Why The Future of Billing and Payments is Now

June 1, 2022

Over the last two years, carriers, agents, and brokers have accelerated their digital initiatives due to the pandemic and rising customer expectations.

According to a Deloitte Institute for Financial Services study, 96% of insurers reported they were focused on accelerating digital transformation initiatives to improve the customer experience and enhance operations.

For personal and commercial lines carriers, this means providing policyholders, agents, and brokers with choices regarding inbound & outbound payment methods (e.g., Credit Cards, ACH/EFT, Financing, etc.) and offering flexible billing options like Pay-As-You-Go.

In the sections below, we’re going to demonstrate four ways how InsurePay’s digital billing and payments solutions are helping carriers, agents, and brokers to boost customer retention and reduce operational costs throughout the policy lifecycle.

Pay-As-You-Go Billing

Traditionally in order to secure workers’ compensation coverage, businesses are required to put down large down payments and undergo yearly audits.

However, the combination of COVID-19 and rising interest rates have required businesses to find new ways to improve cash flow and be more nimble. Many carriers have responded by adding pay-as-you-go billing as a way to help their clients free up cash flow.

Unlike traditional workers’ comp coverage, which requires large down payments and yearly audits, pay-as-you-go billing typically requires no down payment and significantly reduces the amount of work (and surprises) required to perform annual audits.

The reason why is because pay-as-you-go billing matches payments to the actual insurance consumed. InsurePay’s SaaS platform calculates, collects, and remits insurance premiums each pay cycle using real-time payroll data. This allows InsurePay to align invoicing and premiums even if payroll fluctuates.

As insurers look to increase policyholder retention, providing flexible billing solutions

like pay-as-you-go can help carriers with these efforts. To date, 7 of the top 10 workers’ comp carriers are now offering pay-as-you-go billing using InsurePay.

Building upon its momentum, InsurePay will be expanding its popular pay-as-you-go billing solution into Business Owner’s Policy (BOP) and employee benefits lines of business in 2022.

Payment Acceptance

The last thing you want to do is turn down business because your agency or brokerage doesn’t accept credit cards. Today’s business owners demand flexible payment methods so they can smooth out their cash flow.

According to InvoiceCloud research, 79% of people surveyed prefer to make payments through digital channels, and 80% of satisfied consumers reported they were more likely to renew their policies via Autopay.

InsurePay’s inbound payment solutions were built by insurance professionals to ensure regulatory compliance and are integrated with all of the major AMS/BMS platforms. With InsurePay, agents and brokers can offer a variety of payment methods, such as

credit cards (VISA, MasterCard and American Express), Debit Cards, ACH, EFT, and Interac payments without the high processing costs associated with traditional solutions.

Outbound Payments

Issuing checks can be a manually intensive and expensive (each check costs approximately $10) process. In a recently conducted survey by Pymnts.com, 67% of insurance carriers saw a need to digitize payments.

One area where digital payments can help enhance the customer experience is

during the claims process. Often referred to as the “moment of truth,” insurance claims can be a make-or-break moment for carriers.

Insurers can do everything right throughout the claims cycle, but if a claimant doesn’t get paid in a timely manner due to mailing errors, slow delivery times, etc., it can lead to a less than optimal customer experience.

Using InsurePay’s web-based application or API, carriers can get claimants back on their feet quicker by delivering instant access to funds when they need it the most.

Along with automating claims payments, InsurePay can also streamline premium refunds and vendor payments as well by eliminating many of the manual processes associated with them.

Carrier Settlements

One of the challenges with the settlement process is that payments move separately from the data. In order to properly apply and reconcile payments, finance teams often have to refer to paper checks, spreadsheets, printouts, and toggling between banking and billing systems.

While the settlement and reconciliation process has always been highly manual, it doesn’t have to be. InsurePay’s streamlined reports and auto reconciliation feature can drive policyholder data into a carrier’s back office system to automate the settlement and reconciliation process across thousands of policies.

See For Yourself Why 530 + Carriers, Agents & Brokers Use InsurePay

Payments and billing have moved from the back office and into the spotlight playing a vital role in a policyholder’s digital journey. Whether you're looking to increase customer retention by offering more flexible payment options, boosting customer satisfaction by providing digital claims payments, or reducing operational costs by automating administrative tasks, InsurePay can help.

To see for yourself why over 530 carriers, brokers, and agents are using InsurePay’s billing and payment solutions, contact email to schedule a 30-minute demo.