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.

Online payments are convenient, secure and easy. But these days they can also help keep you, your employees and your customers stay healthy and ensure your insurance business stays productive during the coronavirus pandemic.  

Amid the virus health concerns, many employees across country are being encouraged to work from home, while older Americans are being advised to stay inside.

That spells trouble for those consumers who prefer to pay their insurance bills in person or by the mail, many of whom are older. And it presents a tricky situation for insurance agents and companies who have shifted their work remotely for the time being. 

Not only should your clients avoid going out to pay their bills, but even if they do, your business may not have anyone there to accept payments. 

That could be especially problematic in the insurance industry, where timely payments are paramount to maintaining coverage, something many Americans are undoubtedly nervous about as the virus spreads.

Even paying by mail could be problematic, as it requires having stamps on hand or going to the post office – and again, your clients should be focusing on social distancing, not worrying about making a payment in person—and your office may not have anyone there anyway to accept it.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found in a 2017 study that the average American paid 8.4 bills in person, by mail or by phone, compared to 6.5 bills paid online and 6.4 bills paid through automatic withdrawal. That means a significant amount of people still aren’t paying online --presenting a new opportunity for you to increase the number of online payors, a true benefit especially during the pandemic.

If your insurance agency or company doesn’t accept online payments, it’s not hard to add that functionality to your website quickly, especially if your team is now all working from home. And it’s even easier to get your customers set up as well. And under the current circumstances, they’ll will be especially thankful of your new feature. 

Not only that, online payments also allow your customers to know exactly when the payment is received, while mailing payments is dependent on the postal service delivery timing. This helps your customers manage their own cashflow. Given so much uncertainty right now, they will appreciate when they receive confirmation of their payments, knowing it’s one less thing to worry about. 

As the coronavirus continues to spread, now is better than ever to shift your payment processing online with a straightforward plug-and-play payment system that you can quickly add to your website and just as quickly offer to your customers. 

At a time like this, you need to focus on the health and safety of your employees as well as your your customers all while ensuring the longevity of your business. Online payment processing can help with all of that and at no cost to you. 

I'll never forget waking up the first morning after I made public our very first online service.

I hopped out of bed and went to my computer, logged in, ran my report and pumped my fist when I saw overnight someone had subscribed to our online service.

Twenty years later, I still check every day and get the same thrill. The idea that you can run your business 24 hours a day, even while you sleep, is amazing to anyone who grew up in the analog era.

It’s especially appropriate for the insurance industry, where policies are in effect 24/7 even while both clients and agents are asleep.

Doctors and lawyers and carpenters get paid when they do specific tasks. But the nature of an insurance policy is that you sell it and renew it on a specific effective date. Every day after that date you earn the premium and commission on that policy unless something goes wrong.

The only hitch: Insurance premiums depend on timely payments. The only way to do that online is to make sure your website has a smooth payment processing system.

In a way, insurance agents are really in the payment acceptance, collection and receivables business.

Online Payments Are the Solution
If you allow your customers to make payments online – self-service – at the time and place most convenient to them – you get yourself out of that game.

You get to spend your time doing the things that allow you to provide better service and to attract more clients.

The insurance policy you sold probably was not a sale you made online. It could be, but it doesn’t have to be.

Insurance policies often require payments after the deposit, such as down payments, or even the full payment for things like:

• Endorsements 
• Installments
• Renewals

These payments can and should be possible for your customers to make easily online. Once you’ve added this capability to your website, then your business is working 24 hours a day, even while you sleep.

Margins are lean in the insurance industry, so looking for ways to save money and cut back on expenses can be a great value. And the beginning of the year is a great time to start.

You probably already have a good sense of the regular costs of doing business, whether that’s payroll or office supplies, or travel expenses. But you might not realize how much payment processing fees may be eating away at your profits.

Many payment processors charge unnecessary monthly and development fees to insurance agents and companies, just to offer the convenience of credit card and ACH processing to their customers. Add this to the fact that the payment processor is already charging the customer a transaction fee. This amounts to something I call the “double dip”: The provider is charging both the insurer and the insured for the same transaction.

Now would be a good time to check with your online payment provider about your contract, go over the various fees that they charge and ask if there are alternatives.

Payment providers don’t have to charge insurance agents and companies additional fees, they choose to charge them. Monthly service fees, monthly statement fees, PCI compliance fees, and even development fees are just add-ons to make more money. Transaction fees on the other hand are a fair-fee usually charged to the insured for the convenience of using a credit card or ACH. But this fee can also be absorbed by the insurer or split with the customer.

This year, you can take control of your margins and stop paying unnecessary fees just for the ability to offer this simple convenience.

While you’re at it, make sure that your online payment provider works seamlessly with your workflow, offering the tools and features you need to create the best experiences for you and your customer. Having invoicing, recurring billing and text and email notifications at your fingertips greatly speeds up receivables and improves cashflow. 

Here are four questions you need to ask to start taking control of your bottom line and stop paying needless processing fees: 

1) Is your provider charging extra fees on top of the transaction fee?

2) Does development work and customized integration cost extra?

3) Is your provider charging additional fees for the tools and features you need for a robust payment solution like invoicing, batch invoicing, recurring billing, email and text notifications?

4) If you need the payment provider to develop a custom solution that works for your specific needs, will that be an additional fee?

If the answers to any of these questions are yes, then you’re simply paying too much. Make this the year that you cut your processing fees and reduce them to zero. 

By Duke Williams, Founder of Simply Easier Payments

When American consumers go to pay their bills, they prefer going online to mailing a check because it’s simple. But for the businesses that serve them, it’s not quite as easy. Simply Easier Payments put together some advice for business owners who are considering it.
 
