Insurance Technology Archives - Page 4 of 4

How to Avoid Common Mistakes Carriers Make When Implementing New Systems

by Rob Berg

Carriers who have not been through complete development and implementation of a new system tend to underestimate the time, attention, and project management expertise it takes to smoothly roll out a system that works seamlessly with the other systems already in place. During our decades of providing project management and insurance technology consulting, we find that there are no universal “best practices.” However, there are good practices that everyone should try to follow.
Here are some of the most common mistakes we see and our suggestions for better alternatives.

MISTAKE: Thinking that your in-house staff has the bandwidth to properly oversee your new system rollout.

WHY IT’S A PROBLEM: In-house teams already have full slates and might overlook crucial details that can compromise the project.
BETTER ALTERNATIVE: Partner with insurance experts who can bring a fresh perspective. They will evaluate the details of your system roll-out to spot hiccups before you begin. They can also create achievable timelines and budgets, helping all parties stay on track to meet these expectations.
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MISTAKE: Relying on an inexperienced project manager.

WHY IT’S A PROBLEM: Project management is about more than just watching the schedule and staying organized. Successful project management requires scope management, HR management, and experience in risk, quality and procurement management.
BETTER ALTERNATIVE: Since there are many moving pieces and many specialized disciplines to take into consideration, it’s wise to trust an experienced project manager who has the insurance technology consulting expertise required to successfully implement new systems specifically for insurance companies.
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MISTAKE: Drafting an ambiguous or incomplete scope of work before beginning the project.

WHY IT’S A PROBLEM: Poor planning reveals surprises that must ultimately be sorted out down the line. These can delay deployments and cause budgets to balloon.
BETTER ALTERNATIVE: Carefully define your scope of work before engaging vendors. Make sure that all stakeholders understand what’s in and what’s out of scope before awarding a contract, and encourage them to draw to your attention any gaps or points of confusion.
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MISTAKE: Adopting an ad hoc or informal approach to planning.

WHY IT’S A PROBLEM: Scattered planning results in reacting to problems as they arise, not charting a proactive course of action.
BETTER ALTERNATIVE: Ask your insurance technology consulting expert to give you a realistic picture of what to expect while you draft your scope of work. Make sure you account for all aspects of your current systems that need to be updated before integrating with your new systems.
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MISTAKE: Doing things the way they’ve always been done.

WHY IT’S A PROBLEM: A “business as usual” approach can cause you to overlook important details or blind you to new practices, which can result in the marketplace leaving you behind.
BETTER ALTERNATIVE: To remain both efficient and competitive, insurance companies must maintain the flexibility to adapt to new situations. Simply relying on project management practices that have worked in the past can cause you to miss out on opportunities for greater efficiency or profitability.
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MISTAKE: Jumping to a solution before properly assessing the issue.

WHY IT’S A PROBLEM: Rushed decision making leads to costly oversights that can stall a project or force a complete re-evaluation down the line.
BETTER ALTERNATIVE: Undertake a proper discovery period to correctly assess your project needs and evaluate the costs and benefits associated with project decisions. Create a game plan that makes sense and make sure everyone is on the same page before you start the project.
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MISTAKE: Hastily selecting a vendor.

WHY IT’S A PROBLEM: Partnering with the wrong vendor can cost you time and money. You might end up deep in a project and be forced to throw good money after a bad vendor experience in an effort to get your project back on track.
BETTER ALTERNATIVE: Take the time to properly vet your vendors. Ask them specific questions about their experience in the particular lines of business you are planning to write. Look for areas where they push back. You don’t need a team of yes-men. You need experienced professionals who tell you the truth, no matter what.
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MISTAKE: Remaining with the same vendor.

WHY IT’S A PROBLEM: Legacy partners can also get mired in their own systems and might not stay current with technology changes or industry advancements, causing you to lose out on important opportunities.
BETTER ALTERNATIVE: Ask your current vendor to bid alongside new vendors. If you have a personal relationship with your current vendor, request an unbiased third party from your team to handle the interviews and compare proposals. Take their assessment into strong consideration when deciding if your current vendor measures up or if you should partner with someone new.
There are as many ways to implement a new system as there are individual insurance companies. Use these guiding principles to help you make more thoughtful decisions as you develop new ways of serving your clients.
Need more guidance? Call Perr&Knight at (888)201-5123 Ext. 3 to discuss how we can help your implementation proceed more smoothly.

Why Partner with an Insurance Product Design Specialist?

by Terri Hitchcock

In today’s insurance marketplace, coverage enhancements and creative new lines of insurance are essential to maintaining a competitive edge. When developing or updating insurance products, many carriers take action without considering important details. They do not develop their products with market evolution and regulatory hurdles specific to each state or line of insurance in mind.
Many insurance companies also try to go it alone, relying on their in-house departments to design insurance products that fit the bill. But this method is fraught with risk and can result in rejection by the State Departments of Insurance that require additional time and resources to correct.
As an insurance carrier, you understand what your clientele wants but are you prepared to design the most appropriate insurance product to achieve it? This is where insurance product design specialists come in.

Insurance product design specialists understand the nuances of specialized lines of business.

They have years of experience in unique lines such as gap products in the accident and health arena and uncommon coverages like emerging inland marine lines for technology products, insurance for pets, and animal mortality. Specialists can provide advice and guidance on any aspect required by a particular line. Most in-house teams are simply not set up to provide such extensive insight.

They bring a fresh perspective.

Insurance product consultants think outside the box and develop innovative solutions to get you from idea to an approved product that satisfies regulators in a timely period. Many product design consultants have decades of experience and can handle all aspects of your development, or fill in for a gap in your staff. You can utilize their services to whatever degree you are comfortable. They can handle your entire project or simply slot into your existing team and lend their expertise.

