This submit 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 companies, carriers, MGAs, and MGUs, to particular person producers, adjusters, and dually licensed broker-dealers.
Whom you select to companion with on your compliance wants issues. Choosing the proper know-how companion can remodel your insurance coverage licensing compliance practices from a nightmare right into a dream-come-true.
Selecting the incorrect companion, alternatively, can result in undesirable outcomes, comparable 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 don’t have any qualms doing enterprise the best way they’ve at all times accomplished it. Typically, this contains committing some critical “crimes” in opposition to their very own clients. No, we’re not speaking concerning the sorts of crimes that land anybody in jail, however these transgressions are irritating, pricey, and simply plain incorrect nonetheless.
On this three-part collection, we’ll cowl among the commonest “crimes” we see insurance coverage compliance tech distributors committing in opposition to their buyer base. First up are crimes of the monetary selection: those that value you more cash than they need to, or, worse but, depart you at nighttime about how a lot cash you’ll be spending.
When insurance coverage compliance distributors commit monetary crimes
If you happen to’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, clients all too usually discover themselves spending more cash than they anticipated, and even questioning from month to month and yr to yr how a lot cash they’ll must spend protecting their producer, adjuster, and broker-dealer licenses and appointments in good order.
Some generally perpetrated monetary crimes embrace:
1. Charges on high of charges
There are unavoidable charges related to producer and adjuster licensing and appointments. However, when a know-how supplier costs transaction charges only for supplying you with the privilege of paying one other payment, that’s simply not proper.
When evaluating a compliance know-how companion, be sure that to ask what they cost per transaction on high of the charges that entities likes states and NIPR cost. If the reply isn’t “nothing,” there’s likelihood you’ll end up paying extra every month than you’ve budgeted for getting and protecting 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 high of the common NIPR payment to do these transactions.”
2. Opaque pricing
Agreeing to pay a payment is one factor, however having no thought what you’re paying for is one thing else solely. Many compliance distributors ship their clients a invoice that makes it unimaginable to know what they’re paying for. Is {that a} subscription payment? A state payment? An NIPR payment? An add-on transaction payment? 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 obtained 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 payment 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 need to pay further every time you wish to handle compliance. But, that’s precisely what some know-how suppliers demand. Paying a PDB payment to feed correct knowledge from the business’s supply of fact to the system you’re already paying for ought to be legal!
As a substitute, search for a compliance know-how companion that bases its pricing on one easy payment, comparable to a value primarily based on the variety of producers (distinctive NPNs) you wish to hold tabs on. Having correct, up-to-the-day details about that producer ought to be included in that value, not re-charged each time you wish to confirm the producer’s license continues to be legitimate in a state, for instance!
4. Numerous 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 further), or being compelled to pay to improve a software program you obtain years in the past and thought you could possibly use ceaselessly, there are many examples of shoppers considering they’re getting one factor and studying the reality later.
Honesty is vital, even when it’s not the reply you wish to hear. We consider compliance companions ought to be upfront about what their resolution can and may’t do, how a lot it prices, and all different phrases and circumstances, so clients could make absolutely 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 dearth 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” together with your group’s knowledge, it could possibly really feel a bit like that! Many distributors make you pay further to run stories so you possibly can analyze the information you enter and preserve. If you happen to’ve put the information in, however it’s important to pay to investigate it or report on it, is it actually “your” knowledge?
Typically, by necessity, it prices further to have a customized report constructed with the intention to see precisely what you want in a selected approach. We’re not in opposition to anybody making a living for performing add-on companies. However that’s completely different than a cost for every time you utilize that report sooner or later, or wish 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 further 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
If you happen to’re presently 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 truthful and clear pricing, assist that’s really supportive, and a tech platform that delights its customers and is often up to date and improved.
See how completely different insurance coverage compliance might be at your group by talking with somebody at AgentSync right this moment.
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