Firm has offered payment solutions to highly regulated industries since 2006

Simply Easier Payments, which offers turn-key and customized payment solutions for highly regulated industries, is extending its offerings to include working with financial advisors in addition to the insurance sector.

Since 2006, the Durham-based company has partnered mainly with insurance agencies, MGAs, and carriers on payment processing solutions, and it’s now turning that experience working within state and federal regulations to the financial advisor industry, which is also highly regulated.

“For over 15 years our company has simplified money movement operations for highly-regulated businesses across the financial services industry,” said Simply Easier Payments Founder Duke Williams. “I’m a strong proponent for fee-only financial advice services and excited to help these professionals access industry-leading payment technology.”

Simply Easier offers both standalone payment options that can be set up quickly as well as customized solutions with company branding that can be embedded within the company’s own website. In both cases, customer information is kept secure in a Payment Information Vault and all applicable state and federal regulations are followed. Simply Easier maintains the highest level of security with PCI Level 1 validation.

For fee-only financial advisors, Simply Easier guarantees that access to account information and payment authorization remains strictly with the client, ensuring non-custodial financial advisors do not have access to sensitive customer data. Its robust customer portal also allows for automated invoicing and client-controlled auto-pay features.
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“Financial advisors face the same issues with customer payments as any business, but they have to handle them while meeting strict regulations,” added Williams. “At Simply Easier, we have worked through all those problems, so that you can focus on serving your clients.”

How we pay for things keeps changing. From ACH payments to Paypal and Bitcoin, consumers have more ways than ever to pay for things online.

The latest two entries in the world of fintech — or financial technology — are the mobile payment systems Venmo and Zelle.

As a provider of online payment technology for the insurance industry, we’re frequently asked about helping our customers accept payments using these new systems. Lately, that means questions about whether they should accept Venmo and Zelle.

First, an explanation. Owned by PayPal, Venmo is a mobile payment system that allows U.S.-based users to send each other money through a smart phone app. Zelle is a similar system owned by a consortium of banks, including Capital One and Wells Fargo.

These payment methods were created and designed to facilitate peer-to-peer payments between individuals — such as splitting a dinner bill among friends — as well as very limited commercial transactions, like an ice cream truck that wants to accept mobile payments.

That means they don’t really work well for something like an insurance agency, where monthly premiums may be higher than the weekly spending limits on these accounts.

The Terms of Service for both Venmo and Zelle are clear on the reason.

Venmo states that you may not use it for “credit repair, debt settlement services, credit transactions or insurance activities,” while Zelle states that it is “intended for personal, not business or commercial use” except for “eligible small businesses.”

It is always a good idea for a business to try to accommodate requests from customers. It is also a great idea for the insurance industry to be more forward-thinking in how to accept premium payments.

But if your customers are asking about Venmo and Zelle, the best thing to do is share with them the above information and then talk about alternatives. Remember, your insureds are asking because they are looking for a more convenient way to make a payment.

Whether that’s setting up ACH or credit card payments for online or mobile phones, there are ways to let your insureds pay that can be just as convenient as Venmo and Zelle. 

After successful first year working together, Simply Easier continues full integration

Simply Easier Payments is extending its partnership with popular insurance agency management system NowCerts to offer customers free integration and easy no-cost payment solutions.

“During the coronavirus pandemic, we saw many insureds switch to online payments as they stayed home. Now that they’ve seen how secure and convenient it is, they’re sticking with it,” said Simply Easier Payments Founder Duke Williams. “This partnership allows agencies using NowCerts to make that as seamless as possible.”

After a successful first year working together, Simply Easier Payments will continue to offer full integration to insurance agencies that use NowCerts, which allows their customers to easily accept online payments using ACH or credit card.

NowCerts is known for its agency management system, designed using an innovative process that creates an intuitive operation and efficient workflow. Simply Easier Payments has taken a similar approach to create its one-stop, no-cost payment solution for insurance agencies to accept mobile and online payments.

“We take the hassle and cost out of online payments so insurance companies can get down to the business at hand,” added Williams. “Using Simply Easier Payments and NowCerts together lets you focus on your clients.”

​Simply Easier Payments joined in last week’s virtual Applied Net 2021 Conference, Aug. 23-26, as an honorable Silver-level sponsor, networking with top industry professionals.

The event is the world’s largest insurance technology conference and the flagship annual gathering for professionals who use Applied Systems’ software, where over 10,000 attendees gathered in breakout sessions on every aspect of the industry. Simply Easier Payments welcomed a number of visitors to its virtual booth where it showcased its latest no-cost payment solutions.

“Every year, thousands of insurance professionals spend several days talking about the best ways for the industry to take advantage of technology,” said Simply Easier Payments founder Duke Williams. “As a company that is dedicated to improving the payments processes used in the insurance industry, it was a natural fit for us to be there too.”

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Applied Net conference was held virtually for the second year in a row with this year’s focus on the “digital ecosystem of insurance.”

“The pandemic has made it clearer than ever that insurance customers need to have straightforward ways to pay their bills online, and providers need easy ways to track invoicing and billing without going into the office,” added Williams. “This virtual conference just drove home how valuable these kinds of software solutions are to the insurance industry.”

Integration allows agency management software to seamlessly accept online payments

Leading digital payments provider Simply Easier Payments is integrating with the popular agency management system Partner Platform giving the independent insurance agency’s clients more options for accepting digital payments.

The integration will allow clients of Strategic Insurance Software’s Partner Platform to offer their insureds a convenient, simple and secure way to pay their premiums through the agency website, client portal, or agency mobile app.

“We are excited to work with SIS in offering integration between the Partner Platform AMS and Simply Easier Payments. This new alliance will offer users a seamless and reliable, NO-Cost solution to safely and securely process credit card and ACH payments online.” said Duke Williams, founder of Simply Easier Payments. “It offers everything agents need to process payments and deliver their insureds the convenience they expect without the burden of monthly payments.”

With this integration Simply Easier Payments joins a growing list of “Partner Allies” that provide products and services which work together with the Partner Platform agency management system to enhance the independent agency’s capacity to retain, grow, and service clients. These relationships are more than just an integration, but also a commitment from likeminded vendors working together to improve the experience of our agencies.

Using Simply Easier Payments will help agencies that want their brand-client relationship to remain primary, as it allows them to make the payment experience seamless while keeping the agency’s branding front and center.