One reason online payments are so complicated is that eight players are involved. There’s the cardholder, the credit card company, the merchant, their bank, the payment gateway, yet another bank, the credit card network and, finally, the Federal Reserve.
 
When you sit down with a payment provider, here are seven big questions you should ask:

1. What are some reasons to accept payments online?
   You never want to turn down a customer payment. Customers like to pay online, using either a credit card or a checking account number, because it’s quicker than hunting around for the checkbook and a stamp and they can be certain when the payment has arrived, avoiding late fees or cancellations. In fact, the timing issue was the main reason people have been willing to pay fees for online payments. But business owners like it too. It speeds up your payables, allowing you to be more productive, and avoids any difficult situations where a customer is having trouble paying promptly.
   
   
2. What are some drawbacks to accepting online payments?
   It’s tricky. Many vendors add processing fees, set up fees, chargeback fees and other hidden fees that can eat directly into your already tight profit margins. Integrating payment into your website can also be costly, especially if you need custom coding. There are also security concerns that require an understanding of proper handling of customer data and banking information. And in the insurance industry, there are additional state regulations to meet as well.
   
   
3. Why is compliance important?
   Running your operations with disregard for, or ignorance of the law is never a good business model. Card rules violations may lead to card companies taking away your ability to accept payments or in some cases levying fines of up to $25,000 per violation.
   
   
4. What can I do to ensure my payment system is secure?
   Look for PCI Level I validation, the highest level of security, from any vendors you choose. Ask how long they have been in business. Read the contract to find out who is responsible for a breach: you or the vendor.
   
   
5. Does every state have the same payment processing regulations?
   States have varying regulations with payment processing that prohibit the agent from charging additional fees. For the insurance industry, states also have rules on how the premium fund must be handled, while credit card companies also have specific regulations. With multiple layers involved in being compliant, it is important that you choose a payment provider that ensures you are operating within the rules, at all times.
   
   
6. Does my state allow people in the insurance business, such as agents, to charge additional fees? 
   While other businesses have the ability absorb processing costs as a standard part of their pricing models, typically this is not the case in the insurance industry, but it varies from state-to-state.
   
   
7. Does my state have a “convenience fee” law?
   A convenience fee is an additional charge to your consumer on top of the payment due. It is referred to as a “convenience” fee because your business has provided the consumer with another avenue to make a payment outside of standard ways of paying. The rules on convenience fees are state laws, not guidelines, and violating these could come with significant consequences. To make things more complicated, the status of convenience fee laws may have current legal action pending in your state. Make sure your payment provider satisfies the requirements of these laws.
   
   

By understanding the laws and regulations for your state, you can confidently run your agency knowing what you can and cannot do when it comes to payment processing. Not all payment processors are created equal, and a poor decision could cost your business in custom development work, unnecessary features, hidden fees, insecure data, and even land you in big legal trouble.

​​So, what is the problem?
When it comes to payment processing, state insurance departments have varying regulations that prohibit agents from charging additional fees. Individual state rules determine how the premium funds must be handled. In addition, credit card companies have their own specific regulations. These multiple layers of complicated regulations make it difficult to know if you are legally compliant. It’s important that you choose a payment provider that ensures you are operating within the law at all times.

Here are two documented examples from the State of New York:

Date: 9-15-2006
Re: Credit Card Service Company
Question Presented:
May an insurance agent or broker conducting business in New York contract with a credit card service provider that will accept an insured’s premium payment by credit card on the agent or broker’s behalf and charge the insured a service fee for the transaction?
 
Conclusion:
No, an insurance agent or broker conducting business in New York may not contract with a credit card service provider that will accept an insured’s premium payment by credit card on the agent or broker’s behalf and charge the insured a service fee for the transaction.
 
Date: 7-21-2006
RE: Credit Card Surcharge
Question Presented:
May an entity that provides a service to insurance companies that permits policyholders to pay their insurance premiums by credit card charge those policyholders an additional fee to cover credit card and other service expenses?
 
Conclusion:
No, an entity that provides a service to insurance companies that permits policyholders to pay their insurance premiums by credit card may not charge those policyholders an additional fee to cover credit card and other service expenses.

Why is Compliance Important?
Operating your business with disregard for, or ignorance, of the law is never an acceptable business model. Violating the rules and regulations may lead to card companies taking away your ability to accept payments and/or levying fines of up to $25,000 per violation.
 
Three Steps for Remaining in Compliance
1. Educate yourself about your state’s specific laws and regulations.
2. Fully understand the credit card company’s rules.
3. If you are in doubt, always ask your payment provider to clarify state laws.
​
Questions to Ask Your Payment Provider

Does my state allow agents to charge additional fees? Are you charging me monthly to charge my customers a payment fee?
If you are not allowed to charge someone a fee in your state, contractually outsourcing the charging of the fee may not be compliant.

Does my state have a “convenience fee” law?
Make sure your payment provider satisfies the requirements of any convenience fee laws. Convenience fee laws are state laws, not guidelines. Violating them could come with significant consequences.

Are the premium funds allowed to be commingled with the fee funds?
If your state does allow agents to charge additional fees, make sure the premium funds are allowed to be commingled with the fee funds.

Have a conversation with your provider if you have any doubt that their model is in compliance with laws and/or regulations in all of the states you do business in.

By understanding the laws and regulations for your state, you can confidently operate your agency knowing what you can and cannot do when it comes to payment processing.

By Duke Williams, Founder of Simply Easier Payments