The agency had been using Simply Easier Payments for about 3 years when they switched over to ePayPolicy in 2017. ePayPolicy had a more professional look, especially because they were able to use their branding on their payment page.
4 Ways Insurance Companies Can Prepare for a Recession
The U.S. is now experiencing soaring inflation, supply chain disruptions and geopolitical crises — indicators that the economy is heading for a recession. What can insurance companies do to prepare?
Agency Bill or Direct Bill: It Pays to Prepare for Both
Are you launching a new agency? Are you a brokerage expanding into new lines? Or are you simply looking for ways to bind policies, get paid, and/or move funds across the industry faster? A key consideration is how your policies are billed. Let’s quickly review the basics:
Direct bill means the insurance carrier bills the policyholder and the policyholder pays the carrier directly. In agency bill, the agency bills the insured, collects the premium payment(s) and pays their MGA or the carrier.
According to Gabe Nix, Enterprise Sales Executive at ePayPolicy, the vast majority of personal lines today are direct bill. He says, “Anything that is highly transactional (i.e., personal lines) is usually direct billed by the insurance carrier.”
Outside of standard commercial lines, insurance is typically sold through MGAs and wholesalers and is almost always agency billed. The choice of billing is up to the carrier or the MGA, not the agency. If the insurance carrier isn’t going to do it, the MGA passes the collection responsibility downstream to the agency.
Gabe ran his own retail agency before joining ePayPolicy. He knows the work required to collect and correctly account for payments. He notes, “Sometimes agencies have to forward the full amount and have to wait for their commission. It’s an onerous task.”
Enter ePayPolicy
ePayPolicy set out to automate the agency bill process to support both agencies and their insureds. We made collecting payments convenient by enabling insureds to pay digitally by credit card or ACH. Processing payments through ePayPolicy is a breeze, from automated invoices and payment reminders to batch reports and balanced balance sheets.
Approaching nearly a decade in business, ePayPolicy has become a go-to player in the insurtech ecosystem. We’re the insurance payment processor of choice for agencies large and small across the country. We also serve MGAs, wholesalers, premium finance companies and, increasingly, insurance carriers.
Be Prepared for Changes
Serving entities across the industry spectrum means we can help clients solve their current problems and get prepared for changes to come. And that includes changes in policy billing.
According to Gabe, the billing piece is “kind of fluid” and a lot of policies that are now direct bill may ultimately become agency bill. Why? “We’re in a hard market right now. Insurers want to take less risk.” A previously placed policy might be considered too risky right now. You may have to find a new carrier or your current carrier may push billing down to the MGA/wholesaler and thus the agency.
“You need to have a solution in place for agency bill, because a carrier can change. I think it’s necessary to have an option for policyholders to be able to pay you instead. If things shift away from direct bill (and this is not as unlikely as it may sound), the retail side needs to be ready.”
Even with traditionally direct bill policies, agencies may want to have an option for High Net Worth or other niche divisions where types of billing can make or break the customer experience.
The time may come when carriers decide even their personal lines would be better off agency bill. Gabe cited an example of a provider of specialized commercial insurance and personal lines. “They accept credit cards. They hated the fact that they had to work with payment card processors. There was a push for the payment exposure to get onto the agency.”
Gabe says: “We’re available to help anybody in the insurance industry that has to process or receive payments. We don’t want anyone to be caught off guard.” ePayPolicy also has the ability to pass the fees, not just absorb.
Where to Start
With ePayPolicy, each relationship starts with a direct conversation. “How do you process payments now? What are your biggest payment headaches? What management system are you on? Are you dealing with merchant services accounts that aren’t built for our industry?”
Check out the benefits of ePayPolicy specific to your business. Learn what we offer Agencies, MGAs and Brokers, Premium Finance Companies and Insurance Companies on our website.
When you’re ready, schedule a demo and see the advantages for yourself.
CS&A Insurance Gets Paid Lightning Fast with ePayPolicy
Accounting Director Carrie Davis describes how her agency came to offer digital payments. Several CS&A clients had been asking about paying their premiums with a credit card. She looked into options through their AMS vendor. But it seemed complicated and expensive and “not something we wanted to deal with.”
Then, one of their agents got introduced to ePayPolicy at a conference and brought back some literature. Carrie was struck by the simplicity and low cost and called ePayPolicy to learn more.
The introduction of digital payments through ePayPolicy in March 2020 turned out to be both smart and timely. CS&A launched right before COVID hit, just as businesses started shutting down. From there, “it just took off.”