Product design specialists understand the market and work with you TO ensure that your product will match marketplace needs.

With today’s rapid technology advancements, what worked in the past might not be the best solution. For example, millennials are buying insurance today in a completely different way than their parents or grandparents. They want instant quotes and payment submissions with a single touch on their smartphone. A specialist can help ensure that your product–and how it is delivered–keeps pace with the times.

Insurance product design specialists understand how to approach regulators.

They understand the distinct operating nuances specific to state Departments of Insurance and the submission requirements for each department. Some have personal relationships with individuals at the departments and can obtain answers quickly. As independent contractors, insurance product specialists can also make anonymous inquiries about new products or product enhancements without spotlighting exactly who is asking. This can save a tremendous amount of time during filing, enabling you to meet all regulatory requirements ahead of time.

Some do’s and don’ts for working with an insurance product design specialist:

Do…take advantage of their expertise. Ask pointed questions. Consultants are there to help educate you.

Don’t…be afraid of confidentiality breaches. Non-disclosure agreements are standard and reputable product design specialists will have no problem signing.

Do…ask about marketplace trends. Insurance product design consultants watch the entire insurance marketplace and can offer insight into shifts in the industry that can impact your business. Many advise clients on worldwide issues, including European clients who want to do business in the United States and American businesses who want to expand their coverage overseas. This insight can be invaluable to your company.

Do…interview your prospective product design consultant thoughtfully. Time frame generalities and “Which states will be most difficult?” are softball questions. Ask specific questions about the challenges your product will face. Answering in-depth questions with detailed specifics is the sure sign of a true expert.

Do…hire a consultant to peer review your product proposal before you file. This is an excellent way to evaluate their quality of work and can save you a tremendous amount of resources by avoiding a rejection.

Don’t…be afraid to work with someone new. Insurance companies tend to get mired in “business as usual” thinking and can miss out on valuable opportunities in the meantime.

We always recommend that you bring your product design consultant onboard as close to your project’s inception as possible. While specialists can handle your project at any stage–before, during, or after filing–you get the true value of their expertise when you enable them to contribute to your product’s development early on.
If you would like to know more about how an insurance product design specialist can help your business, call us at (888)201-5123 Ext. 3 and we will gladly discuss your product needs.

5 Strategies to Improve Your State Filings Process

by Perr&Knight

As every insurance professional knows, an inefficient state filings process can have a major negative impact on day-to-day operations and the timely filing of submissions. Problems related to organizing, sorting and tracking state filings consume time and resources and can create frustration and friction between departments. During our decades of providing insurance support services, we hear regular mentions of these challenges. As a result, we have identified five useful strategies to improve your company’s state filing process starting immediately.

Strategy 1: Stop relying on local storage and MS Excel.

Files stored on network drives, personal computers or on individual hard drives that are organized by MS Excel spreadsheets can lead to significant problems due to accidental erasure, data overwrites and inaccessibility by others. Local storage failures can stop your state filings in its tracks and render your team powerless to obtain vital information. Under audit, digging through old drives for information can waste days or weeks of manpower. Centralize your files in a cloud-based system and ensure your information is always safe and available.

Strategy 2: Say goodbye to your internally developed insurance software systems.

While it seemed like a good idea to develop an in-house state filings management system a decade ago, you might now realize that sustaining the software and hardware required for a secure and reliable system eats up more resources than your company can handle. These outdated systems can slow down the very processes they were developed to enhance. Maintenance and upgrades on legacy systems can get expensive and pose scalability challenges. Often only a few people on staff understand the system’s complexities and must personally resolve hiccups, thus stealing their attention from other duties. Switching to reliable hosted state filings software can ensure that your technology keeps pace with your business needs.

Strategy 3: Enable secure access by more individuals.

An insurance company’s state filings are often handled by a single department comprised of a few employees who manage all filings and issue all status reports. This employee involvement can slow the process down due to the time it takes to request information and generate reports. By storing your state filings in a web-based central location, you can issue log-in credentials to various stakeholders who have the ability check the status of filings at any time. Accessible and transparent data empowers users to get the information they need without running the risk of missed communications or slow-downs caused by human oversight.

Strategy 4: Maintain updated forms libraries and filing status information.

Old or outdated state filings status information can result in time-wasting confusion and policy issuance of incorrect forms. Rather than risk this unnecessary runaround, invest in insurance software that displays status and other forms data in real time and can be searched easily using relevant text. This enables all interested parties to monitor filing progress and obtain accurate, time-critical data at any time.

Strategy 5: Take immediate action to enact change.

“Business as usual” operations avoid rocking the boat today at the expense of tomorrow. While it is easier to continue relying on a broken system and delay necessary improvements to your state filings protocol, you do so at your own risk. Chasing missing paperwork, sifting through email chains and calling emergency IT support to extract data after hardware failures takes time, attention and energy away from your staff–and only gets you as far as the next process failure. Generate a realistic timeline to improve your state filings process then stick to your benchmarks and watch your process improve.
Letting go of old systems and processes that no longer serve your business can be a daunting task. At Perr&Knight, we have seen these challenges affect scores of clients who watch their state filings systems become more and more fractured but lack a viable alternative. We enhanced our own state filings services by developing StateFilings.com, a cloud-based insurance software that streamlines filings process by directly addressing many of the pitfalls described above. In addition to using this software internally for our insurance support services, we offer StateFilings.com for license to insurance companies who seek a single, reliable solution to address their state filings challenges.
No matter which of the above strategies your company decides to employ, the first step to improvement is recognizing the limitations of your current processes and resolving to make a change. For questions about how to streamline your state filings process, call Perr&Knight at (310) 230-9339 or contact us today.