This publish is a part of a collection sponsored by AgentSync.
While you implement a brand new tech resolution, you assume you personal, and might simply entry, your information from inside mentioned system. This isn’t essentially the case. Learn the nice print and it’s possible you’ll study your information isn’t accessible, and even yours in any respect!
Certain, you most likely legally personal your information. You probably have it in writing, that if you happen to stroll away from no matter software program providers you contract with, you may export a large CSV file or what have you ever. However do you personal your information? Can you utilize it to higher perceive your corporation, your prospects, your producers, your course of? As a result of that’s actually proudly owning your information.
Insurance coverage runs on information
ROI, NPS, CBA… Flip instances, lagging indicators, main indicators… Knowledge drives selections – nowhere is that this extra concrete than in insurance coverage, the place the basic thought of the enterprise is grounded in actuarial tables.
But, in the case of inside processes, information is commonly unstructured, and thus, captured in a black field of operations. Typically it’s info that lives in manually maintained techniques resembling spreadsheets, consumer relationship administration (CRM) software program, faxes, and precise paperwork. Different instances, it’s info your group has migrated to digital software program, resembling contracting or insurance coverage producer compliance techniques.
Good corporations use information to grasp their prospects, producers, and workers. This is applicable simply as completely to inside processes because it does to claims-paying and customer support. Unlocking your information means higher understanding solutions to questions like:
- The place are the bottlenecks in your course of?
- Are you adequately staffed in your operations, or are there overstaffing/understaffing problems?
- Is there a dropoff level at which your corporation is most inclined to lose producers or prospects?
For those who’re wanting to make use of data-driven choice making, accessing your information isn’t simply vital, it’s crucial.
Sadly, in the case of inside operations, too many organizations are counting on intestine intuition and an in-the-trenches mentality to drive their selections. And lots of organizations don’t even understand how or the place to get the data they should make good selections.
Missing this type of visibility is about extra than simply avoiding silos (though that’s objectively superior). It’s additionally about information privateness, proudly owning your corporation insights, and avoiding regulatory missteps by defending private info.
So, who owns your information? The solutions to those questions may reveal much more about your entry to your individual info.
The place does your information reside?
This may occasionally seem to be a quite simple or very complicated query relying on whether or not you utilize a collection of guide entry processes or have a single supply of fact.
For service contract information this will reside in a mixture of:
- A contract administration app like Docusign
- Your authorized group’s emails
- Your operations group’s spreadsheets and
- Your carrier- and agency-partners’ techniques
For compliance information,your info would possibly reside in a state database, your consumer administration system, your emails, a pile of papers by a fax machine, or (for the love of Mike we hope this isn’t taking place however you understand it’s) sticky notes on somebody’s desktop.
For those who’ve been doing issues manually, discovering the place your information lives at any given second is an arduous job. When you have a database, resembling a compliance administration resolution or a contracting software program, the information ought to be higher organized.
The place and the way your information is organized is crucial in the case of realizing who owns your information. If it could take your group a matter of hours and even days of labor accumulating and analyzing your producer information to grasp onboarding bottlenecks or contracting stuttersteps, you then don’t personal your information, your information owns you (even if in case you have authorized possession of it).
Does your group preserve the information?
This query could also be presumptuous – it appears evident that any information assortment would require a point of upkeep to maintain the data present. Nevertheless, whether or not you personal your information could depend upon the place that upkeep comes from.
If it’s important to manually exit and search information updates from producers, state governments, or different entities, it’s possible you’ll not personal your information.
When you have a 3rd celebration deal with all your information upkeep, whether or not you “personal” your information or not depends upon how accessible it’s after that time. If it’s important to soar by hoops to get stories or alerts about vital info, then arguably your possession is nominal. Like the way you “personal” the stationary bike at your sister’s home.
When you have a supply of fact that routinely updates your info no matter whether or not the replace comes from producers, carriers, or state governments (like a compliance software program that integrates with the Nationwide Insurance coverage Producer Registry, as a purely hypothetical instance), then it’s possible you’ll be getting very near proudly owning your information. On this case, though your group isn’t having to do a bunch of labor to maintain info up-to-date, you will have probably the most present obtainable information at your fingertips! That’s, in the end, the best when it comes to information possession and accessibility.
What does it value to entry your information?
Accessibility arguably is possession.
That is actually the stickiest of sticking factors when it comes to who owns your information. When you have a software program that organizes your information and collects it in easily-compared standardized information fields however then that service supplier then gatekeeps that information – information you entered and preserve and pay the SaaS to prepare – then who owns it, actually?
Usually, software program corporations promise to prepare information and provide you with extra insights to make knowledgeable selections. But, it pays to ask questions on the way you’ll be capable of entry mentioned insights.
Do you utilize software program that offers you a set of standardized stories out of the field, however then nickel-and-dimes you for extra nuanced info down the highway? Even that could be tolerable relying on how clear your SaaS companion is about prices, and the extent of knowledge they’ll parse in a single go. Nevertheless, if in case you have a software program supplier that provides every report for a payment, you may not “personal” your information.
How arduous is it to get a customized report?
Just like the earlier query, even carriers, companies, and MGAs that use a 3rd celebration software program as a service could have completely different experiences and expectations relying on their vendor.
Some software program distributors have a grab-bag of generic stories customers can simply generate on the contact of a button, whereas they gatekeep stories that require extra qualification factors or nuance. Others cost you per report no matter how detailed, particular, or customized the report must be.
Who makes use of your information, and the way?
Fb is mining your information for advertisers and engagement. Google makes use of your information to enhance merchandise and affect your choice making on every thing from eating places to vogue selections. We’ve all guessed on the downsides of these limitless information factors. So it stands to motive, if you happen to can’t entry your individual group’s information to research it, then who can? And the way do they intend to make use of it?
If it’s important to pay by the nostril to grasp primary habits about your producers, or generic timelines to finish inside processes, but your compliance SaaS supplier has industry-wide information insights to offer, it poses the query: Who actually owns your information?
Course of information: After getting it, what are you able to do with it?
In case your solutions to the previous questions gave you confidence that you simply personal your information, then you must ask your self whether or not you’re placing it to make use of successfully. For producer compliance information, we’ve seen efficient use circumstances for carriers, MGAs, and companies to make use of information to reveal:
- Paths of least resistance for distribution progress into each vertical and horizontal companies by analyzing producer LOAs
- Which onboarding processes are contributing to producer churn and might be focused for enchancment
- Backlogs and methods to deal with them by way of course of or group modifications
- Compliance gaps
- Areas to extend effectivity for fee-based providers (assume unused licenses or appointments for unproductive producers)
Backside line, if it’s your information, it ought to be just right for you. And if you happen to’re an AgentSync buyer, it does.
At AgentSync, we have now primary reporting in-built, together with a Scorecard that exhibits at-a-glance compliance of your entire insurance coverage producer power, out of the field with our Handle product. And extra reporting doesn’t value a factor. Not solely do you personal your information in a literal sense, with AgentSync you OWN your information: You get to resolve the way you slice and cube it for the most effective insights to make data-driven enterprise selections.To see how AgentSync’s product suite may also help you higher handle your inside processes and provide you with perception into your individual information, take a look at our options.
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