“We are always looking for ways to enhance and improve the ways our independent agency clients’ interact with their insureds,” said Bryce Lee, Director of Product Management for SIS. “The Simply Easier Payments system complements Partner’s ‘digital client experience’ tools, such as our best-in-class client portal and mobile app. Now our clients have options to allow their insureds to make payments no matter where they are or when they need to submit their payment.”

Founder is part of helping industry assess its customer experience, look ahead on tech issues.

Simply Easier Payments founder Duke Williams is working with a technology group advising insurance agents and brokers as an active member of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America's Agents Council for Technology, also known as ACT. In this capacity, he has co-chaired a committee on API integration and presented programs at ACT annual meetings on chatbots and conversational computing.

“The insurance industry has already changed substantially due to the effects of technology,” Williams said. “ACT helps ensure that agents and brokers are there to meet the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities of the changes that are coming next.”

Williams has played a small role in helping ACT with a new initiative called CX which measures the customer experience. Through this effort, ACT now offers agencies a free self-assessment tool in the form of a CX checklist, an online game and an in-depth review which they can use as well as online resources that help them rank and improve their overall customer experience including their websites, mobile apps, chats, online reviews, among other things.

He also has joined with other members of the council helping advise ACT on the changing nature of risk, the internet of things, technology trends, artificial intelligence, strategic future issues and data-driven business, and he worked to establish the ACT Meeting Scholarship Fund. Williams co-chaired the committee on Electronic Payments and also wrote a paper on crypto currencies as well as voice computing.

Williams draws from his own experience as an industry veteran and founder of Simply Easier Payments, which works with insurance agencies and other industry professionals to offer online payment systems allowing them to safely and securely process online customer payments for credit card and ACH, at NO cost, including turnkey solutions and custom-built integration. Among other things, Simply Easier’s suite of API integrations offers customers options for seamless UI with the payments page embedded into your website for a seamless experience as well as billing and invoicing solutions.

“Running a business is hard work, and it sometimes doesn’t leave a lot of time in the day to think about the future of your industry,” added Williams. “ACT helps ensure that business owners and managers don’t miss out on the next wave of changes.”

For more information about ACT’s new CX Agency Self-Assessment Tool and to learn where your agency's customer experience ranks, visit: https://bit.ly/2SzbwY4

New hires will help meet growing demand for online payments.

Simply Easier Payments is expanding with new hires to handle customer service and software engineering, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spur changes to the insurance industry.

The North Carolina-based online payment system has seen demand spike over the last year, as staffers at insurance agencies have begun working from home and customers have become concerned about the speed of mail sent through the U.S. Postal Service as well as making payments in person.

“Online payments have long been popular with younger and more tech-savvy clients, but this last year has pushed a lot of other customers to consider a safer and more efficient process,” said founder Duke Williams. “Insurance agencies across the country have been adding or upgrading online payment systems, and we’re here to help.”

Simply Easier Payments works with insurance agencies and other industry professionals to safely and securely process online customer payments for credit cards and ACH, at no cost to the insurance company. The platform is designed to meet the specific legal and technical demands of the insurance industry, such as state laws and compliance as well as click-to-pay invoicing, reporting, and insights needed by insurance companies.

“Simply Easier Payments was designed with the insurance industry in mind,” added Williams. “We’re excited to help agencies move forward amid these uncertain times.”

North Carolina company works with insurance industry on creating payment systems

Simply Easier Payments works with insurance providers and others in the industry to integrate APIs directly with their websites to provide seamless online payment solutions.

The North Carolina-based online payment system works alongside insurance agencies and other industry professionals to offer a no-cost online payment solution for processing customer payments through credit card and ACH. Integrating with Simply Easier’s APIs offers the ability to seamlessly streamline their payments directly through their website or by using the Simply Eaiser’s hosted payment page.

“Whether you want a turnkey solution for online payments or need custom API integration, we have your solution,” said Simply Easier Payments founder Duke Williams. “Our team can help create a payment system that fits the needs of an agency’s workflow, no matter how big or small.”

Among other things, Simply Easier’s online payment platform also allows for integration with backend management software, providing agencies with solutions that fit their workflows and give their representatives a seamless experience.

Simply Easier’s API integration allows you to easily manage billing and invoicing functions including a secure URL where your staff can issue invoices with data pass from your CRM or AMS application.

In addition to an on-staff, cutting-edge development team, Simply Easier Payments has the industry experience to help tackle specific issues faced by the insurance industry when it comes to state laws about billing and policy cancellations, as well as compliance.

“Our software is designed to meet the needs of today’s insurance industry right out of the box,” added Williams. “But when you need to go further, we can meet you there to customize and integrate our APIs to provide the solutions agencies need—all at no cost.”

Virtual show kicks off with top insurance industry professionals

Simply Easier Payments is a platinum-level sponsor of the virtual WSIA Insurtech Conference, a gathering of insurance industry professionals looking at the opportunities offered by new technology which runs today, March 29, through April 1.

The North Carolina-based online payment system works with insurance agencies and other industry companies to allow integrated online payment systems that allow customers to pay with ACH, debit and credit cards with no fees.

“We’ve created an array of customizable and robust solutions specifically for MGAs so that they can use online payment processing as a way to strengthen their business and their relations with their customers by increasing their operation’s automation, efficiency and cost savings,” said Simply Easier Payments founder Duke Williams. “We look forward to talking with other
professionals at the WSIA Insurtech Conference about how the industry can move forward.”

Among other things, Simply Easier’s online payment platform also allows for integration with customer service software, allowing agencies to give their representatives automatic reminders when talking with customers about other offerings.

Sponsored by the Wholesale & Specialty Insurance Association, the virtual conference will be held March 29-April 1.

Full integration allows clients to conduct payments safely and securely online. 
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Simply Easier Payments is now a Gold-level sponsor of insurance industry group NetVU.

The North Carolina-based online payment system provider increased its support in February for NetVU, an independent volunteer-driven group that supports Vertafore product users. Simply Easier Payments had previously been a Silver-level sponsor.

“From our work with clients who use Vertafore, we knew how helpful NetVU’s education and certification programs are,” said Simply Easier Payments founder Duke Williams. “By supporting their mission, we hope to make it even easier for the insurance industry to integrate our seamless, no-cost payment solutions to their websites.”

