The typical insurance organization is one that keeps several internal systems for different aspects of policy administration. There may be one system that employees rely on for tasks like underwriting, and yet another system for customer service or claims management. At first, this kind of approach for doing business in the complex field of life insurance and annuity seems like a natural course. But is it, truly? If any member of insurance firm leadership was asked why the multi-system approach exists, they might answer with one of the following:
- That it’s always been that way, and that multiple systems for full insurance delivery have been there since time immemorial.
- That staff can do their work best if their tasks are compartmentalized and somewhat isolated from each other.
- Even if using multiple systems is a hassle, it’ll be even more difficult to change up the staff’s workflow by moving to one system. So why change the status quo?
The harsh reality that insurers have to wake up to is that these reasons aren’t good enough to persist in the legacy approach of multiple systems. Those that accept the practice wholesale may be holding their organization back from being as efficient, as responsive, and as growth-oriented as it could be. The better alternative to keeping multiple systems is for the organization to use one consolidated life insurance system for governing all aspects of policy administration. Here are five reasons to wean your organization off using multiple systems and to shift to one streamlined platform in the near future.
Silos Make Your Insurance Workflow Much Less Efficient
What happens when insurers maintain different systems for each area of the insurance experience? Slowly, these systems will develop independently from one another and eventually get siloed off from the others. This results in an increasingly complex web of inefficiencies that demands so many steps for insurance processes to be completed. Moreover, it will take so much time to move from one step to another. Supposedly simple tasks, like getting accurate insurance quotes or generating financial reports, will languish when passed back and forth between systems.
The solution is to eliminate the silos that characterized your legacy systems and kept staff out of speed and out of touch with each other. A streamlined solution will put everyone in better sync and improve the organization’s efficiency as a whole.
Multiple Policy Administration Systems Exhaust Your Staff
They may not be saying so, but the continued practice of using multiple systems may actually be exhausting both your front-end and back-end staff. Your insurance underwriters, who already have a difficult task ahead of them, may need to jump through so many hoops to get their pricing right. Your IT staff, on the other hand, will need to deal with separate tech goalposts for every system they oversee. Every disparate system means another set of code to juggle and more bottlenecks to resolve.
In general, multiple systems also means multiple integration touchpoints to take note of. In addition, it means that everyone takes longer to come to a common understanding of what’s going on in the organization. Shifting to a consolidated platform will improve the environment for your staff. They’ll be freed up from redundancies, take less time to solve problems, and complete their tasks with greater accuracy.
Maintaining Multiple Systems Will Be a Cash Drain on Your Company
If it isn’t already expensive to have to maintain several policy administration systems at a time, it eventually will be. If different departments in the organization operate on different systems, they’ll likely be upgrading separately. This means multiple sets of maintenance and license fees to pay for, which is not ideal if insurers want to keep costs down.
The better scenario is to invest in a whole-of-enterprise solution that all staff can gradually acclimatize to. Though this seems like a costly option now, it will be a better return on investment than piecemeal system upgrades.
Disparate Systems May Make Your Customers Unhappy with You
Multiple systems may cause disparity in the performances of different departments. This is something that may be obvious to your customers as well as your staff. Say for example that one of your customers calls with the intention to clarify something about their policy. Wouldn’t it be demoralizing to hear that their agent will need to contact X, Y, and Z before giving them a straight answer?
To be fair to staff, in most cases it isn’t their fault that it takes long to complete customer-related tasks. They may be dealing with the additional burden of reconciling obsolete or inconsistently formatted data. But this goes to show that a consolidated PAS will make it easier for staff to do their job, and therefore keep your customers satisfied. Happy customers mean more policy renewals and more chances to attract new customers via word of mouth.
Handling Multiple Legacy Systems Hampers Your Ability to Grow
Lastly, having to deal with multiple legacy systems may be holding your company back from the growth you sorely need. You may be spending too much time on these systems, just to make the most basic improvements to your insurance delivery. Meanwhile, other brands may already be courting new customers and releasing fresh new insurance products into the market.
Switching to one consolidated PAS will help all members in the organization work lighter and move with more agility. This should give your brand a better chance to distinguish itself from your competitors.
Conclusion: Why You Must Streamline Your PAS Now
In summary, shedding the multi-system approach and bringing your staff together on one platform will be extremely beneficial to your company. It will help you build a work culture that emphasizes teamwork, coordination, synchronization, and consistency—all while you adjust to the digital era of insurance. Fine-tune your insurance workflow on one streamlined PAS, and your company will be headed towards greater things.