This post is part of a series sponsored by AgentSync.
Insurance compliance is a serious issue. Non-compliance can have serious implications for everyone from insurance agents, insurers, MGAs and MGUs to individual insurance agents, adjusters and dually licensed broker-dealers.
Who you choose to partner with for your compliance needs matters. Choosing the right technology partner can turn your insurance license compliance efforts from a nightmare to a dream come true.
On the other hand, choosing the wrong partner can lead to undesirable consequences, such as:
- Spending too much money on things that don’t meet your needs
- Risk of Compliance and Data Security Incidents
- Lack of organization-wide adoption means manual and error-prone processes continue to be used
- Losing staff or distribution channel partners due to the stress of working for or with you
Despite industry pressure on insurers to adopt more modern practices, many insurance compliance technology vendors have no qualms about doing business the same way they’ve always done business. In many cases, this includes committing serious “crimes” against their own customers. While not crimes that will land you in jail, these violations are frustrating, expensive, and just plain wrong.
In this three-part series, we will look at some of the most common “crimes” insurance compliance technology vendors commit against their customers. Financial Diversity Similarly Supporting crimeIn our third and final article, we’ll cover technology crime. If you’ve ever been a victim of technology-related crime, unfortunately, the vendors you invested your money and resources into are total duds.
When Insurance Compliance Vendors Commit Technology Crimes
While you may be able to tolerate crimes that cause further damage to your company or create friction in your user experience, what is really gained from investing in compliance technology if the technology itself doesn’t work? Investing time, energy, and money into a solution that doesn’t deliver benefits isn’t just frustrating; it can negatively impact every aspect of your business, from the security of your data and your reputation to your ability to scale and grow in the future.
Set yourself up for long-term success by avoiding common tech crimes such as:
1. Dirty, outdated data
Access to the right data is crucial to making good business decisions. Data quality is key to whether a compliance management solution will provide benefits or just be a cost. When producers and adjusters have inaccurate license and reservation data, whether that be because of technical errors that cause missing or inaccurate data in the system or intermittent synchronization with data sources, it creates problems for every part of the business.
Insurance compliance standards and regulations are constantly changing and updating. If the solution you were looking for specifically to address these doesn’t provide accurate and complete data, you’re still managing it manually. Most compliance tools on the market today sync with the industry’s single source of truth for producer information, but keep in mind that not all syncs are created equal. Consider how often the sync occurs, the quality of the data received, and how discrepancies are handled.
Customer confession: “I’ve discovered that the PDB sync in our current solution isn’t happening. We seem to be constantly fighting this deficiency and the information available through the product doesn’t seem to be accurate.”
2. You still need spreadsheets
Some insurers tolerate technology crimes such as fraudulent or outdated data and compensate by keeping in-house spreadsheets to double-check the data in their systems – perhaps the biggest of all technology crimes.
The reason you sought out a compliance vendor in the first place was because you wanted to replace spreadsheets with a modern technology solution. So why settle for a “solution” that will put you back to square one? No organization should pay for technology that is so unreliable that it requires staff to keep their own records and continually cross-reference them for accuracy. That would clearly defeat the very purpose of going digital.
Customer confession: “I often need a copy of my license. I can’t get it from the product, so I store it in a separate system.”
3. Old and siloed technology
Your technology stack should create efficiencies that help modernize your business, not clutter your workflow. A modern insurance infrastructure means adapting and continually improving your compliance ecosystem. A solution that stops improving the moment a contract is signed should raise immediate red flags.
Solutions built on mainframe code Leverage cloud-native architecture. Typically, it’s difficult (or impossible) to integrate with other software you use in your day-to-day operations, which can cause significant downtime and cost inefficiencies when your business is ready to scale.
4. Processing fraudulent transactions
Some producer license management technologies have checks and balances built into them to stop invalid transactions before they occur. Others do not. Incomplete producer applications or license renewal forms can cause states to cancel applications but leave associated fees in place. Without a system that can flag potentially fraudulent transactions, you remain at risk of processing and paying for transactions that require further human intervention before going through.
At the very least, compliance technology should give producers the option to build warnings, alerts, and “hard stops” into their workflows to prevent transactions from processing if certain criteria are not met. The right compliance management solution will save your business money in the long run, not add extra (and completely avoidable) expenses to your bottom line.
Customer confession: “Our current solution has very poor notification capabilities and charges per transaction. Sometimes we end up paying multiple times for the same transaction when it was only performed once.”
5. Increased security risks
Because the insurance business is data-driven, industry players have more cybersecurity concerns than other industries. Your organization’s data security success depends on the security and readiness of the third-party vendors and software you use. If you’ve taken the necessary steps to ensure your cyber hygiene, don’t let lax security practices from your compliance technology vendors doom you.
Compliance Scrutinizing your technology vendor’s cybersecurity practices can help reduce the risk of a data breach and protect your reputation. If your vendor isn’t up to date on cybersecurity requirements, you’re putting yourself at risk and making for a bad partnership.
Avoid becoming a victim of tech crime with compliance vendors
If you’re currently using insurance compliance technology and aren’t getting the treatment you deserve in these and other areas, discover the AgentSync difference. AgentSync is committed to a philosophy of customer love, which means fair and transparent pricing, support that actually works, and a technology platform that keeps users happy and is regularly updated and improved.
See how insurance compliance can change your organization. Check out the AgentSync demo now.
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