As part of Vertafore’s Orange Partner Program, Simply Easier Payments is fully integrated with the popular insurance software QQCatalyst®, making it easy for insurers to allow their customers to pay online securely with a credit card or ACH checking account transfer, while meeting regulations in all 50 states. Simply Easier Payments is also integrated with other Vertafore agency management systems, including Sagitta®.

Full integration allows clients to pay securely online.

Simply Easier Payments is now integrated with Vertafore’s QQCatalyst® to offer seamless, no-cost payment solutions to Vertafore customers. 

“We are excited to be working with Vertafore, which has long been an industry leader in insurance software,” said Simply Easier Payments founder Duke Williams. “This collaboration will make it easier than ever for agencies of all sizes to manage their insureds.”
 
As part of Vertafore’s Orange Partner Program, Simply Easier Payments is now fully integrated with the popular insurance software QQCatalyst, making it easier than ever for its users to allow their customers to pay online securely with a credit card or ACH checking account transfer while meeting regulations in all 50 states. Simply Easier Payments is also integrated with other Vertafore agency management systems, including Sagitta®, bringing reliable no-cost solutions for managing and reconciling customer payments.

“Simply Easier Payments has been a great partner to Vertafore and offers a solution that many agencies need today more than ever – the ability to process payments electronically,” said Vertafore’s Vice President of Industry Relations & Partnerships Doug Mohr. “The integration with Sagitta and QQCatalyst enables thousands of clients to reduce the manual work involved in automating the payment process.”
 
Simply Easier Payments now offers QQCatalyst and Sagitta users a secure payment portal with their agency’s branding that allows customers to see and pay invoices with all major credit cards, with options for automated and mobile payments. Payment information is automatically updated, making it easier for customer service representatives to check on billing issues.
 
“Our goal has always been to make it easy for insurance agencies to offer online payments,” added Williams. “What could be simpler than offering our service in management software that many of them already use?”

This is the final article in a seven-part weekly series, "Thriving During the Coronavirus," on how insurance agencies and companies should handle the pandemic and ways to work around new economic challenges.

I have carefully watched how local businesses I deal with have changed or improved their marketing during the pandemic.

My strong takeaway has been that businesses that have reached out in a personal way on a consistent basis – at least weekly, but sometimes more often – have been able to build more loyalty.

I am going to give you to some concrete examples of this with three local businesses where I live in Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Shifting to a New Business Model
The first is the most ambitious. This business has had to make a major shift from a three-location coffee shop to a curbside delivery and online retailer of custom-roasted coffees. The shop already did its own roasting, but it has moved to attempt to change its business model to a subscription basis. This is akin to you deciding to make your agency primarily an online sales organization.

The business is Little Waves. Part of their challenge in moving to an online retailer was a name change. They had been called Cocoa Cinnamon for years, but their move online triggered a copyright issue. Just the type of obstacle you need to pile on top of everything else.

They have used content formatted in multiple ways – emails, blog post, social media post – to tell their story and to keep in touch with customers. Here is their blog: littlewaves.coffee/blogs/news.

They have also added online classes: littlewaves.coffee/collections/education.

Read a few of their posts and notice how they tell wonderful stories that let you relate to their business. They bring you in and personalize your connection.

Now, I admit, your customers do not enjoy your insurance services every morning before they start their day the way Little Waves customers enjoy a cup of coffee. But that doesn’t mean you can’t provide a personal connection with your customers and prospects by telling similar stories – parables if you will – about how your insurance helped your customers in their everyday lives.

I am not suggesting you name names in telling these stories. Customer privacy is important in the insurance industry. I am suggesting you tell stories about examples which can relate to your customers experience which they may not connect with insurance or services you can offer.

Two quick examples – I am sure you will have more and better ideas:

1. Over the past several years as my family has aged, I have been given a variety of things by my relatives which they no longer had room for in their new, smaller homes. Some of this stuff makes me wonder “Why would Aunt Betty ever think I would want this?” and “Do I now have to keep it so I can pull it out of hiding each time Aunt Betty comes to visit?” On the other hand, some of it is family silver and china collections. Since I did not buy these things, it never occurred to me to insure them. A friend was visiting who keeps track of these types of values and suggested the silver and china were worth thousands of dollars. Now, I really can’t sell them off while Aunt Betty is alive, but maybe I would be smart to insure them.
2. My friend’s daughter was overseas when the coronavirus pandemic hit. They were worried about her being able to get home. Her tickets for her return flight were being changed or canceled. They were not only facing uncertainty about whether she could get a flight at all, they were also facing a significant cost for finding a new flight. They were very pleased they had travel insurance that addressed this. Not all travel policies would have provided help. They had researched the different coverage options and were very lucky they had bought the most expansive policy.

Great Storytelling Works
Another really good example is Acme Foods. Their owner is a natural storyteller. He repurposes content for his blog in a weekly newsletter acmecarrboro.com/news/ that is something his readers have come to look forward to receiving. His short vignettes always bring up warm memories. Again, I admit your customers will not get the same pleasure from their car insurance policy as they may get from Acme’s Sangria, but focus on the storytelling, not the product.

Using Targeted Lists
My final example is Chapel Hill Wine Company. These folks have been doing multiple daily emails for a long time – way before the pandemic. I am using them for two reasons:

1. They target different email lists with different emails. They do not send every email to everyone they have on their list. They look at what product you have bought in the past and send emails based on that. For insurance, you would base these decisions on what policies your customers have bought from you. You really need to have a different approach to business and personal accounts. You can find many other ways to differentiate your customers and offer useful, targeted information.
2. They always provide a wonderful description of the wine. Why is it different? What makes it special? I know you are not going to talk about the terroir of your insurance policies. You probably are not going to describe its brightness or finish either. But you can describe the qualities that make it different from your competitors’ offerings. 

Check out their email newsletter archive: www.chapelhillwinecompany.com/newsletters/.

What You Learned
You may come away from this having learned only that I enjoy coffee, food and wine. Well, guilty.

I hope you come away from this with ideas of how to create stronger connections to your customers and prospects when you cannot take them out to lunch.

All the new habits and processes you form to deal with the changes being forced on you now are things which will hold long-term value for you and your business long after the pandemic has pasted. Take advantage of the change and opportunity and you will not only get through this well, you will thrive for years to come.

