Smooth Online Payments Mean You Can Run Your Business While You Sleep

By Duke Williams, Founder of Simply Easier Payments

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.