Insurance companies deal with a vast amount of data that needs to be managed. However, even with a well-managed workflow, it can be challenging to predict issues that’ll emerge. This is where insurance management software is good for.
Keep up with this post to know how to choose the right software solution for insurance companies and what advantages these systems bring.
The Key Criteria of Insurance Agency Management Software
Insurance management systems include both CRM software and ERP software features. These tools boost effective business management. Their primary goal is to help managers to improve client relationships. Moreover, insurance solutions keep an eye on commission processing and automate various working processes.
Within the insurance organization, the insurance management software is the main tool of the sales department. It enables employees to keep accurate data about current and potential customers they provide services to. Simply put, it helps various-sized businesses monitor and sustain good relationships with clients, enhance marketing and sales operations, and track the company’s sales performance.
The core features of insurance software are:
- Storage of information about the company and its clients;
- Tracking of main business processes (sales, transactions, etc.);
- Analysis insurance commissions;
- Making sales performance reports and examining the account status;
- Third-party tools integration;
- Automation of the running process and control workflows.
Insurance company software solutions can be used over the entire company or applied to one specific case. And it’s either a single solution or a comprehensive solution directing the whole insurance agency’s lifecycle.
Four basic adoption criteria need to be considered before choosing insurance management suites.
1. Adjustment
Business goals and working environment are pretty changeable. So, it’s vital for companies to adjust to changing market dynamics and replace inefficient systems, processes, and software.
2. Sophisticated Business Rules
A good insurance management system aims at turning business goals and policies into regulated business rules. It reinforces users’ capabilities by transforming the strategic thinking of the business into automated processes.
3. Payback Guarantees
Today, both custom or ready-to-use software require significant investments. That’s why insurance companies want to have reliable, working software that will guarantee ROI quickly.
4. Proven Result
Indeed, it’s vital to look for insurance software agencies would benefit from. However, if managers want to create a product from scratch, they need to look for software developers with deep expertise in the insurance field.
Ins & Outs of Insurance Agency Management Software
Insurance management systems have a number of visible benefits. Let’s consider each of them in detail.
- Deep analysis. This type of software allows users to search and classify information and make reports based on collected data.
- Workflow automation. These systems make it easier for managers to generate and deliver reports, emails, and notifications. Moreover, insurance software enables users to make critical documents automatically by structuring data and using blueprints.
- Full control. The system eliminates human errors by tracking all the processes within the company. It’s mainly responsible for monitoring money transactions, processing clients’ requests, and calculations.
- Integration capabilities. Insurance software interacts with different systems and analytical tools. Moreover, it connects to 3rd-party services (e.g., telephony)
- Security. The software ensures data protection of clients’ sensitive information. The managers need to log into the system before getting access to these reports.
Even though the insurance solutions have significant advantages, they’re not easy to develop and adopt. Therefore, entrepreneurs may encounter the following issues:
- Tech errors. Since the insurance software processes a vast amount of information, there’s a possibility of technical issues (bugs, errors, and breaks) that may emerge during the implementation or utilization. All these problems need to be fixed and updated, which requires some investments into software maintenance.
- Staff training. There is no sense in sophisticated insurance software if the staff members don’t know how to utilize it. So it’s essential to obtain employees’ feedback and consider the training part.
- Unsuitability. For instance, if the company purchases a cheap solution, it might not have the required features. In contrast, superior ready-made programs may have a lot of useless options.
Ready-Made vs. Custom Solutions
After you understand what to pay attention to when selecting the proper software, let’s proceed to an out-of-the-box and custom-built solutions comparison.
Ready-Use Software
There is an extensive choice of ready-made solutions for various-sized companies. For example, Bitrix or A1 Tracker are good options for enterprises and large companies, while EZLynx or Indio will work best for mid-sized and small organizations.
Some of them are open-source, others request license fees (per month/year). Out-of-the-box-solutions have a lot of benefits. They’re easy to install and user-friendly, have many cool in-built features, and adjust to business needs.
Let’s take a look at the top three insurance agency software solutions.
Bitrix24
Bitrix24 is a highly customizable CRM, right for small and medium companies. It’s made to allow customers to automate business processes, manage team members’ knowledge and experience, and improve cooperation and communication within a company.
The system has both a demo and cloud-based version. The on-premise costs start from $1,490 per month up to 12 users. Enterprise insurance companies (more than 1000 users) need to pay $24,990 per month.
For now, only a paid plan provides access to the source code, free upgrades, and prioritized support over 12 months. If there is a need for updates and support after the subscription ends, clients have to subscribe to an annual plan.
Its core features are:
- Contact Management
- Manage commissions
- Manage documents
- Quote Management
FreeAgent CRM
FreeAgent is an insurance management software that helps companies to build and maintain trust relationships with clients. All the documents, records, phone calls are stored in a secure cloud-based space. The platform also has iOS- and Android-based applications.
The platform offers both free and paid versions. The whole business pack is $100/user per month.
Insurance management features:
- Commission Management
- Contact Management
- Document Management
- Policy Management
Indio Technologies
Indio aims to facilitate and accelerate the insurance processes both for managers and clients. The platform provides users with over 6,000 digital insurance forms, an e-signature solution, and a protected document sharing process.
Insurance features:
- Contact Management
- Document Management
As you’ve noticed, top out-of-the-box solutions require considerable investments, especially if we talk about monthly payments per user. If the software is free of charge, the company needs to pay a pretty penny for support, customization, and maintenance.
Moreover, ready-made insurance platforms have some unreasonable features which may be challenging for staff to deal with and thus, slow down the workflow processes.
Here are the most popular issues users of ready-to-use solutions encounter:
- Some features are not clear enough
- Restricted integration with third-party services
- Menu items is difficult to read
- Navigation is complicated
- No customization
- Costly
- Require training
- Weak support system
Custom Solutions
If the business owners want to create an insurance app aligning with their business goals and needs, it’s better to hire dedicated development team to build it from scratch. In this case, they’ll get a unique product adapted to their preferences and wishes. Besides, custom software will allow companies to save money and time on customization and training.
Here are the advantages of custom insurance software development:
- Adoption to the company’s needs. You can add only the required features and, thus, spend less time on staff training. Plus, this leads to better integration with current operating systems.
- Scalability and modification. Software owners can expand their business and add individual features to insurance software.
- Security. Ready-made services are vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks since anyone can purchase such solutions. Instead, custom software can protect users’ personal information more effectively.
- Competitiveness. Custom software will allow entrepreneurs to stand out from the competitors by providing customers with unique features based on their preferences.
Wrapping Up
As you can see, insurance agency software is an indispensable assistant for any-sized agency to accelerate business operations, improve time management, and build long-term relationships with customers.
Author’s bio:
Vitaly Kuprenko is a technical writer at Cleveroad, a web and mobile application development company in Ukraine. He enjoys writing about tech innovations and digital ways to boost businesses.