If you missed
"Part 1: How Your Insurance Agency Can Weather the Global Pandemic and Economic Downturn," click here.
"Part 2: How Your Insurance Agency Can Survive a Drop in Revenue Due to the Pandemic,” click here.
"Part 3: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic and Avoid Layoffs," click here.
"Part 4: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic by Playing Defense," click here.
"Part 5: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic by Going on Offense," click here.
"Part 6: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic by Becoming More Digitally Savvy," click here.

This is the Sixth in a seven-part weekly series, "Thriving During the Coronavirus," on how insurance agencies and companies should handle the pandemic and ways to work around new economic challenges.

Before surgery, some of the most successful doctors work through a checklist to make sure that they have covered all their bases.

As you look to attract new clients during the pandemic, you can use this same tool to ensure that you’re doing everything you can. 

It can be helpful to look at the websites of some bigger insurance companies, including direct-writer firms like Allstate and GEICO to see how they do it. 

But keep in mind that your business is different, and you may be able to offer features that they can’t scale up. Don’t limit yourself to what everyone else is doing. Be creative.

To make your checklist, ask yourself what are the things you should do to become a viable digital service for your insureds? What are the things you expect when you work with online businesses? 

Make a written list of the features they offer online and the products or services they offer. Here’s a rough checklist I made up after perusing some of the bigger direct-writer companies.

Now, Look at Your Own Website
Compare this list to what your website does. 

Comparing the table to what your website does, what are the features these carrier’s websites offer that your website does not offer?

Chances are that there’s at least one or two upgrades that you could make to your site to attract more business or just keep the clients you have.

Think About Businesses Other Than Insurance
The first reaction I often hear from insurance agents is “I can’t do those things because of my software”.

Well, I beg to differ. 

My accountant provides all my documents in a secure electronic format. These documents are not automatically provided from an integration with their back-office system, but from their taking the time to share with me in a separate file sharing system.

My lawyers do the same.

My position on agents waiting until they have their agency management system provide every solution they can imagine is to say I guess my accountant and attorney think I am more valuable.

That is harsh. But is it true?

It would certainly be easier to have your agency management system provide this automatically, but are you willing to lose customers while you wait?

Every Customer Is Not the Same
I am not saying you need to upload every document for every customer. You will have a significant number of customers who do not want or use online services. It depends on your customer.

I suggest you let each customer tell you what they want. If they tell you they would like online access to specific services, documents or capabilities you should seriously consider if they are worth the extra effort.

The best way to think about this is to understand the value to your relationship with your customer. 

With most file sharing systems every time you add a document to the service the person you are sharing with gets a notice. Your customer is made aware you are doing something for them.

For self service features such as requesting changes, getting a certificate of insurance or an ID card, each time your customer goes to your website to take these actions they are working with you and your agency. Staying front of mind is incredibly valuable.

Next Up
In my next article, I’ll be talking about how to create a story line to connect with your customers.

If you missed
"Part 1: How Your Insurance Agency Can Weather the Global Pandemic and Economic Downturn," click here.
"Part 2: How Your Insurance Agency Can Survive a Drop in Revenue Due to the Pandemic,” click here.
"Part 3: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic and Avoid Layoffs," click here.
"Part 4: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic by Playing Defense," click here.
"Part 5: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic by Going on Offense," click here.

This is the fifth in a seven-part weekly series, "Thriving During the Coronavirus," on how insurance agencies and companies should handle the pandemic and ways to work around new economic challenges.

The coronavirus pandemic will hit your insurance business in the short- and medium-term. But it’s also an opportunity for you to grow your business.

As I noted in previous articles in this series, your customers are going to be taking a fresh look at their expenses, including the policies you provide.

But that means that your competitors’ customers will be doing the same — and that’s an opportunity.

Here’s a short guide to how to do that.

Go for the Low Hanging Fruit
If you’ve taken my earlier advice, you’ve already looked at your policies and practices and made some changes to provide better service and communication with your existing customers.

Now, you can take those same actions to go after new customers.

For example, did you create an effective automated renewal review process? What would you have to change to make that a new business review process? Probably no changes, just figuring out how to get it in front of prospects.

Look at Existing Prospect Lists
Do you currently have a list of prospects? 

What about past customers? An advantage of past customers is you at least know the name and contact information for the decisionmakers.

Past customers should be reviewed for reasons you lost the business. Can you address these reasons? Have you already tried and failed to get them back?

You should create a written list of past customers with written reasons you lost them. Analyze and prioritize which ones to approach.

What about prospects you have presented to in the past but not acquired. Make a list just like the past customer list above and prioritize actions on this list.

Do you have a list of prospects you have never done business with? How have you approached them in the past? What were the results? Review this list, analyze and prioritize.

Making Your New Prospect Lists
You could just make a list of everyone in your target market. Maybe that would be all the businesses in your town or county. Maybe that is a specific market like antique car collectors.

Decide if you represent carriers who offer a strong program for these prospects. There is no need to go after apartment complex owners if you do not have a carrier who will write coverage for them.

Match your strengths with new lists.

Use Social Media Marketing
After you understand where you have carrier partners which position you to be aggressive, design social media campaigns to target those prospects.

Social media campaigns must be maintained over time to be most effective. These are cumulative efforts.

The social media campaigns should direct those interested to your website where they can take specific actions to solve their problems. In some cases this may be buying your policy online. In others this maybe completing a checklist to identify their needs. 

Try a variety of things, measure results and adjust. This is an ongoing process.

Address Your Prospect’s Pain
In the coming 12 to 18 months your prospects’ pain is likely to be the cost of coverage as much as anything else. Address cost savings, but remember, price is generally fourth or fifth on the list of reasons people decide to buy coverage. 

The biggest decider in buying decisions is perceived value. Never forget to emphasize value in as equal to or more important than price.

Look at How Your Customers Find Your Competitors
If you understand how your customers are finding who to reach out to when they decide shop their insurance renewal, you will have your first step in understanding how to position yourself to be found by your competitor’s customers. 

Ask people who come to you how they found you.

If you have a strong enough relationship with some of your existing customers ask them how they found you or how they would look if they were shopping.

Next Up
In my next article in this series I’ll be talking about how your company can thrive during the pandemic by becoming more digitally savvy.