Primary Problem
Carrie says, “Our biggest collection headaches were slow payers and waiting on the mail to get here.” Enabling clients to pay with a credit card or via ACH has significantly sped up CS&A receivables. This was especially notable during the mail slowdown during the pandemic.
Client Acceptance
The agency’s clients were quick to jump on the digital payment option. All they have to do is click on a link. Carrie reports: “Our CSR account managers have payment links in their emails. We have a link on every invoice.” Plus, there’s a big, green “Pay Now” button right on the CS&A website.
She says most clients like earning points for their credit card payments, although some are paying with ACH.
Carrie doesn’t hesitate at all when asked what her favorite feature is – the ease of use. “It’s easy for us, and for the insureds as well.”
Biggest Benefit to CS&A
“It’s so much quicker to pay now. Sometimes we even get payment before the invoice goes out! We are just waiting for the money to get in once we get the batch report,” notes Carrie. “It’s really improved our collections.”
Advice to Other Agencies
If your agency is just beginning to explore offering digital payments or is actively researching providers, Carrie recommends ePayPolicy. She advises: “Sign up. Just do it. I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t.”
About CS&A Insurance
Franklin-based Chappell, Smith & Associates (CS&A Insurance) offers a one-stop-shop for commercial, employee benefits and personal lines coverage. The agency’s specialty divisions serve the hospitality, construction and aviation industries and the unique risks of high net worth clients. Focused expertise, service and good old-fashioned courtesy have kept this esteemed agency growing since 1881 (as Chappell, Smith since 1981).
Digitize Payments to Increase Customer Satisfaction…and More
The trend is clear. People today prefer to pay digitally. That includes everything from Amazon purchases to their monthly utility bill – and yes, their insurance premiums! While there are still a few diehard check writers out there, digital transformation is here to stay.
The Many Benefits of Digital Payments
Customer convenience is often cited as the main reason businesses offer digital payments. And statistics bear that out. In a survey of billing executives, 97 percent reported higher customer satisfaction as a benefit of digitizing payments. The report, called “The Digital Edge”, also found other key business benefits, such as: reduced collection times (86.5%), increased operational efficiency (90.8%), cost reductions (81.6%) and gaining a competitive edge (92.3%).
Who wouldn’t want to collect payments faster and more efficiently, at less cost, and gain a competitive edge?
Do Your Research
As you know, the insurance industry has historically not been an early adopter of technology and innovation. However, that is changing. ePayPolicy has customers that have been using our digital payment solution for five or more years.
The pandemic also created a spike in insurtech adoption, as the industry turned to technology for remote team communication, customer relationship management and more. Customers and accounting teams needed no-touch payment options not only because of the risk of Covid, but also because checks being delivered to an empty office was of no use. Many of the habits left by the Covid pandemic are here to stay.
Where to look and what to look for
Which payment system is right for your organization? Read reviews, ask your state association rep (or look on their website for preferred partners), talk to your IMS provider. Which payment processor do they recommend? You want a system that streamlines internal processes, expedites receivables and integrates well with other systems already in place (or planned).
Because of the fiduciary nature of collecting insurance payments, a generic payment system built for retail transactions is likely not the best choice. You will want to focus your search on solutions designed specifically for the insurance industry. This will give way to insurance-specific features like management system integrations, and you can also rest assured that customer support will understand your specific problems when needed.
Try Before You Buy
Compare apples to apples. Understand what your payment processing vendor charges for setup, as well as their monthly subscription fee. Do they offer a free trial? Do you have to sign a multi-year contract? What kind of training/support do they provide?
At ePayPolicy, we offer 60 days free to new users, no contract or set-up fees.
Customer Adoption is Key
According to The Digital Edge survey, one of the biggest hurdles to digitization is employees with insufficient technical skills (59.6%). Be sure to choose a digital payment system that’s easy for your employees to use. After all, they will be the ones behind customer adoption.
Encourage everyone to advocate for digital payments. Announce proudly to customers (and prospects) that you now take payments online. Promote it across your website, newsletters, press releases, ads and social media. This will be welcome news! But don’t count on customers to remember from one payment to the next.
Put a “Pay Now” link on your invoices, in your emails, and a big, can’t-miss button on your website. Show customers how simple it is to pay their premiums through your digital payment portal. Increased loyalty is definitely part of customer satisfaction!
With so many business benefits and literally no downside, isn’t it time to prioritize digital payments?
InsurTech Tools for Every Business Category
The last decade has brought major technology changes for the insurance industry, and behaviors have changed in an industry that was previously labeled “old-fashioned.”
