Addressing a major pain point in agency/carrier relations
By Insurance24
HARARE, One of the primary pain points in daily operations for agencies and carriers is password management. In the past, an independent agent writing business with 15 different carrier partners had to obtain and manage 15 different usernames or passwords in order to connect with those carrier sites.
The ID Federation believes the time agencies spend managing credentials for carriers, solution providers and other business partners could be time better invested in sales and service.
To address this pain point in the independent agent distribution channel, the ID Federation has launched a password solution called SignOn Once – a single-password, secure online interface that enables seamless connection between insurance professionals. A host of big insurance names have backed the solution, including The Hartford, Progressive, and insurance software solutions firm, Vertafore.
“SignOn Once removes the need to administer a load of usernames and passwords in order for the independent agent to connect up with a carrier like The Hartford, Nationwide or CNA,” said Doug Mohr. “It’s a huge time saver, which also increases efficiency, security and protection.
“Passwords typically need a reset every 60-days or so. If an agency fails to maintain passwords, the CSR account manager is simply going to bypass the agency management system (AMS) and go straight to a carrier website. That increases the risk of duplicate data entry, errors and omissions, and other issues that could be prevented by connecting easily through a single source solution linked up via an AMS.”
Vertafore and Applied Systems have been two key insurance technology drivers behind the SignOn Once solution. It’s only in the past one or two years that the solution has started to pick up steam, with more carriers coming on board and accepting the token-style agency/carrier connection.
“At Vertafore, we’ve been working closely with our user community, NetVU, to provide exposure to all of our agents that this technology is available to them today through our Vertafore Single Sign-on solution (VSSO),” Mohr told Insurance Business. “If they have a Vertafore AMS, such as AMS 360, they can take advantage of our VSSO and set up a token system very easily.
“When we analyze the incoming support calls to our help desk, a large percentage of calls revolve around people who forgot or need to reset a password, or agents who want to establish a new connection with a carrier. The VSSO takes pain out of the demand chain that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. The feedback we’ve had from agents who have enabled single sign-on technology is extremely positive.” InsuranceBusinessAmerica
WTW: Reinsurance demand being driven by earning volatility fears
By Insurance24
HARARE, Insurers are increasingly buying reinsurance as protection for their earnings, guided by “risk appetite statements” which optimize capital management and profitability targets, a survey by Willis Towers Watson has revealed.
According to the Global Reinsurance and Risk Appetite Survey Report 2017/2018, 80% of insurers consider their risk appetite statements when defining their reinsurance strategies. This is due to pressure from investors, which make insurers less tolerant of missed earnings targets.
As a result, these firms are moving to more sophisticated metrics, such as return on equity and economic capital.
From the 260 insurers from 51 markets surveyed, 98% have adopted a formal risk appetite, or plan to have one within three years. Companies’ enterprise risk management capabilities have improved, but more progress is needed to achieve their risk-culture goals. Meanwhile, many insurers stated that cyber is their largest risk concern, mostly due to difficulties in defining and managing cyber from both the underwriting and operational perspectives.
“Managing the volatility of underwriting results is of prime importance to insurers, and reinsurance strategy measured by risk appetite is key to that,” said James Kent, global CEO of Willis Re. “This is particularly relevant for public companies where perceived volatility can severely impact share price, but also a wider range of insurers are now much more likely to consider a broad range of consolidated earnings metrics when assessing the impact of reinsurance. Our survey shows that the number of non-life insurers using rate of return on equity as their primary earnings metric has doubled in the past two years. This is in line with what we are currently experiencing in the field when realigning reinsurance programs to insurers’ strategies.”
Meanwhile, Alice Underwood, global leader of insurance consulting and technology at Willis Towers Watson, added: “Changes to the global regulatory environment have increased the emphasis on capital measures and targets. Although regulatory capital is still the most relevant capital measure, economic and catastrophe risk capital are gaining momentum. The use of internal capital models increased substantially from a third to more than half of insurers between 2015 and 2017.” InsuranceBusinessAmerica