If you missed
"Part 1: How Your Insurance Agency Can Weather the Global Pandemic and Economic Downturn," click here.
"Part 2: How Your Insurance Agency Can Survive a Drop in Revenue Due to the Pandemic,” click here.
"Part 3: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic and Avoid Layoffs, click here."
"Part 4: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic by Playing Defense, click here. "

Agents should look at what has worked and what hasn't worked so far in 2020, and try to adjust going forward, said Duke Williams, founder of Simply Easier Payments. See Video. (AMBestTV)

This is the fourth in a seven-part weekly series, "Thriving During the Coronavirus," on how insurance agencies and companies should handle the pandemic and ways to work around new economic challenges.

The economic downturn may hurt your business in the short term, but how you respond can help it grow in the long run. 

In previous articles in this series, I’ve shown how your decisions to keep staff instead of laying off and focus on your business can help you survive the current recession.

Now it’s time to talk about your customers. While you’re focused on your own business, your competitors are going to be looking for ways to poach some of your customers. It’s time to think about playing defense to keep them from leaving.

Growing Your Business
To recap the previous articles: Your customers premiums are going to go down as the economy struggles. To keep your commissions from decreasing, you need to have more customers. 

So, how do you do it? 

First, think about your own behavior. How are you going to respond?

If you are like most people, you are going to:

1. Decide which things you really need and limit purchases to those things
2. Find out if you can get those things at a better price
3. Find out if you can buy those things online and have them delivered
4. If you cannot buy these things online, can you order them in advance and then pick them up at curbside

Protect Your Existing Customers
It is more profitable to keep existing customers than it is to acquire new ones. But in a recession, that may take a little more work.

Most insurance renewals just happen. You – the existing agent – do not contact your renewing customer. The customer gets a bill and they pay it. Some of them shop around, but historically about 90 percent do not.

This year and next year many more of your existing customers are going to shop around more as they look to cut costs.

Think about how your existing customers could be enticed to move their insurance. Is it lower premiums? Bundled policies? Added services? Write all these ideas down.

Highlight the things in that list which are things you do not or cannot currently do.

For each item you highlight, write out the reasons you currently do not or cannot do these things. These are the problems you need to solve.

Even if you keep saying to yourself “I cannot possibility do this,” write out a plan. It will surprise you how identifying your roadblocks can lead to solutions.

This list is the single most important tool you will have in the coming 18 months.

What Would Put You Out of Business?
Take another look at the list you created above. You need to create a priority action list. Most people start with the low-hanging fruit. You need to start with the actions with the largest impact.

You need to aggressively implement actions to defend your existing book of business before you take actions to go after new business. 

The good news is the list you just created is probably the list of actions you can use to go on the offense to acquire new business.

In my next article, I’ll discuss going on offense to protect your business and retain your employees. 

If you missed "Part 1: How Your Insurance Agency Can Weather the Global Pandemic and Economic Downturn," click here, Part 2: “How Your Insurance Agency Can Survive a Drop in Revenue Due to the Pandemic,” click here or Part 3: How Your Agency Can Thrive During the Pandemic and Avoid Layoffs, click here. 

This is the third in a seven-part weekly series, "Thriving During the Coronavirus," on how insurance agencies and companies should handle the pandemic and ways to work around new economic challenges.

When the economy turns sour, many businesses begin laying off staff. 

Their reasoning seems simple: Reducing payroll can compensate for the drop in income, pushing the company back to profitability.

But study after study has concluded that this ends up hurting businesses in the long run.

While layoffs cut costs quickly – and payroll is often one of the biggest – they end up doing major damage to the business down the road.

As one professor at the prestigious Wharton School noted, those businesses are going to need those workers back when the economy rebounds, only now they’re going to have to hire new ones and pay both the time and money to train them.

Will You be Able to Keep Your Staff?
If layoffs are a bad idea, why do so many companies do them? One reason is that they are publicly traded, and Wall Street’s demands tend to impose short-term thinking on business leaders.

But publicly traded companies also have more flexibility and financial options to get through an economic downturn than privately owned ones, especially small- to medium-sized insurance agencies.

This makes your decisions more difficult. Let me lay out a general ground rule I think most of my readers can accept: If you have to give up a million-dollar bonus to keep from laying off staff, give up your million-dollar bonus.

If only this were the dilemma facing most insurance agency owners.

Some Honest Talk Between Owners
I am going to talk about this bluntly. I know it can be a taboo subject. Still…

When times are tough, many small business owners cut their own salary first. That is OK and even admirable.

The back side of this is when times are flush, many small business owners are taking more money out of the business. For insurance agency owners, there is the additional value of the sale of the business to factor into your decisions. This is perfectly acceptable.

In the coming couple of years, with the drop in insurance premiums taking a long time to recover, these practices may be more difficult.

Helping Your Workers Helps You Too
Here is something all of us need to understand. If we lay our staff off, they have less money to buy things from our customers. Our customers then have less money to buy things from us. It is a self-reinforcing spiral.

If each of us acts only for their own short-term gain, all of us will sink.

You really need to talk with your fellow business owners and insureds about this. I have been surprised at the reactions I have seen when local businesses I buy from have been extremely open about this in their public communications. 

My response across the board is to do more business with these local businesses than I was doing before the pandemic. I want to support my neighbors as much as I possibly can.

You Can Also Share the Pain
An alternative to terminations is to ask your staff to share the reduction in salary across the board. 

Maybe this is not just a roll back of salary. Maybe this is also a reduction of hours worked.

How will your staff respond?

First, they must know you are personally doing as much or more than you are asking of them.

Second, some will tell you pretty quickly that they work much harder than one or more of the other folks at the office. They will suggest that nobody will really be all that upset if you finally let their most annoying co-workers go and so do not have to cut any other salaries.

Do they have a point? Are there some jobs you currently have people doing which really are just busy work? You should hope that is not how your staff sees your contribution.

Layoffs Make Workers Nervous
But let’s say that you were able to sort out which workers weren’t doing the best job and only let them go. That can still hurt your company.

My observation has been when you must let people go, everybody at your office starts wondering if they are going to be next.

Some of them will start looking for other jobs right away. You really cannot blame them.

Your best employees will always be able to find other jobs faster than your less valuable staff. That makes sense. Do you really hope to hire so-so employees away from your competitors? Will layoffs lead to more staff leaving and your company losing your top staff?

