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