It is the typical default category of payments -- check, ACH (electronic payment from bank account), and credit card. And, of course, carriers love to offer lots of options to make it easy for premiums to be paid. It is the lifeblood of their business.
However, payments mean a lot more. In fact, payments can represent the single most important way a carrier can live up to their brand promise, the promise that every insurance carrier has ever made to any policyholder: Trust us to help you when you need us -- we will pay your claim to help make you whole again.
The irony is that although nearly every carrier has made it easy to accept payments from their policyholders, the same majority have not put the same effort into making it just as easy for their claimants to receive payment when they need it most.
Today’s world is becoming more transparent than ever before. What a company does well or does poorly will quickly be exposed through social media and other avenues. And, doing well does not mean doing just enough. It means that you are keeping up with the pace of our world today whether it is in your industry or not. Disruption can happen at breakneck speed.
The epic failures are often not on the radar scope. It may be difficult to avoid them. But most are obvious with 20/20 hindsight.
Insurance carriers are in such a position. Their myopic focus on providing options for receiving money from their policyholders may help get revenue faster. However, the lack of offering policyholders, claimants, agents, and vendors options on how to be paid will be a glaring lack of understanding of the current world and how it transacts. In fact, some say it shows a lack of mutual respect. And, in this new, increasingly-transparent climate, the last thing a carrier wants to expose is a lack of mutual respect. Your customer satisfaction, ratings, and net promoter scores may disrupt your efforts to maintain and grow your business. No one promoted a carrier just because the carrier made it easy to pay their premium.
Gone are the days of a carrier pacifying the payee with a gesture to get the check out soon. Check? Really? Paper? In the mail? That sounds like time. Lots of time. And lots of effort. Both on the carrier’s side and the payee’s side. We live in an instant-gratification society. And, fortunately, there is technology to make payments happen quickly. Remember, we know that from the receiving-payments side of the equation.
The good news is there are ways to easily apply new, additional payment methods to carrier’s core systems, for claim payments, premium refunds, commissions, vendor payments, and more.
Let’s focus on the word easy. Yes, additional payment methods can be applied easily with a disbursement-hub solution called PayPilot®. Whether our client carriers are in the top 25 or one of the small mutuals, having PayPilot is integral to being nimble relative to offering payment options.
Carriers do not have to integrate each core system with each payment option anymore. The PayPilot disbursement hub handles the integration with the third-party payment methods so you do not have to. Easy!
And, PayPilot is perpetually vetting and offering additional payment method options as a superset for carriers to consider and offer. Along with MICR checks, ACH (including multi-party payments), eChecks, Zelle, WEX virtual cards and MasterCard Send (direct-to-debit) payment options are enabled. And more can be easily applied.
To learn how you can provide better service by providing additional payment method capabilities, we welcome your call or email. And, be sure to stop by and see us at the 2017 National IASA Conference in Orlando, FL, June 4th-7th. We are in booth 1343.