This put up is a part of a collection sponsored by AgentSync.
When you implement a brand new tech answer, you assume you personal, and might simply entry, your information from inside stated system. This isn’t essentially the case. Read the fantastic print and you might be taught your information isn’t accessible, and even yours in any respect!
Sure, you in all probability legally personal your information. You doubtless have it in writing, that in case you stroll away from no matter software program companies you contract with, you possibly can export an enormous CSV file or what have you ever. But do you personal your information? Can you employ it to higher perceive your online business, your prospects, your producers, your course of? Because that’s actually proudly owning your information.
Insurance runs on information
ROI, NPS, CBA… Turn occasions, lagging indicators, main indicators… Data drives selections – nowhere is that this extra concrete than in insurance coverage, the place the basic concept of the enterprise is grounded in actuarial tables.
Yet, in relation to inner processes, information is usually unstructured, and thus, captured in a black field of operations. Sometimes it’s data that lives in manually maintained programs resembling spreadsheets, shopper relationship administration (CRM) software program, faxes, and precise paperwork. Other occasions, it’s data your workforce has migrated to digital software program, resembling contracting or insurance coverage producer compliance programs.
Good firms use information to grasp their prospects, producers, and workers. This applies simply as totally to inner processes because it does to claims-paying and customer support. Unlocking your information means higher understanding solutions to questions like:
- Where are the bottlenecks in your course of?
- Are you adequately staffed to your operations, or are there overstaffing/understaffing problems?
- Is there a dropoff level at which your online business is most inclined to lose producers or prospects?
If you’re trying to make use of data-driven resolution making, accessing your information isn’t simply necessary, it’s crucial.
Unfortunately, in relation to inner operations, too many organizations are counting on intestine intuition and an in-the-trenches mentality to drive their selections. And many organizations don’t even know the way or the place to get the knowledge they should make good decisions.
Lacking this sort of visibility is about extra than simply avoiding silos (though that’s objectively superior). It’s additionally about information privateness, proudly owning your online business insights, and avoiding regulatory missteps by defending private data.
So, who owns your information? The solutions to those questions may reveal much more about your entry to your personal data.
Where does your information dwell?
This could appear to be a quite simple or very advanced query relying on whether or not you employ a collection of handbook entry processes or have a single supply of reality.
For service contract information this may occasionally dwell in a mixture of:
- A contract administration app like Docusign
- Your authorized workforce’s emails
- Your operations workforce’s spreadsheets and
- Your carrier- and agency-partners’ programs
For compliance information,your data would possibly dwell in a state database, your shopper administration system, your emails, a pile of papers by a fax machine, or (for the love of Mike we hope this isn’t occurring however you already know it’s) sticky notes on somebody’s desktop.
If you’ve been doing issues manually, discovering the place your information lives at any given second is an arduous process. If you’ve got a database, resembling a compliance administration answer or a contracting software program, the information ought to be higher organized.
Where and the way your information is organized is crucial in relation to understanding who owns your information. If it will take your workforce a matter of hours and even days of labor amassing and analyzing your producer information to grasp onboarding bottlenecks or contracting stuttersteps, you then don’t personal your information, your information owns you (even when you’ve got authorized possession of it).
Does your workforce 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 knowledge present. However, whether or not you personal your information could rely on the place that upkeep comes from.
If it’s important to manually exit and search information updates from producers, state governments, or different entities, you might not personal your information.
If you’ve got a 3rd celebration deal with your whole information upkeep, whether or not you “own” your information or not relies on how accessible it’s after that time. If it’s important to leap by way of hoops to get reviews or alerts about necessary data, then arguably your possession is nominal. Like the way you “own” the stationary bike at your sister’s home.
If you’ve got a supply of reality that mechanically updates your data no matter whether or not the replace comes from producers, carriers, or state governments (like a compliance software program that integrates with the National Insurance Producer Registry, as a purely hypothetical instance), then you might be getting very near proudly owning your information. In this case, though your workforce isn’t having to do a bunch of labor to maintain data up-to-date, you’ve got probably the most present accessible information at your fingertips! That’s, in the end, the perfect by way of information possession and accessibility.
What does it value to entry your information?
Accessibility arguably is possession.
This is actually the stickiest of sticking factors by way of who owns your information. If you’ve got 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?
Often, software program firms promise to prepare information and offer you extra insights to make knowledgeable selections. Yet, it pays to ask questions on the way you’ll be capable of entry stated insights.
Do you employ software program that offers you a set of standardized reviews out of the field, however then nickel-and-dimes you for extra nuanced data down the street? Even that could be tolerable relying on how clear your SaaS accomplice is about prices, and the extent of information they’ll parse in a single go. However, when you’ve got a software program supplier that gives every report for a charge, you won’t “own” your information.
How exhausting is it to get a customized report?
Similar to 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 reviews customers can simply generate on the contact of a button, whereas they gatekeep reviews 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?
Facebook is mining your information for advertisers and engagement. Google makes use of your information to enhance merchandise and affect your resolution making on all the pieces from eating places to vogue decisions. We’ve all guessed on the downsides of these limitless information factors. So it stands to cause, in case you can’t entry your personal group’s information to research it, then who can? And how do they intend to make use of it?
If it’s important to pay by way of the nostril to grasp fundamental conduct about your producers, or generic timelines to finish inner processes, but your compliance SaaS supplier has industry-wide information insights to offer, it poses the query: Who actually owns your information?
Process information: Once you’ve got it, what are you able to do with it?
If your solutions to the previous questions gave you confidence that you just personal your information, then you need to 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 development into each vertical and horizontal companies by analyzing producer LOAs
- Which onboarding processes are contributing to producer churn and may be focused for enchancment
- Backlogs and methods to handle them through course of or workforce modifications
- Compliance gaps
- Areas to extend effectivity for fee-based companies (assume unused licenses or appointments for unproductive producers)
Bottom line, if it’s your information, it ought to give you the results you want. And in case you’re an AgentSync buyer, it does.
At AgentSync, now we have fundamental reporting in-built, together with a Scorecard that reveals at-a-glance compliance of your complete insurance coverage producer drive, out of the field with our Manage product. And further 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 determine 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 can assist you higher handle your inner processes and offer you perception into your personal information, try our options.
Topics
Data Driven