Insurance companies are investing in tools to stay efficient, competitive, and modern. In this blog, we’re outlining four categories that have seen an increase in investment, with examples of popular insurtech tools in each category.
Data Analytics
Good data is an essential part of any business, as it helps improve operations, give customer insight and build reports. Accurate data analysis is key to uncovering both growth and savings opportunities, which is why many insurtechs have made investments to gain visibility of customer and operational data.
EOX Vantage offers insurance-specific products that help improve operational efficiencies through analytics. Mike Fieseler, VP of Business Development, explains that by looking at data, insurance organizations can find out:
- “Where are they successful? Where are they not?”
- “What type of potential customers are out there?”
- “Why has the organization not been successful in certain areas?”
Analytics help bring smart visualizations to make the data easier to understand and act on. And tools like EOX Vantage often have these visuals pre-formatted, meaning you don’t need an extensive expert background in data science to organize the information.
Sales
Modern sales solutions make it easier to manage prospects, qualify leads, and pursue new clients. And very often, they integrate with a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, or act as one on their own. Many independent agencies attempt using a generic sales automation/CRM and try to make it work for writing and renewing policies. This often ends up being both tedious and costly.
AgencyZoom is a insurance-specific sales software that provides tools for producers and agents focused on automating the creation of new leads and opportunities and following that through to the servicing of the account once the policyholder becomes a customer.
“What AgencyZoom brings to the independent agent is a purpose-built sales automation tool that was designed just for their needs”, said Doug Mohr, Vice President Industry Relations & Partnerships for Vertafore. “For the agency that does not have a large IT staff to build customization into a generic CRM tool, AgencyZoom provides an out of the box solution for the producer to manage their book and track new leads.”
Effective sales tools create efficiency in following the prospecting process from lead all the way to a renewing policyholder.
Marketing Automation
While there are many large, well-known tools for marketing available, few are specific to the needs of an insurance business. They’re also typically too expensive and complex for smaller agencies, where there’s often no full-time dedicated marketing manager.
Your website is an integral part of your marketing strategy. It’s your digital storefront and a key part of your local marketing presence. According to Agency Revolution evangelist Joel Zwicker, “when someone visits your website, they should know what you do, how you’re different, and how to contact you, all within 5 seconds.”
To do so, you need to invest time in a good website, and make updates consistently. Agency Revolution’s FUSE automation tool is made for insurance agencies, and helps make those actions easier. It includes pre-written content and templates, and is affordable for agencies of all sizes.
Once your website is ready, you can turn your attention to other marketing tools for social media, digital advertising, and email automation.
Customer-Facing Tools
Once you acquire a customer, it should be easy for them to do business with you, and easy for them to pay – especially if we’re talking about insurance. At ePay, we believe getting paid should be the easiest thing you do.
Many people don’t even have checkbooks. Your customers should have payment options based on what’s convenient for them. We offer an array of features that go the extra mile in terms of customer experience, like automatic payments, invoice notifications, and the ability to save payment information.
One of our integration partners, Pathway, created an insurance-centric portal that consolidates the documents, payments, quotes and other things your customers might need to access on a daily basis. Investing in your client’s experience allows you to build stronger relationships and retain loyal customers.
Make the Change
For many years, it seemed like the industry was change-resistant. The pandemic forced many companies to adopt more tech-forward solutions, and now more and more companies are asking “why didn’t we do this sooner?”
Change can be scary, but getting left behind the curve while your competitors and customers seek out easier ways to do business should scare you more. The reality is that insurance organizations are investing in technology and employes and customers will move with the current. Do your research, shop around, and start investing in the tools that will make your organization thrive.
This PFC Keeps Growing with Digital Payments
Agile Premium Finance (Agile) is one of our longest-running partners and in many ways we have grown up together. Agile has been offering digital payments through ePayPolicy since their founding in 2017. President & COO Bob Przespolewski describes the relationship this way: “We’ve grown together to provide our customers an easy and convenient tool to make their ACH or credit card payments online.”
Providing convenience and efficiency
As a premium finance company (PFC), Agile services P&C agents and their insureds nationwide. “We provide convenient and efficient premium financing solutions to our customers to improve cash flow, preserve working capital, and retain funds for projects, expenses, and investments,” explains Bob.
Offering digital payments aligns perfectly with Agile’s innovative approach and service philosophy of convenience and efficiency. Agile is one of the rare ePayPolicy clients that started their business offering digital payments from day one.
Why ePayPolicy?
