Today's consumers expect seamless, convenient, and secure experiences in all their digital interactions. They have become accustomed to online shopping carts and one-click payments, and they want the same experience for their insurance premiums. Unfortunately, insurance premiums have historically been the opposite of this. Paying with a check or cash requires multiple steps for insureds and takes too much time. Insureds don't want another chore; they want to click "pay" and move on with their day.
Digital interactions are becoming the norm in most other industries, and keeping up with these consumer preferences is key to agencies winning and retaining clients. Luckily, the insurance industry has started embracing payment solutions.
While some agencies may have reservations about these platforms, perhaps due to security concerns or integration issues, adopting a digital payment solution can significantly improve your customer experience in several ways. Let's look at a few of the ways these platforms can alleviate your concerns and provide the best possible service to your clients.
Flexing Your Payment Options
One of the primary benefits of digital payments is the unparalleled convenience they offer policyholders. A digital payment hub provides 24/7 access, allowing your clients to pay their bills whenever it is most convenient for them. Whether they prefer to pay via mobile, web, or text, they can do so from anywhere and on any device. Unlike checks and large sums of cash, which are not convenient and require extra steps for customers, digital payments offer various methods, including credit cards, Automated Clearing House (ACH), and digital wallets. Insureds can pay with whichever method works best for them.
Taking convenience one step further, digital payment solutions allow your agents to create customizable payment plans for their clients. Policyholders can pay individual or multiple invoices simultaneously, choose which invoices to pay, and make partial payments. They can even turn on recurring payments so they don't have to worry about missing a payment.
Unlocking Financing
Digital payment solutions offer convenience beyond flexible payment options. Premium financing can be embedded directly within the solution, making it easier than ever for agencies to offer financing options. This is especially helpful for businesses that find premiums accounting for a substantial portion of their overhead costs and need to choose a less expensive policy that doesn't offer adequate protection because it better fits their budget.
Easy financing options might not be readily available at other agencies that stick to traditional methods. Using a digital payment solution with embedded premium financing helps your clients get better coverage than they could if they had to pay in one lump sum. Offering embedded premium financing can make your agency stand out from the crowd, providing something your clients can't easily get elsewhere.
Providing Peace of Mind
Just as checks and cash lack convenience, they also lack security. Paper checks and cash left in desk drawers are not secure, and having personal information exposed could lead to security risks. There is also the potential for human error during counting and reconciliation. Insureds are increasingly looking for more secure ways to make payments. They don't want their personal information compromised and definitely do not want to deal with the consequences of it being leaked.
Digital payments are safer. They help eliminate the physical counting and manual data entry process, which can reduce errors and omissions (E&O) risks. Digital payment solutions allow your agency to tailor security settings and user permissions to your internal structure, ensuring each user only has visibility into the accounts and payments relevant to their role. Payments are automatically applied, and activities are synced and tracked, supporting appropriate auditing and compliance requirements.
Integrating the payment hub with your customer portal enhances the experience by providing transparency. Clients can log in to easily view their billing and payment history, check if payments have been received and cleared, and access all their documents. This high level of security and transparency offers your clients peace of mind, alleviating worries about identity theft or lost funds.
Streamlining Your Operations
Beyond the direct benefits for policyholders, digital payment solutions also significantly streamline the payment collection and reconciliation processes for your staff. Integrating them directly into your agency management system (AMS) makes invoicing easier and reduces internal workloads, allowing staff to send invoices with the click of a button or a simple URL and automating portions of the accounts receivable process.
Reconciling financial transactions with carrier commission and payable statements to ultimately balance the books, pay producers, and make money for the business is incredibly time-consuming and resource-intensive for agency finance teams. Digital payments, coupled with modern tools, make this process much more efficient. AI-powered applications can be used to extract data from direct or agency bill statements in various formats, simplifying the matching and reconciliation to policies and plans in your AMS. This streamlined process frees your staff to focus on higher-value tasks that enhance the customer experience.
Standing Out From the Crowd
Many agencies may believe their clients are content with writing premium checks and might not see the need for a modern, online checkout experience. However, consumer expectations are changing. Today's insureds demand choice and expect the kind of simple, quick online payment experiences they are accustomed to on platforms like Amazon and Chewy.
By offering a digital payment experience that includes convenient, flexible payment options, embedded premium financing, enhanced security, and transparency, you can differentiate your business from your competitors. Adopting digital payments is not just about processing transactions; it's about elevatng the customer experience and becoming a better business partner for your clients.