When you let people go, the folks that stay are being asked to do more work than they were doing before. This is rarely appreciated as much as you might hope.

Next: How to Grow Your Way Out of a Downturn
Simplistic as it sounds, the way out of less premiums per insured is to get more insureds. In my next article, I’ll look at how you can do this.

If you missed "Part 1: How Your Insurance Agency Can Weather the Global Pandemic and Economic Downturn," click here or Part 2: “How Your Insurance Agency Can Survive a Drop in Revenue Due to the Pandemic,” click here.

CNA selected AIR Worldwide’s Touchstone solution as its primary catastrophe risk modeling platform. CNA is also licensing AIR’s Web Services to connect to AIR’s cloud infrastructure and obtain hazard, and loss analysis output in seconds; and Touchstone APIs to integrate with CNA’s underwriting systems as part of their IT transformation efforts. For CNA’s newly created National Accounts line, AIR is also providing support using its data services to scrub and prepare submissions for quotes from brokers.

Simply Easier Payments partnered with NowCerts to add no-cost customer payment processing to the insurance agency management system. NowCerts uses a design process to create and improve an agency management system that is intuitive and improves workflow. Using a similar development process, Simply Easier Payments offers a one-stop, no-cost payment solution for insurance agencies and businesses to accept mobile and online payments.
​
Acuity Insurance selected IBQ‘s commercial comparative rater to rate commercial products. Independent agents are now able to compare Acuity Business Owner Policy, General Liability, and Workers’ Comp rates to other carriers on the IBQ platform, saving time and increasing efficiency with IBQ’s single entry solution.

QBE North America partnered with Flyreel, Inc., an artificial Intelligence platform for property insurance, to help customers manage risk and prevent loss through an AI-assisted tool. Allowing customers to conduct their home inspections at their convenience and on their terms, is the best and safest way for QBE to ensure customers get the right coverage tailored to their needs.

Written by Denny Jacob

This is the second in a seven-part weekly series, "Thriving During the Coronavirus," on how insurance agencies and companies should handle the pandemic and ways to work around new economic challenges.

Here’s the bad news: Your insurance agency is very likely going to see a drop in revenue over the next two years.

You can change that going forward, but in the next six months you probably need to have a plan that acknowledges you will probably see lower revenues.

But there is good news, too.

Insurance agencies are in much more stable positions than many businesses. People are required by law to have car insurance and workers compensation insurance. They are required by their lenders to have homeowner coverage and business property coverages. They are required by contracts to carry liability coverages.

That’s the big picture. Now, let’s look at some individual facets of the industry.

Workers comp is based on payroll. With over 40 million Americans applying for unemployment, payrolls are going to be down. That means workers comp premiums will be down.

Liability premiums are based on sales. Sales dropped over 17 percent in April. Even the May recovery was still down 6 percent from May of 2019.

Finally, some businesses are closing and more are going to close. Their insurance policies will be canceled or not renewed.

Most industry experts I talk to expect a 20 percent or more drop in written premiums in the U.S. Property and Casualty insurance market over the next two years. Since the drop during a four-year period of the Great Depression was 35 percent according to the best estimates, I honestly think a 20 percent drop is not realistic.

What Will the Drop in Premiums Be?
During the Great Recession these premiums went from growing around 4% annually to dropping at least 2 percent over two years. It then took another two years to recover to the pre-recession level of written premiums.

The May 2020 unemployment rate in the U.S. was 13.3 percent, in April it was 14.7 percent

If an average unemployment rate in 2008 was 5.8 percent, and Property and Casualty premiums in the U.S. dropped 1.6 percent without adjustment for inflation, the simple math gives us maybe a 4 percent drop in premiums unadjusted for inflation.

Balance the Reduced Premiums Against Your Planned Growth
Premiums were growing between 2 percent and 3 percent nationally going into 2020.

Adding the projected growth and the projected reduction resulting from Covid gives us a rough number of 2 percent plus 4 percent — a combined difference of about 6 percent less than your planned budget may have been.

Plan for a Range
Since the actual drop is unknown, your best planning is to plan for two or three possible scenarios. I suggest you create plans for drops of 5 percent, 10 percent and 15 percent.

This range of outcomes will let you prioritize how you budget for the coming 18 months. What would you do differently in each scenario.

The next article in this seven-part weekly series will focus on keeping and maintaining your staff during the downturn so be sure to check back next week.

If you missed "Part 1: How Your Insurance Agency Can Weather the Global Pandemic and Economic Downturn," click here.

This is the first in a seven-part weekly series, "Thriving During the Coronavirus," on how insurance agencies and companies should handle the pandemic and ways to work around new economic challenges.

It might seem counterintuitive to talk about your insurance agency thriving during a pandemic and a worldwide economic downturn. But as you’ll see in this series of articles, there are a lot of decisions you can make that will not just keep you in business but put you in a stronger position than ever.

Over the next six months and in the 12 to 18 months after that, you will face a series of choices on how to run your agency. Here’s how to choose wisely.​

What Have You Done So Far?
For better or worse, you have already made a number of significant decisions in response to the pandemic and the accompanying business shutdowns.

Treat these as early learning opportunities. You now have experiences to look at and use to measure results. What worked? What caused problems?

The Problem
Fortunately, this pandemic is not yet as lethal as the Plague or the influenza epidemic of 1918. The Plague killed around 30 percent of the world population. The 1918 flu pandemic killed between 5 percent and 10 percent of the world population. This flu looks to be on track to be much less lethal.

In those cases, we also did not understand what caused the disease or how the disease spread. These two events had enormous economic and historical impact because of their widespread effects. The mass deaths affected both demand as well as the supply of available workers.

Today, thanks to science, we understand both the cause of the disease and how it spreads. This knowledge has made it possible for us as a whole to reduce the spread and control the death rate.

But exercising this control has direct economic effects. Thankfully, we now also have the economic theory and past examples to understand how to mitigate negative effects.

We have and are going to have to continue to take actions to stop both the disease and the economic damage.

By taking planned and thoughtful actions you can not only have your business survive, you can lead your business to thrive.

Define Your Goals in Writing
If you do not know where you are going, you will never know if you are on the right road, so the first step is to define your goals in writing.

You may not have the answer, but at least you have a plan.

