Latest News from Insurance 2.0 Magazine

Premium Discounts for Driving Instructors

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:35:00 EST

It’s January 2012 and driving instructors throughout the UK are facing a difficult year ahead with similar pressures to those faced during 2011 which amongst other things includes having to pay increased motor insurance premiums for their tuition cars. Waveney Group Schemes Ltd, the country's largest driving tuition insurance broker works with a panel of four UK based insurers, and have recently announced an initiative whereby for the month of February 2012, they are offering ADIs a discounts of ‘up to' 10% plus a £40 premium discount if the premium a driving instructor is being quoted by their existing insurance company is over £400 including insurance premium tax.

Waveney Group Schemes Launch £25 Driving Instructor Insurance Voucher

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:19:00 EST

As part of Waveney Group Schemes christmas and new year promotion they have launched a £25 voucher scheme. At a time when driving tuition insurance premiums are increasing, you'll be pleased to hear that Waveney (together with its panel of financially strong UK based insurance companies) is working extremely hard to provide competitive tuition insurance quotations for its customers For instructors that are not currently insured through Waveney, they will be providing great quotations throughout December and January which will include a £25 discount if you download and produce their voucher You can get a quotation and access to the discount voucher.

Old Approaches to Business Process Management Are Failing Companies

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:07:08 EDT

We all know that companies of all sizes are facing tough economic challenges at the moment. These challenges are coming from one of the toughest directions possible: customers are not spending money, making it more important than ever to convert the few available prospects into profitable customers. Improving business processes is a powerful way for companies to work better, but the old business process management (BPM) approaches companies often rely on just don't fit the current challenges.

'I Hate Working with Documents On-Screen,' and Other Issues We Reinforce

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:02:46 EDT

You've heard the phrase "Knowledge is Power". There seems to be a human character trait that says by keeping documents close at hand, preferably within steps of my office chair, I am more powerful. Filing cabinets for individuals, and "working copies" of client files are everywhere in offices. Take that easy access to information away and people fight back. You are removing some of their ability to hoard information, all of which is a duplicate of something available elsewhere, but it exposes a frailty that leaves them uncomfortable. "What if somebody else has the file the one time in a million I actually need it?", or, "What if I'm caught off-guard, a client calls and I don't have their information to hand?". This is just one of the ways employees resist the introduction of enterprise content management (ECM), case management and business process management (BPM) solutions that try to limit the amount of paper moving and filed in the organization. I have had the 'exciting' opportunity to spend some time working with lawyers over the last couple of years. From helping smooth immigration paperwork to cleaning up company contracts, it doesn't seem to matter who I work with I experience the same thing: paper. When it comes to the workings of a law office, I am frustrated by the apparent waste of paper (and the subsequent charges for photocopying applied to my account). When I think about it though, the issue is obvious with a lawyer because the multiple copies of documents happens typically right in front of you, while you're sitting there in the office. Although not so obvious, regular offices experience the same issue. Most of us I'm sure have seen the pervasive footer on emails, "Do you really need to print this email?". There is no way to know how much paper is wasted on unnecessary printing and copying in offices, because it is not charged per page.

Once Upon a Time We Called It 'Collaboration'

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:15:00 EDT

There has been a big rise by the business process management (BPM) software vendors to get in on the 'social' game. As people become more comfortable with using Twitter and Facebook than they do Word and Excel, a new tag has appeared: Social BPM. My argument is that, once upon a time this was called 'collaboration' and the big software vendors (Documentum/EMC, Vignette, etc) did it. Collaboration software was about helping teams of people, typically on projects or with a need to share information to get a job done, to set up 'collaboration spaces' or 'team rooms'. There was not a lot of process enforcement, because the workflow capabilities of the products were limited and the aim was to focus on ad-hoc collaboration of people, rather than strict process flows.

AIG Selling $50B Units – Integration Struggles Ahead?

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:15:00 EST

As AIG plans to sell off two large units from its core, it makes me believe that there are interesting people-, process- and technology-times ahead for the companies acquiring them. As I talked about yesterday, insurance companies are used to the fact that they have different lines of business running different systems. According to Matt Buttell at Financial Services Technology, AIG's Asian life business goes to Prudential PLC, and hopefully next week American Life Insurance Co (ALICO) goes to MetLife. The interesting thing about these transactions is that both Prudential and MetLife have their own units running similar lines of business. Both Asia (AIA) and ALICO are probably preparing themselves to struggle to become a core line of business inside the new mother-nest, rather than a book of customers used purely for revenue purposes. The size of the sales ($35.5B for the Asian business and close to $15B) suggests that there is value in maintaining some semblance of individuality in the companies for now at least. But how long will it take before the new owner starts looking for efficiency gains from integrating the business units? At that point, having effective internal proceses and shared services already in place will achieve two things for the acquired company: the potential that its process and technology best-practices will appear better than the existing infrastructure; simpler integration with the parent could make it less painful for everybody.

