This put up 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 in your compliance wants issues. Choosing the proper know-how companion can rework your insurance coverage licensing compliance practices from a nightmare right into a dream-come-true.
Selecting the unsuitable companion, then again, can result in undesirable outcomes, akin to:
- Spending an excessive amount of cash on one thing that’s not assembly your wants
- Risking compliance and knowledge safety mishaps
- Failing to realize organization-wide adoption and the continued use of guide and error-prone processes
- Shedding 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 best way they’ve all the time accomplished it. Typically, this consists of committing some critical “crimes” towards their very own prospects. No, we’re not speaking concerning the sorts of crimes that land anybody in jail, however these transgressions are irritating, expensive, and simply plain unsuitable 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. First up are crimes of the monetary selection: those that price you extra money than they need to, or, worse but, go away you at the hours of darkness about how a lot cash you’ll be spending.
When insurance coverage compliance distributors commit monetary crimes
In the event you’re seeking to put money into a contemporary, automated producer compliance administration resolution, it’s doubtless that saving cash is one in every of your motivations. Sadly, prospects all too usually discover themselves spending extra money than they anticipated, and even questioning from month to month and yr to yr how a lot cash they’ll must spend maintaining their producer, adjuster, and broker-dealer licenses and appointments in good order.
Some generally perpetrated monetary crimes embody:
1. Charges on prime of charges
There are unavoidable charges related to producer and adjuster licensing and appointments. However, when a know-how supplier expenses transaction charges only for providing you with the privilege of paying one other charge, that’s simply not proper.
When evaluating a compliance know-how companion, be certain to ask what they cost per transaction on prime of the charges that entities likes states and NIPR cost. If the reply isn’t “nothing,” there’s a great probability you’ll end up paying extra every month than you’ve budgeted for getting and maintaining your producers, adjusters, and broker-dealers licensed.
Buyer confession: “One other firm we’re speaking to is charging $2.50 for every appointment, $2.50 for every termination, and $1.75 for every PDB lookup. And all that’s on prime of the common NIPR charge to do these transactions.”
2. Opaque pricing
Agreeing to pay a charge is one factor, however having no thought what you’re paying for is one thing else solely. Many compliance distributors ship their prospects a invoice that makes it not possible to know what they’re paying for. Is {that a} subscription charge? A state charge? An NIPR charge? An add-on transaction charge? Who can say?
Earlier than getting right into a contract with a compliance know-how companion, clear and clear pricing is a must have. When you’re in that relationship, it shouldn’t take a PhD in finance to decode your month-to-month invoice.
Buyer confession: “We’ve bought a invoice for $2 million and it’s arduous to inform what a part of that’s the unavoidable charges, just like the NIPR digital processing charge or state-specific software charges, and the way a lot of that’s simply going to the seller.”
3. Paying for up-to-date knowledge
When signing up for a compliance administration resolution, you wouldn’t count on to should pay additional every time you need to handle compliance. But, that’s precisely what some know-how suppliers demand. Paying a PDB charge to feed correct knowledge from the business’s supply of reality to the system you’re already paying for needs to be legal!
As a substitute, search for a compliance know-how companion that bases its pricing on one simple charge, akin to a price based mostly on the variety of producers (distinctive NPNs) you need to hold tabs on. Having correct, up-to-the-day details about that producer needs to be included in that price, not re-charged each time you need to confirm the producer’s license remains to be legitimate in a state, for instance!
4. Varied bait-and-switches
Whether or not it’s signing up for one thing after which studying you’re not getting what you noticed within the demo (with out paying additional), or being pressured to pay to improve a software program you obtain years in the past and thought you possibly can use ceaselessly, there are many examples of consumers pondering they’re getting one factor and studying the reality later.
Honesty is essential, even when it’s not the reply you need to hear. We imagine compliance companions needs to be upfront about what their resolution can and might’t do, how a lot it prices, and all different phrases and circumstances, so prospects could make totally knowledgeable choices about what’s greatest for them.
Buyer confession: “To be trustworthy, we’re gun shy to strive once more with one other vendor due to the shortage of transparency we’ve been coping with.”
5. Holding your knowledge for “ransom”
Whereas insurance coverage compliance suppliers aren’t technically going all-out “ransomware assault” along with your group’s knowledge, it could really feel a bit like that! Many distributors make you pay additional to run experiences so you possibly can analyze the information you enter and keep. In the event you’ve put the information in, however you need to pay to research it or report on it, is it actually “your” knowledge?
Typically, by necessity, it prices additional to have a customized report constructed to be able to see precisely what you want in a particular manner. We’re not towards anybody earning money for performing add-on providers. However that’s completely different than a cost for every time you utilize that report sooner or later, or need to entry right this moment’s model of that knowledge (not final month’s). Don’t let distributors maintain your knowledge hostage or make you pay additional to make use of it for data-driven decisionmaking. Insist on free entry to have a look at your knowledge and do what you need with it.
Keep away from falling sufferer to monetary crimes out of your compliance know-how
In the event you’re at present working with an insurance coverage compliance know-how that isn’t treating you the best way you deserve – in these methods or others! – see how AgentSync is completely different. AgentSync’s dedicated to the concept of Buyer Love. This implies honest and clear pricing, help that’s truly supportive, and a tech platform that delights its customers and is repeatedly up to date and improved.
See how completely different insurance coverage compliance may very well be at your group by talking with somebody at AgentSync right this moment.
Subjects
Fraud