You have to be able to measure your results against your goals. Only then can you see your progress and control your own destiny.

If you do not write it down, if you cannot speak it in words, you will not be able to apply your experience and smarts to solving the problem.

The next article in this seven-part weekly series will focus on planning for reduced revenue, so be sure to check back next week. 

By Duke Williams, Founder of Simply Easier Payments

​In recent weeks, insurance carriers like Allstate and Liberty Mutual have sent premium refunds of as much as 15 percent to their customers on their personal auto policies. 

They’ve also turned around and boasted of that in TV ads.

This policy is great all around. It helps your customers during an economic downturn, boosts brand loyalty in the long term, gives you a public relations boost and is the right thing to do.

So how can your insurance agency use coronavirus refunds most effectively? Here are a few things to keep in mind.

The difference in premiums for a car used to drive to work or school as opposed to a car used solely for pleasure — which is driven much less regularly — is anywhere from five to 20 percent depending on lines of coverage, the insurance company and state. 

But with more than 20 percent of the U.S. population out of work and as much as 40 percent working from home, the odds are pretty good that your agency’s customers are paying too much.

This is a golden opportunity for you and your agency to reach out through an email, a postcard or a phone call. 

Ask your customers if they are no longer driving to and from work and offer to change the usage classification of the cars affected. Be sure to explain that the change will need to be reversed when their circumstances change, though that may be quite a while.

The easier you make this process for customers, the more they will appreciate the outreach. That will also cut down on the amount of staff time you’ll spend processing the changes. 

Be sure to remind your customers of the favor as well. A confirmation email or postcard will maintain that goodwill, and you could send a reminder in a few months asking them to notify you if their usage changes, helping keep those savings top of mind.

Your customers have seen the ads running on TV. They’ve heard from friends or neighbors about premium refunds from your competitors. If they haven’t gotten a break already, they’re probably asking themselves why not. 

You can still claim that goodwill and build that brand loyalty. If you don’t, someone else will. 

Simply Easier Payments is partnering with NowCerts to add no-cost customer payment processing to the popular insurance agency management system. As a preferred partner, Simply Easier Payments will offer full integration to insurance agencies using NowCerts, allowing them to accept online payments using ACH and credit cards instead of mailing in checks.

​“Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for insurance agencies to handle online payments,” said Simply Easier Payments CEO Duke Williams. “Integrating with NowCerts will make that process even smoother for their clients.”

NowCerts uses an innovative design process to create and improve an agency management system that is intuitive and improves workflow. Using a similar development process, Simply Easier Payments offers a one-stop, no-cost payment solution for insurance agencies and businesses to accept mobile and online payments.

“By combining the two, NowCerts and Simply Easier Payments will make it easier than ever for insurance agencies to shift toward online payments,” added Williams. “This has become even more important to ensure the safety of your customers and staff.”

The coronavirus pandemic is already changing the way that American businesses operate, at least temporarily. But look closely and you can see the potential for long-lasting changes even after life returns to normal. 

One of these shifts might just mean the end of the traditional insurance office. 

Pandemic-related lockdowns have already forced many major companies to expand work-from-home policies on a short-term basis. But having tried it, some employees and their bosses are considering more permanent changes. 

Nationwide Mutual Insurance is going even farther. One of the leading life insurance and retirement companies, the Columbus, Ohio-based company moved 98 percent of its 27,000 employees to working from home in less than a week in early March. 

CEO Kirt Walker told Fortune magazine that management found no changes in key performance indicators and no negative feedback from customers. 

"We keep hearing from members, 'if you hadn't announced you were all working from home, we never would have known,'" he said. 

The Fortune 500 company decided to make the change permanent and has already shuttered five offices in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, and plans to shrink from 20 offices to just four. 

As you face similar issues at your business, there are short-term, intermediate and long-term issues to consider.

Short-Term Issues
In the past, employees who worked from home had designed a setup that worked for them. Many workers today are doing so under duress. 

Working from home during the coronavirus pandemic is complicated by schools being closed and businesses and workers having no advance planning time.

Taking care of your school-age children, helping with their online learning, sharing home computers and internet bandwidth are all challenging experiences.

Not having the option of going to the office at all is not the best way to make work from home on a permanent basis work.

Intermediate-Term Issues
The coronavirus is going to be with us for a while. Fear of travel and fear of crowds is going to make it hard to convince employees to return to work. Lack of childcare options will continue to be a problem. And even when schools reopen, they may do so under staggered or limited school times.

These issues are going to last for more than the coming 12 months. Now is the time to adjust to the drawbacks of the current forced and hurried experience.

You may need to invest in better laptops and other equipment for your newly remote workers. Your work-from-home staff needs quality video cameras and audio to participate in the increasingly common online meetings. 

While your staff may have a home computer their kids use for gaming that has these features, you really do not want to expose your business systems and data to your employee’s children’s computers. You would not be best pleased if your staff let their kids access the computers in your office. Why would you want your staff working from their kids’ devices?

You may need to provide cell phone or better phone solutions for your home staff. For security reasons you do not want to have company contacts and emails on your employee’s personal phones.

You need to hold regular weekly companywide or department-wide video meetings with your staff. People need to keep the connections with the folks they have been working with in your office.

It is probably a bad idea to have your staff take the computers and printers they currently have in your office home. Most traditional stay-at-home options are combined with remote access to networks and servers used through your current computers at your current physical office.

You need to put in place online methods for your customers to interact with your staff. This means increased use of digital signatures, electronic payments and online video meetings.

Long-Term Decisions
Even in the current situation, working from home provides some positives that you should consider.

Studies over the last several years consistently show benefits to your staff and your company. These include:

• 13 percent to 22 percent increase in productivity
• Increased employee retention
• Lower cost for everything from rent, to office supplies, to office snacks
• Generally happier staff, higher employee morale

Increased productivity and lower costs are two things your business could always benefit from. In the coming economic challenge – whether it turns out to be a recession or even a depression – these may simply be competitive advantages your need.

Take this time to plan how you should restructure your business now. As things settle out you need to have permanent adjustments identified and ready to go.

The future comes gradually, and then all at once. We may be at one of those tipping points, where companies shift from traditional offices in downtown buildings to employees working from home. 

Now is the time to start planning for that future.

​Working from home can be an adjustment for workers who are used to the office routine. But it can be an even bigger adjustment for managers who are used to the daily hands-on interactions with their staffs.  

