Business Process Improvement, Outsourcing, Regulatory Compliance
Benefits of Outsourcing Print and Mail for the Insurance Industry
on October 22, 2018
How Can Outsourcing Benefit the Insurance Industry?
Managing the myriad of policyholder documents involved in the insurance industry is no easy task. Many growing insurance companies are still printing their policyholder information in-house. While this method may seem more cost-efficient, in-house document processing creates problems for businesses. Keeping up with constantly changing and increasingly more strict compliance laws and regulatory requirements can be difficult.
The solution? Business process outsourcing (BPO). BPO services are an alternative print solution for the insurance industry. BPO printing utilizes outsourced business resources to handle document processing, printing, mail production and delivery of all of your policyholder communications. This includes data processing, printing, mailing, electronic document management, and job tracking. Companies that choose to outsource their printing and mailing gain the peace of mind that the production and delivery of their policy notices are always compliant with regulations. Process outsourcing can also offer improvements in overall efficiencies of day-to-day business activities and reduced operational costs.
What is Business Process Outsourcing?
Before we look into specifics, we must first start with a basic question. What is business process outsourcing? Business process outsourcing, also known as BPO, is when a company hires a third-party provider to handle a variety of its day-to-day operations.
BPO started in the manufacturing industry, but in recent years, it has spread to many other industries, especially insurance. The insurance industry continues to grow. Consequently, insurers are continuously looking for growth opportunities and ways to improve operational efficiency. BPO services for insurance companies have evolved from being considered a risky business strategy to a widely accepted option. It has been adopted by a growing number of insurance providers ranging from auto and home to health insurance.
The insurance industry has shown steady growth for the first time in years. Estimates put it at a three to four percent increase projected by the end of 2019.* Many insurance companies are looking to capitalize on this upward financial trend. The goal of BPO outsourcing is to make sure that business operations run as efficiently and effectively as possible. With the many benefits of the optimized processes, postage discounts, and others, this has led to an increase in BPO for the insurance industry.
Types of BPO Services
- Accounting
- IT Services
- Print-Mail Services
- Customer Service
- Payroll and Payment Processing
- Product Research and Quality Assurance
Benefits of Business Process Outsourcing for Insurers
Let’s take a deeper look at a specific outsourcing service, BPO printing. We’ll investigate how the advantages of outsourcing can impact the growing insurance industry.
- Flexibility & Scalability: BPO companies give insurance agencies great flexibility to adjust to competition and changes in regulatory compliance. This makes it easier to conform to changing market conditions.
- Reallocation of Resources: Your employees can focus more on the core competencies of your business.
- Manage Compliance, Regulations, and Reporting: Secure printing companies have cutting-edge security, technology, and reporting tools to stay on top of compliance management.
- Access to New Technology and Resources: Interact with customers in new ways, on multiple channels, and be more efficient and secure than ever before.
- Cost Savings: With higher operational efficiency, comes lower costs. A BPO service provider not only saves your company operating costs but can also offer tax savings.
- Disaster Recovery and Data Backup: BPO offers data backup, and DR plans that keep your customers’ data safe and secure, even during a power outage or other data breach.
How to Improve Customer Retention in the Insurance Industry
Customer retention should be considered a part of your sales strategy. Customer acquisition costs have risen significantly over the last few years. It’s so much easier now for customers to shop around and compare prices. This has made customer retention and offering a superior customer experience more important than ever. Working with a print and mail outsourcing partner gives yous access to their experience using strategies that have proven to work. Here are 5 tips to help retain customers in the insurance industry.
- Annual Coverage Reviews
- Transparent Pricing
- Digital Offerings
- Meeting Customer Expectations
- Well Designed Documents
Flexible BPO Printing and Mailing Services
BPO services work for your company, meaning that these services can be customized to fit your specific business needs. A process management provider can help you deal with peaks in business and overall activity. A BPO printing company, like FSSI, can easily keep up with production volumes, and help you meet evolving and changing requirements and goals. Being able to scale quickly is very useful for growing insurance companies.
Reallocation of resources allows teams to focus on building the business
Businesses can’t grow without the combined effort of their employees. As insurance demands grow, you want your staff free to drive business efforts, without having to spend resources on clerical tasks. The time saved by outsourcing insurance document production is invaluable. With the burden of managing and processing documents in the hands of a third-party provider, your employees can focus on important business initiatives.
Manage compliance and regulations with cutting-edge reporting tools
As insurance laws and regulations change, your business will need to continually update its internal, and customer-facing documents and business forms. This will also affect your overall processes. An effective BPO printing provider should have tools that make adjusting your content easy. We believe you should be able to check on the production and delivery status of any insurance document in real-time. With FSSI, you can – our online workflow dashboard keeps you informed about the production of each document.
Access to new technology like digital documents and omnichannel communications
According to Western Union, 66% of customers prefer to receive their bills as electronic statements. With 72% of all consumers accessing electronic documents on their smartphones, customers now expect this functionality. Partnering with a third-party business process manager helps to streamline billing procedures. Presenting customers with electronic bill presentment and payment options increases the speed at which customers access data and remit payments. Many print management providers can integrate their payment portal with your company’s online service platform. This provides an important touchpoint with customers and helps to keep them engaged with your business.
Experience a reduction in overall business costs and communicate more effectively with customers
According to ComputerWorld, large-scale companies, like Ford Motors, spend an estimated $40 to $50 million on in-house printing. Certainly, your insurance company’s spending may not be as high. However, it is impossible to ignore the high costs associated with in-house document processing and printing. Outsourcing your print-mail and customer communication processes significantly cuts business expenses. In addition to helping you more effectively communicate with your customers. In fact, businesses can experience as much as a 30% decrease in printing costs by making the switch to a third-party managed print provider.
Built-In Disaster Recovery and Redundancy Backup
If your business experiences data loss, an insurance outsourcing company can offer backup services of your company’s data and customer information. By outsourcing insurance documents, your business can stay up and running no matter what. Even in the event of a power outage or server failure. In fact, your print management provider should have a formalized disaster recovery (DR) plan in place, which is regularly reviewed and updated.
Conclusion
While “outsourcing” is commonplace in the business world, it’s hard to ignore the benefits of outsourcing for the insurance industry. Simply put, outsourcing your insurance documents increases company efficiency, streamlines operations and decreases the cost to your business.
If you would like to learn more about how FSSI can assist with insurance BPO services, call 714.436.3300 or reach out today to learn more.
Sources:
*Ernest & Young’s Global Insurance Trend’s Analysis 2018