Bob says: “There was never a question of whether or not we would be accepting digital payments. Our biggest question was who was going to be our business partner.”
Agile’s main concern was the security of information collected and the ability to pass that information seamlessly from their system to the payment processor. “We did review other vendors, but there was no doubt ePayPolicy was the only solution that made sense for our business,” Bob says.
Note that data security has always been a top priority at ePayPolicy. Agile Premium Finance handles a high volume of large premium payments and could not risk a data breach. Our PCI Level 1 compliance status gave (and continues to give) them peace of mind.
Smooth implementation
“Launching ePayPolicy was one of the smoothest launches we’ve experienced. They were there to answer our questions and make sure we were all comfortable with the process,” Bob recalls.
How Agile uses ePayPolicy
Agile accepts both down payments and monthly installments for insurance premium finance agreements from their insureds.
“The ability to accept payments digitally is the most convenient and efficient option for our insureds, our agents, and for our team,” says Bob. He continues, “Customers have the choice of ACH or making credit card payments online through our portal, utilizing our pay-by-phone system, or setting up a monthly recurring payment.”
Yet even with all these options to pay digitally, many insureds still pay by check. He says that Agile will always accept checks. But as early adopters of digital payment, they appreciate and continue to promote its many benefits—for all parties involved.
Bob’s accounting teams also utilize ePayPolicy’s reports to reconcile accounts on a daily/monthly basis.
The biggest benefits of ePayPolicy
Bob doesn’t hesitate on this question. “The ease of my insureds making their payments, or my customer service team making payments on behalf of our insureds.”
Favorite feature
“The integration to our Premium Finance Software is the key feature for us,” says Bob.
In fact, when asked how ePayPolicy could improve, Bob suggested we ”continue to work on expanding integration options with outside vendors.”
Advice for other PFCs
Bob Przespolewski is unequivocal in his recommendation. “There is no question that every PFC should be accepting digital payments and there is no one easier to work with than ePayPolicy.”
“There is no one easier to work with than ePayPolicy.”
—Bob Przespolewski
President & COO, Agile
About Agile Premium Finance
Agile Premium Finance is a Division of Valley National Bank and a leader in the insurance premium finance industry. An innovative and progressive organization, Agile Premium Finance serves agents and their insured(s) across all 50 states, providing convenient and efficient premium financing solutions to customers to improve their cash flow, preserve working capital, and retain funds for projects, expenses, and investments.
Customization is King at This Insurance Firm
Universal Insurance Programs (UIP) has been using ePayPolicy for three years. According to Business Operations Manager Edin Nadarevic, their primary motivation was to streamline internal processes. He says, “We did collect electronic payments, but it was done manually in-house. We know that checks will never go away entirely. The reason why we decided to use ePayPolicy is to free up our accounting team to focus on tasks other than chasing down payments.”
Why ePayPolicy
“Applied EPIC® is our agency management system and they recommended ePay,” Edin recalls. “We looked at other vendors, of course. But most were too broad and would not fit into our processes—or integrate with EPIC. We knew quickly that ePayPolicy understands our world and would suit our business best.”
Promotion Leads to Adoption
Edin understands marketing and the power of promotion to change behavior. He consulted with ePayPolicy and worked closely with the UIP marketing team to ensure consistency of client-facing communications with the firm’s branding. They added integrated hotlinks of the payment portal to their policies and invoices, to staff email signatures and, of course, the firm’s website.
According to Edin, “It took about a year, or one full cycle, to teach our clients (agents and brokers) to fully embrace digital payment. Now they love it!” He adds, “It’s so easy that sometimes our insureds pay us directly.”
Favorite Features
For insureds, Edin cites two:
- “One big plus is not having to create an account. As an insured I want to pay my premium and go about my business. With ePayPolicy you can just enter your information and you don’t have to create an account.”
- With ePayPolicy, ACH and credit card fees are charged separately from the premium and passed along to the insured. However, according to Edin, “The UIP management team* decided to absorb the ACH fee, since it’s a smaller amount than credit card fees. It’s definitely been a strategic advantage for us.”
And Edin’s own personal favorite feature:
“I love that we can create the custom buttons. Our invoices, our signature pages—we put yellow “Pay My Bill” buttons everywhere!”
Biggest Internal Benefits
Reliability and efficiency top Edin’s list. “I like that it gets the job done and everyone gets their job done. We just set it and forget it. It always works, and has never stopped working!”
