Outdated payment systems have long caused challenges among insurance agencies. These systems make it difficult for clients to pay their premiums and provide little visibility on payment data. Worse, outdated solutions pose security risks that may affect the agency’s trustworthiness.
Fortunately, technology is changing every aspect of the insurance industry, including billing and payment solutions. With all the billing and payment solutions now available, insurance agencies can benefit from faster payment processing and minimize the risk of late payments. Plus, with all the features of online payment solutions, like invoicing and billing, insurance agencies’ accounting processes can be streamlined and digitized.
Streamlining Insurance Payments
Making timely payments no longer needs to be a difficult experience for your clients. With technological advances hitting the mainstream, there are countless ways to make your insurance-paying process more streamlined and effective. Keep reading to learn more.
Current Digital Solutions
There are many current solutions for streamlining online payments. These include bank transfers, QR codes and UPI, Google Pay and Digital Wallets, and BNPL. Some well-known solutions for processing payments include FreshBooks, Scoro, Wave, Invoice2go, Intuit QuickBooks, EZLynx, ZarMoney, Invoicely, and Podium.
Highly advanced payment solutions can also process payments in cryptocurrency, which is useful for insurance agencies and other businesses with clients interested in such payment methods.
Benefits of Going Digital
There are many benefits of taking your payments online. Consider some of the following as just the start of the advantages your company will see when you start accepting online payments from your clients.
1. Transaction Speed
Your transactions will be much faster when you take them online. Accepting payments quicker makes things easier for your clients and gives your company a positive reputation. You’ll also enjoy the benefit of having more satisfied customers.
2. Global Reach
When you take payments online, you cannot be limited by geographical restrictions. Instead, you can accept a payment from anywhere across the globe. This can help you grow your business.
3. Convenient
Making payments online is faster and more convenient than making them in person or through the mail. By accepting online payments, you can make maintaining an insurance policy easier for your clients.
4. Cost-Effective
Online bill pay features will save your insurance company money, as the process becomes less prone to manual errors. Your customers can save money as well.
5. Easy and Quick Setup
It doesn’t take long to set up your insurance agency to accept online payments, and you only have to do the process once. It’s all a matter of choosing the right payment solution for your agency.
6. Diverse Options
You will have plenty of choices when you set up an online payment processor for our agency. You can break payments up by time, by dollar amount, or for a specific date.
7. Distribution Channels
Digital payments are accepted across a variety of channels, making it easier for your company to accept payments in many ways.
8. Smooth Customer Experience
When working with digital channels, you allow your customers to have a smoother experience when interacting with your company. There is less room for human error.
9. Ease of Management
When everything is digital it is easier to keep track of payments made, missed payments, as well as other payment information.
10. Automated Payments
Taking your payments into the digital age means you can collect payments automatically.
Examples of Digital Insurance Payment Platforms
There are many examples of digital insurance payment processing platforms to consider such as Marqeta, One, Stripe, Mastercard Send, Real-Time Payment (RTP), Visa Direct, and others. Any of these choices can help you get your payments under better management. Keep reading for a closer look at some of the more popular payment processing choices.
Simplifying Insurance Transactions
Simplifying insurance transactions is the quickest way to improve customer satisfaction. The customer experience gets lost when the transaction is messy and clogged up with paperwork. Digital transactions improve the customer experience for many reasons.
Importance of a User-Friendly Interface
To keep your customers happy, you need to make the process simple. Make sure your interface is easy to understand and simple to use. This will keep your customers enjoying the digital process and eager to learn more.
Integration with Other Financial Tools
Another key factor in simplifying the process is to make sure your platform can easily integrate with a few financial tools. This makes it easier to meet your clients where they are and accept the payment as they can offer it.
6 Best Insurance Payment Solutions Today
While there are many payment solutions on the market for you to choose from, some are complicated while others don’t offer a full range of features. We have gathered some of the best here and discussed what they provide so you don’t have to do the research. Read further for a better idea of what each solution offers.
1. Podium
Among the suite of tools Podium offers, payment management is one of the most convenient. Through the Podium system, insurance agencies can accept all major payment methods as well as text-based transactions, making it an industry leader. Their safety standards are top-notch, as is their tracking system.
The platform offers the support to turn your phone into a card reader, making it easy to accept payments anywhere. They are well known for supporting small businesses and their needs. With Podium, businesses can get paid faster and save time.
In addition, Podium offers a full suite of AI tools, chatbots, and other items to help you with your insurance business. Features such as a centralized inbox and omnichannel communications also help you keep track of important insurance metrics.
It can even help you get more reviews for your agency. Whatever your insurance business needs to get and stay organized, Podium can point you in the right direction.
2. Guidewire
This platform is designed to help insurance companies to process billing and claims. It is cloud-based and enables streamlined payment processing. They offer three main software products BillingCenter, PolicyCenter, and ClaimCenter. They offer their software as a service based on subscription.
3. InsurePay
InsurePay has a mission to transform how MGAs or Managing General Agents, Carriers, Agents, and policy holders deal with payments. Some key features are their seamless connectivity as well as the ecosystem they use for their streamlined payment processes.
In addition, they offer clear and efficient payment processing for insurance companies. The company has eliminated the bottlenecks that plagued the industry and offers transparent, smooth financial interactions.
4. One Inc
This digital payment platform makes it possible to use a single platform to run payments. It has a payment portal designed specifically for the insurance industry. It also allows customers to engage with your company through their preferred platform. Their ClaimsPay makes processing claims a simple procedure as well.
5. Duck Creek
Duck Creek is known for their SaaS or low-code Software-as-a-Service geared toward P&C or Property & Casualty insurance companies. Their mission is to deliver protection smarter and faster with configurable solutions. Some key components include humanizing the experience with empathy and trust while bringing speed to the process.
Their tools are low-code and able to adapt to changing needs. Their products, which include Duck Creek Clarity and Duck Creek Insights, are designed to address challenges in insurance claims, billing, and policies.
6. Sapiens
This company offers the insurance industry software solutions geared toward modernizing the insurance process. They aim to improve the customer experience through improved efficiency. They cover reinsurance, property & casualty, and life & pensions. They also help to provide digital solutions and design thinking.
Security Measures for Insurance Payment Solutions
Payment platforms for insurance processing should come with robust security features to protect confidential customer information and payment data. They should follow strict encryption protocols, screening programs, multi-factor authentication, and reputational risk management. These protocols need to be carefully followed to protect customer information.
Emerging Trends in The Insurance Industry
The insurance industry has come a long way with technology. The digital age has seen a positive influence on the insurance industry, especially in streamlining the process of how to pay insurance premiums. Some trends you can expect to see in the coming years include the following:
- Speed in payment processing
- Self-Serving Policy Holders
- Embedded Insurance
- AI for decision making
- ESG compliance
- Open Insurance Ecosystems
When processing insurance premium payments, sending invoices, and managing billing, leave it to the experts. Podium offers many ways to manage your payment workflows, so check out the platform for a better idea of the tools they offer.