Tech-oriented companies who have long handled a distributed workforce can show how to do it right. 

As the founder of a technology company, we have supported most of our office functions in a distributed fashion for several years, with some team members working remotely from home and others in different states.

The biggest challenge as a manager is trust.

Trusting your employees to actually be “at work” is the most difficult change I had to make in my mindset over the years as we supported more remote workers. 

I grew up in a factory town. I began my career at a large insurance carrier. I knew work meant showing up at 8:30, having two 15-minute breaks plus an hour for lunch, and leaving no sooner than 5 p.m.

With people not working in the office where I can walk around and see them, how did I know they were doing anything?

The temptation was to use one of the many monitoring software tools to see if they were logged in. A virtual time clock where they could punch in just like the factories of my youth.

But measuring the productivity of your workers is more than making sure they are sitting at their desk.

Instead, we developed measurements based on the job each person was performing. I care less about when they get a thing done than that they get things done.

Being available to take phone calls and to respond to emails during our normal office hours requires staff doing those jobs to be available during normal office hours.

For these tasks, I really do not need to know they are online, I just need a report on phone call activity. I can get this from our phone log of incoming calls.

I can also review our shared notes on customer interactions in our CRM systems. If there is a significant difference in the incoming calls and the CRM system notes it’s easy to see where we are falling down.

The final key to making this work has been to allow our customers to do as much self-service as possible.

For many businesses this means making online payments, requesting changes or documents online, or providing information and e-signatures.

These are all readily available services, but if you are not using them I strongly advise you think through them first, then test them with your own staff before you release them into the wild.

Self-service needs a way for you to track activity. You need to be able to see where in your self-service processes you are losing your users.

Many people list three stages of transition from working in an office to completely distributed work supporting a remote workforce.

You are probably moving past stage one, where all work is done in a common office, but you can miss a day using your cell phone and home WiFi.

You are just starting to move to stage two, where you try to recreate what you did at the office but you try to do it online.

After a while you will start to think about stage three, where you change routines to take advantage of this new work environment.

With a little bit of practice and following some of my advice on building trust, you can adjust your business to this new normal for the time being and help your workforce stay productive while also feeling supported.

When I worked at an insurance agency as a young man, I found an envelope slid under the office door one morning. Inside was a check intended as a premium payment. 

I soon learned an important lesson about accepting payments in the insurance industry that is even more important as more customers start paying online due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

The check was clearly meant for us. It was made out to our agency. But nobody in the agency recognized the name, and we couldn’t find any policies on it. 

This created the potential for an E&O claim – the industry term for insurance problems involving errors and omissions with payment. If we cashed that check, we could be in a for a mess of trouble. My bosses warned me not to do anything with it until we learned what it was for. 

These days, insurance agencies are almost universally accepting payments online. And with millions of Americans staying at home to stop the spread of Covid-19, even those who were reluctant to pay their bills online are going to make the shift.

That means there are a whole lot of people who could be sliding envelopes under that virtual door, and if your agency is automatically accepting online payments, you’re headed for a lot of E&O claims down the road. 

But when software creates a problem, it can also usually solve it. With the right changes to your online payment processing, you can avoid these kinds of E&O claims with something called conditional payments.

Here’s how it works. 

E&O claims happen when an insurance company incorrectly accepts payment, even when it’s for the wrong amount or from someone who is not a customer. By cashing that check, the insurance company has essentially given the customer the ability to argue in court that they were insured. 

As it turned out, the check slid under our door so long ago was from one of our customers, and the payment was past due. In fact, as a result of non-payment, the policy was slated to be canceled. To make matters worse, the check was not for the full amount of money owed. 

If we accepted the check by depositing it, that would reset the cancellation date. A reinstatement notice would have to be sent by the insurance carrier. 

But if the check then bounced, the insurance carrier would need to issue a new notice of cancellation with a date even further in the future, effectively giving the insured more coverage even after they hadn’t paid. That would hurt our bottom line, reducing our agency commission and forcing us to write off the cost of the premium. 

In the old days, it was rare that an envelope would show up under an office door in these circumstances. But the increase in online payments means it is far easier for customers to make these kinds of mistakes, especially as the less tech-savvy customers who had held off are forced into it by concerns over the coronavirus. 

Married couples using different credit cards, a customer forgetting their password, or an older customer getting confused while searching online – these are all potential E&O claims in the making. 

There are two main problems. In the first, the agency accepts a premium from a non-customer. In doing so, it creates a legally enforceable insurance contract, even if no policy exists. This is true even if you immediately return the payment. In the second, the agency’s acceptance of a customer’s partial payment forces it to postpone cancellation, even though they are past due. 

All of this is compounded online, where payments are processed automatically. Fortunately, there is a solution: Conditional payments. 

Under a conditional payment, online customers can request that you accept payment, but your website will not automatically put a hold on the funds. This means you have not legally accepted the payment. 

Instead, the customer is given a notice that their payment will not go through until it is reviewed by a human being. 

At the agency, you will receive email notifications advising you that someone has requested you accept a specific payment for a specific policy. This allows you to confirm the existence of the customer and the adequacy of the payment. 

You respond to the system by clicking accept or decline. 

If you accept the payment a receipt is sent to your insured showing the time/date of the transaction as the time/date stamp the system put on their request for payment. 

Essentially, we treat the time/date stamp of the request for payment the same way the insurance industry has traditionally treated the postmark date on a check received in the mail. The postmark date is accepted as the payment date for cancellation reinstatement purposes. 

If you decline, the system sends an email to the insured stating the payment is declined with any text explanation you include. This might include instruction on how to contact you to resolve any issues. 

This is the same method the IRS uses when accepting income tax payments online. 

Few, if any, agency financial management systems keep real-time information on payments for your customers. This means even integrating your online payment system with your agency management systems would not adequately protect you from these risks. 

If your insured is paying for an agency billed policy, integration with your agency management should provide correct information and can be useful in protecting you against these risks. 

When you are setting up your online payment system, make sure to ask your provider if they allow conditional payments and how well they are integrated with financial management systems. At Simply Easier payments, we do both, to protect agencies from the risks I learned about thanks to an envelope slid under a door so many years ago. 

At a time when many Americans are nervous about their futures, making sure that you can properly handle their insurance payments is just good business.