He continues: “ePayPolicy has minimized a lot of manual work for our accounting team. We get our weekly and daily batches and that’s amazing!” Edin oversees multiple departments and says they are all are on board. “ePayPolicy has positively affected our entire business. We can all collect premiums. Everybody here knows how to take a payment. Everyone—from administrative staff to the president—has the payment button.”
Advice to Others
Edin says: “Do it! You can test it out for a month and walk away. There’s no risk, no contract.”
But he fully expects you’ll stay. “Once you set it up, tell everyone about it. Put those payment buttons everywhere! Have all your clients go through a whole annual cycle with ePayPolicy, and you will love it.”
About Universal Insurance Programs
Arizona-based Universal Insurance Programs, LLC (UIP) was established in 1992 to provide comprehensive coverages to business professionals across the United States. UIP offers uniquely tailored insurance solutions for niche markets including self-storage facilities, salons, day spas and tanning salons.
*UP’s Chief Emotional Officer (CEO) Morgan (aka Morgie) supports this policy—and everything that makes people feel that “insurance is a good thing.” Digital payment through ePayPolicy gets an enthusiastic “paws up!”
How to Convert Leads and Attract Traffic Through Your Website Design
This article was written by Joel Zwicker, Evangelist, Agency Revolution
SeibertKeck Makes “Easy” a Client Value Proposition
SeibertKeck is on a mission to change the insurance buying experience. The 100+ year-old, Akron-based agency offers personal and business lines, employee benefits, bonding and professional liability coverage through 17 offices.
EVP of Sales & Operations Tim Able says: “There’s a perception that insurance is hard. We constantly look for ways to make the client experience easier. We push our team to be on the edge of what’s coming, to be subject matter leaders in our field. We offer in-house 24/7/365 claims, and we’re always looking for new technology partners.”
Introducing Digital Payments
SeibertKeck introduced digital payments via ePayPolicy in early 2020. Tim explains the driving forces behind that decision.
- “We have a large book of personal lines, but most of that business is direct bill. As most agencies can relate, the pain was with our agency bill business clients paying by check.
- Technology has reached a point where consumers (including businesses) expect a digital payment option. It’s a requirement to compete in today’s environment.
- The third piece was our own business evolution. We’d grown to the point where we needed a controller. Kevin Speight (now VP of Finance) came in with fresh ideas and worked with our Systems Intelligence Manager. They did a high level review of our accounts receivable and what our clients and the market were asking for.”
Once SeibertKeck made the decision to go digital, ePayPolicy quickly emerged as the vendor of choice. The agency’s research included checking out OIA company partners. They also conferred with their Vertafore contacts and were pleased to learn that ePayPolicy integrates with AMS360*. Tim says their concerns about client privacy and transaction security were allayed by the agency’s IT vendor. “We made sure to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.”
With a quick, simple, and seamless installation, SeibertKeck began accepting credit cards and ACH payments — just in time for the pandemic.
Client Response
Initially, there was some pushback. Some clients balked at paying the credit card processing fee. Putting on his sales hat for a minute, Tim describes coaching employees to overcome objections by emphasizing value. “Yes, there is a fee to use ePayPolicy, but it’s more convenient and more secure and faster than paying by check. And you know your policy’s not going to cancel.” Agents will even suggest that a client “try it this one time and see if you like it.”
Over time, SeibertKeck clients have steadily embraced paying digitally, with smaller businesses using it more than larger businesses. “ePayPolicy has made quite an impact. We’re definitely seeing fewer checks,” Tim notes. He adds that 93 percent of the firm’s digital payments are ACH and 7 percent are credit card.
Favorite Feature
Tim answers emphatically: “My favorite thing is that it’s SIMPLE. The interface is fantastic. It looks and feels like any other transaction we do on the internet. That’s what I like. We’re proud to offer a payment interface that’s as simple as Amazon or PayPal, not 100 questions.”
Tim also comments on payment flexibility. People can pay by logging into their SeibertKeck client portal, which integrates to the AMS. Or they can simply go onto agency’s website and pay from there.
Advice to Other Agencies
Tim shares his sales/client service philosophy. “Insurance, and the transaction of insurance, is more than just the premium. The transaction has to be part of the overall experience. Make it all as easy as you can.”
Specific to offering digital payments through ePayPolicy, Tim advises: “Make sure you are partnered with a solid IT vendor. And be transparent with your clients about how to use it and the fees associated with each payment. No surprises.”
Finally, “Make this a part of your sales process. It shows you are current with payment technology. It’s a benefit for them, and they are going to be very happy.”
*ePayPolicy also integrates with other Vertafore products and many other popular management systems.
