. Set automatic workflows to send policies only to personnel who need them, for example, for attesting purposes or similar. This will help save your employees’ time as the right policy will be sent to specific people with defined job titles without you putting any extra effort.
Enhance compliance audit & reporting
Regulatory bodies must ensure your insurance agency or company has the evidence proving your business operations are in compliance with the guidelines. Using a reliable policy management system lets you easily understand how to follow those guidelines and ensure your workforce complies with the norms. Also, you would be able to generate compliance reports to prove effectiveness.
Invest in tools wisely
Without putting much thought into it, have a dedicated and experienced person from your team for this responsibility. That employee should be given the job to examine which software programs and third-party tools can be used to improve the overall process—for example, looking for top policy administration applications, risk assessment tools, etc., examining their capabilities, and then selecting one according to business needs and budget. Your firm might want to use a system that helps manage all policies in one place.
Benefits of transforming, modernizing the policy management process
- Providing clear and comprehensive information to stakeholders on meeting accountability in terms of ethics and governance
- Greater control over policy life-cycle management
- Fast response to quickly highlighted potential policy-related risks
- Automated workflows can help improve efficiencies and save costs
- Detailed auditing helps understand new policies
- Changes can be done automatically (but may require approval) to policies according to changing norms
- Customer support services can be improved and become more appropriate
- Greater customer satisfaction can further help improve retention rates
- Smooth and optimized policy management helps prevent the risks of reputation and brand being damaged
Policy management chores require sheer attention, precision, and an eye for detail. Due to various issues like staff shortage or lack of time, insurance business owners often choose third-party firms for policy management services, which is another excellent solution to transform policy administration, increase efficiency, and optimize the overall process, leading to desired results, increased productivity and profitability. Besides, know that you need to have a customer-centric mindset and point of view in order to compete effectively in today’s fast-evolving business era.