Don't Force Cultural Check-out When Building Shared Services

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:45:00 EST

The introduction of a new shared services capability, to in-source your business processes, IT systems and best practices can be incredibly appealing. There are some major challenges to be addressed as well, and not all of them are obvious. Shared services is a delivery model for business processes and information systems that has proven itself to be a great fit for insurance companies and many other organizations that have multiple lines of business and distributed offices. A shared services model can allow a company to better reuse information systems and expertise than when every group tries to fend for itself. And it provides a better feeling of control than completely outsourcing the operations to a third-party (I talked about outsourcing of claims operations in a Claims Magazine article in 2008, when gainfully employed elsewhere, but the arguments still stand independent of any company bias I might have accidentally shown).

Podcast: Insurance 101 and the new way of licensing and contracting

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:11:00 EST

In this audio podcast Brian Morton explains me how people become insurance agents, explains today's and the futuristic workflows between insurance producers, GA's and carriers.

SureLC: Licensing and Contracting Demo

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 08:52:00 EST

This is a screencast showing the SureLC application that automates the Licensing & Contracting process for BGAs, producers, and carriers. In less than 8 minutes, you'll see how a BGA can get a newly recruited producer set-up and ready to submit contracting applications to multiple carriers.

Bypass Brokers to Perform Life Insurance Settlement In-House

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 23:45:00 EST

The Life Insurance Settlement Industry - New Technology for Licensed Agents to Go Direct!

Financial advisors and life insurance agents are becoming more familiar with life insurance settlements, and settlement brokers are working relentlessly in soliciting these advisors through various forms of marketing. They often pitch the concept of a hand’s free and cost free appraisal for your settlement business. Although this sounds convenient, nothing is for free, so what does it really cost?

Insurance Companies Must Enter the 21st Century

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:08:00 EDT

The number one determinate of an insurance agent selling insurance for an insurance company is the ease at which agent do business with them. It doesn’t matter about their product selection, it doesn’t matter about their prices, it doesn’t matter about anything else than making sure their agents have a good experience selling that particular company’s products to their clients. After all, who is going to answer to the client? The insurance company? The agency? Or, the insurance agent? Nine out of ten times, it is the insurance agent.

How Many Services Do Insurance Agents Really Need?

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:52:00 EDT

Most people outside the insurance industry have little to no idea how much work insurance agents go through to run their business. I refer to insurance agents running a business because nearly all insurance agents are independent contractors. They are responsible for sales, marketing, customer service, administrative tasks, accounting, taking out the trash, and everything in between. This article reviews common workflows and software insurance agents currently use.

Straight Through Processing For New Business

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:11:00 EDT

The days of insurers dictating to agents how they will conduct business are over. Insurers must meet the demands of agents if they want to grow their business. Straight-through processing of new business insurance applications is becoming more attractive for insurance companies and insurance agents as a means to transact business.

Simplifying Back Office Processes for Insurance Agents

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:49:00 EDT

Most insurance agents work with multiple insurance companies, the problem with keeping up with each client’s application status is compounded. Doing so requires the insurance agent to invest considerable time navigating to each insurance company’s website portal, logging in, and navigating to pending case status updates. Unfortunately, getting the status updates can be a time- consuming effort. SuranceBay will change it.

The Streamlined Insurance Workflow: SuranceBay.com

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:03:00 EDT

Typically, the life, health, and annuity sales cycle involves at least four separate entities. First, the prospect client, then the insurance producer, followed by the General Agency (GA) that the producer works through, and finally, the insurance company. More often then not, experienced producers work with several different GA’s and multiple insurance companies. Why is it necessary for insurance producers to work with multiple GA’s and multiple insurance companies?Can this process be streamlined?

FREE Driving School Insurance

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:00:42 EDT

Waveney Group Schemes has announced that it has partnered with the KIA Motor company to provide the FREE insurance to customers who buy a KIA.