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3 Insurance Agency Automation Tools to Give Your Agency a Competitive Edge

Heather Mueller
November 27, 2019
|
Min Read

We get it. Really, we do: As an insurance agent, you face all kinds of complications, from collecting sensitive customer information to negotiating policies. The stakes are high, but budgets only get you so far. And the industry changes constantly.

There’s certainly a lot to juggle.

That's why Formstack is so focused on fine-tuning software to give agents everything they need to be more productive and profitable.

So, what does this mean for you?

Let's take a quick look at three common roadblocks to insurance productivity—and how you can overcome them with the right set of tools.

Capturing and converting the right data

Most insurance agencies are drowning in data, yet extracting the exact information you need can be surprisingly overwhelming.

The reason is simple: Even though the world is generating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day, only 0.5% of it is ever analyzed. As a result, many businesses are shrouded in a cloud of customer information with few insights they can actually act on. It’s a problem that plagues companies across industries, and insurance is no exception.

Yet according to PwC, data analytics is the key to insurance productivity. Gaining access to the right insights not only helps with insurance agency automation, but can also go a long way in quantifying the pain points that cause customers to leave. Insurance companies that have learned to maximize their data have lower acquisition costs and higher levels of customer satisfaction.

The faster and more efficiently you can capture customer data and transform it into actions, the better positioned you’ll be to increase employee productivity and overall profitability. Using a robust online form builder is the first step toward collecting the exact information you need—and then turning it into the right processes.

With a solution like Formstack, you can collect insurance data online and give customers a way to fill out quotes, policies, claims, and more on the digital device of their choosing. Your team can then take that information and use it to generate important documents, whether that means standardizing proposals or minimizing the time it takes to get sign-offs.

Keeping security breaches at bay

One of the biggest challenges faced by insurance agencies? Cybersecurity. Insurance companies have been the source for some of the largest data breaches to date. And unfortunately, many still rely on legacy systems that may or may not be equipped with the latest technologies.

As those systems are updated with features and functions designed to help prevent against threats, there are often unintended consequences for productivity. Even the most well-intentioned security measures can stop important workflows in their tracks and cause productivity to plummet—particularly if it means limiting access to the data and documentation agents need.

By relying on a third-party platform designed to help companies meet even the strictest insurance standards and regulations, you can free agents to focus on getting things done—without having to work around tricky security procedures and policies.

For health insurance companies, that means using a specialized form builder that makes it easy to collect electronic signatures and create digital documents in ways that won’t increase your risk of HIPAA noncompliance fees and fines.

Of course, security risks aren’t a threat to healthcare agencies alone. Insurance companies across all verticals, from home and auto to life and liability, can benefit from Formstack’s advanced data encryption, audit trails, and other ongoing security features designed to help companies maximize efficiency while decreasing risk.

Read Next: How to Use HIPAA Compliant Forms to Tighten Security

Streamlining important processes

It's not just what employees do that influences business outcomes, but how they get that work done. Which is why companies with the highest levels of success tend to have highly efficient workflows in place.

This is where insurance agency automation comes in. The easier it is for brokers and agents to communicate and collaborate, the better positioned you’ll be to onboard new customers and address important issues.

But within the realm of insurance, new business process flows can be particularly tricky.

Thankfully, the solution is relatively easy. Here at Formstack, we’ve been hard at work creating a series of automation features designed to improve common insurance processes. As mentioned above, you can:

Best of all, our online form builder can be used to streamline the workflows associated with these and other mission-critical processes. Simply pair your insurance forms with Formstack’s Workflows, and you can have new form submissions automatically routed to the right team members to review, edit, and approve as needed. It’s one of the fastest, easiest ways to minimize the time it takes to manage proposals, policies, and claims.

Ready to give your insurance agency a bigger competitive edge? Discover how Formstack’s advanced features for agents and brokers can help you retain more business and create the experiences your customers crave.

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Heather Mueller
Heather is a website copywriter and digital content strategist who loves helping brands generate leads through the power of the written word—especially when using Formstack. Connect with Heather on Twitter @heathermueller.
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