This put up is a part of a sequence sponsored by AgentSync.
Insurance coverage is a extremely regulated trade, and, with a producer workforce that’s turning over as a technology retires and indicators over their companies, decreasing time spent on handbook knowledge entry for each inner and exterior groups is essential to long-term progress.
Once I took on the position of president at Bridger Insurance coverage Companies slightly greater than a 12 months in the past, one in every of my first priorities was to streamline operations. As a lot because the trade likes handbook, I used to be prepared to fireplace “handbook.”
Appointing was a type of processes that was too handbook and required an excessive amount of hands-on consideration for an organization that has lots of of places of work across the nation. Previous to working with AgentSync, our course of went one thing like:
- A producer would ship us an e mail or name us to ask to be appointed
- Our staff would ship a PDF of our company settlement, an digital funds switch settlement, a W-9, and many others.
- The producer would ship again every little thing with copies of their licenses
- Our employees would manually sort up every little thing to place it into our consumer relationship administration system and coverage admin system
It was a very inefficient course of, regardless of wanting very similar to the method of quite a few insurance coverage corporations working in our area.
Gaining effectivity by course of enhancements
Previous to my coming aboard as president, Bridger was already working with AgentSync and had applied an agent onboarding portal to automate this course of. It is a closely regulated trade, and we are able to solely preserve appointments and do enterprise with producers who’re correctly licensed. So, synchronizing nationwide producer numbers (NPNs) and with the ability to let companies know to get their producers present on their persevering with training (CE) and licenses was an effective way to make sure compliance.
That first step of automating producer onboarding and appointments helped additional our fame as a technology-forward firm. But, we’re seeing the insurance coverage trade change, with long-time company house owners leaving the trade and promoting their companies. So, after I noticed our portal nonetheless had 40 or so questions, I knew we had some room for enchancment.
In relation to on-line processes, if one thing is just too lengthy or sophisticated, there will likely be a drop-off in completion. So we examined our portal to critically have a look at the info we have been amassing. We tried to expertise the method as our customers would, and perceive the place the bottlenecks or ache factors have been. And we determined there have been numerous locations we may create much more efficiencies past a digitized model of our onboarding course of.
Buyer Success staff ranges up the partnership
Taking a handbook, paper-based, course of and making it digital isn’t the identical as being fashionable or digital. We all know our companions don’t have the time to spend 45 minutes on an appointment utility – whether or not digital or on paper. So, we began a dialog with the AgentSync staff about tips on how to additional streamline our onboarding and appointment course of.
One of many challenges we confronted was managing producers and company companions throughout lots of of places in several states. Rethinking our onboarding course of was going to require numerous hands-on studying, and, fortuitously, the AgentSync Buyer Success staff proved to be as much as the duty.
From subject mapping between AgentSync and our e-signature instruments to stripping down required fields and guaranteeing the person expertise was stable, the AgentSync staff was with us each step of the best way. Not solely did they do what we requested, however they engaged with us to offer suggestions and enter on methods to enhance our course of, too.
The staff at AgentSync noticed this as a problem to higher not simply the Bridger expertise, but in addition the AgentSync options set. Understanding that we had a staff behind us, dedicated to delivering one thing that actually works for all of us, made the method far simpler. As an alternative of taking hours to sort and retype data, fields autofill throughout our platforms. Our potential companions can enroll on-line, entry the portal, and apply for an appointment in a matter of minutes. Our admins verify purposes to make sure the data is all there, then click on a button to create a signature package deal. I signal it, the producer indicators it, and we’re finished. And in all of that, we all know state-specific compliance guidelines are baked in so we don’t fear about lacking them.
Over time, these efficiencies flip into revenue. Over the past 12 months, we’ve grown our enterprise greater than 450 p.c, so having an environment friendly, automated, and streamlined onboarding and appointing course of is instrumental.
Utilizing improvements to fulfill a altering trade for progress
Business longtimers are ageing out. Whereas there are a lot of statistics to again this up, even anecdotally, Bridger is seeing a justifiable share of people who find themselves retiring and promoting their companies. Most of those gross sales find yourself with identify adjustments, entity principal adjustments, and an entire course of of adjusting data for the enterprise entities and the producers concerned.
We’re rising our base at the same time as this trade changing-of-the-guard happens as a result of we’re making this shift easy, with e-signature instruments and auto-filling integrations into our different methods, all of which make it simpler to draw new company house owners and retain the companies we already contract with. However there are a lot of carriers on the market which are nonetheless utilizing written papers to deal with these adjustments.
Making the most of know-how places us a minimize above. As an alternative of recruiting new places of work by having to make a prolonged case for why they need to sit by an hour or extra of printing, filling, and scanning paperwork, we are able to current potential companions with a QR code the place they will apply for an appointment straight from their cellphone.
Partnering with AgentSync has been a part of this imaginative and prescient – we now have come to anticipate the responsive communication wanted to implement adjustments as we see them, and we all know we are able to get responses or conferences with our AgentSync staff in a measure of hours, not days. That has set us up for fulfillment in higher concentrating on our alternatives in untapped market areas, profiting from market cycles, and leveraging our momentum to develop and scale.
At Bridger, we’ve seen that operational effectivity, efficient compliance, and our companions’ expertise converge on this speedy onboarding course of constructed on fashionable insurance coverage infrastructure. Because the market circumstances proceed to drive these improvements, we’re wanting ahead to what comes subsequent.
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