Emailing Policies

[Crystal]

I have searched ASCNet forums and here and I am not finding the answers I want, so if I have missed the answers somewhere out there, I apologize for my duplication!

We do commercial lines only. We have already been emailing documents such as invoices, audits, and endorsements, but we are looking to start emailing policies to clients as well. I have a few questions below for anyone who is already doing this. We are on Vision, but hopefully most of these questions can be answered in such a way that they can apply to any of the systems. Thanks in advance!

1. Do you regularly email policies to clients? Do you find more clients prefer this method as of late versus mailing paper copies?
2. Do you receive most of your policies by email from the carrier or do you still receive paper copies from the carriers?
3. How do you 'sign' the policies? (We use customized stamps in Adobe with the Producers signatures. But some carriers 'protect' their PDF documents, such as Travelers, which will present a problem for electronically signing them.) ---> Conversations about whether or not Agent Signatures required on policies has been split to another separate topic
4. If you receive a paper copy of the policy, do you prefer the Account Assistant to scan that copy & send to the client, or do you prefer they go to the carrier's website to download a clean version to send?
5. Do you have many clients that are unable to receive the policies by email because the files are too big? Do you use a third party to host the documents so that the client can download the policy from a link?
6. Do you have your client sign a form acknowledging that they would prefer to receive documents electronically?
7. Do you attach the email as well as the individual policy file in Vision/TAM/Epic, or just the policy (updating the activity that you emailed it)?
8. What does your overall workflow look like for processing a policy electronically?

Any other information you want to throw in there is very much welcomed!

[Mark]

I just asked our commercial department.  We have no official policy on this, but I was told that we do "sometimes."  The example given to me was a one-off policy that has a different renewal date than their package or rest of their policies.  That policy is received by us via email and will get forwarded on to the client, also asking them if they would like a hard copy.

We will probably create a procedure/policy on this now that I am aware.

[Bob]

1.  Yes more and more as the older crowd retires.  Old school wants it on paper.  Average person today prefers digital copies.  Convenient for them as it is us.

2.  More and more come by email in PDF.  Less and less paper being delivered.   So we have option to print and mail or email policy.

3.   Not sure on this one but will ask.

4.   Often if receiving on paper they don't offer PDF.  If they did I would download it vs. scanning a book.

5.   With broadband reaching new levels inboxs are too.  Becoming less and less an issue.  On those occasions burn to CD and mail (cheaper) again less and less these days as storage space becomes cheap and broadband ever faster.   If they prefer paper, then we will send paper.  Most like PDF files.  Search their policy with the tools built in to PDF reader.  Makes it easy to locate and look things up selling point to clients.

6.  No form.  They are contacted and asked.  The call is documented as all calls are.   Accounts are marked as to preference, most all digital.  Rarely they refuse unless 60+.

7.  We attach email and policy attached.

8.  Like Mark I would have to ask as I don't service.

Nice to see you on AU again Crystal. 

[Conan_Ward]

Answering more as a customer of insurance/applied tech than as an agent/broker for what my broker does based on observations.

1) For stuff from the broker, digital is fine, the company sends me a copy of the dec page in the mail anyway. I shove that away and have digital for all else.
2) More carriers are moving towards digital here, though when it comes to what the customer gets, a lot are still sending paper to the customer, digital to the broker. Even before we had a dec page download, companies were setting up ftp's with pdfs and the like to try and push for that.
3) My broker prints, signs, scans, sends. They are a TAMOnline broker though, so they're a bit more limited in what software is available for signing directly on the pdf.
4) In the past, i've seen the original paper copy scanned and sent to me rather than a clean copy. I'll say as a customer i'd prefer the clean copy.
5) unsure, not an issue in my case, but i'm looking at personal lines only. In working with some customers as a tech, i've seen pdfs large enough that they've caused issues with sending and they've re-printed it to pdf for certain pages and then sent multiple emails as a workaround.
6) My broker does not
7) I find that my broker is hit and miss on attachments/activities. I have been in the office and know they do keep a fair bit of filing around so I imagine it's kept somewhere. It kinda bugs me to know they aren't using the system for it, but i only really know because I work both sides. I've never had an issue relating to missing information.
don't really have an answer for this one.

[Ray Alvarez]

1.  Over 30% of our clients have opted for email.  We actually use UserField 3 to track this and all of our appropriate TAM formletters look for this field to remind the AE to email the item.
2.  Both.  If we receive a paper copy and the policy is to be emailed to the client, we don't scan it, but instead go on the website and do a "Save As".  This allows the insured to do a "Find" to search for key words in the policy.
3.  We don't sign policies.
4.  See #2 above.
5.  We only have 3 or 4 clients that have policies that are so large (over 300 pages), that they can't receive it all in one email.  When that happens, our initial letter states that they will receive their policy in two emails.
6.  They don't have to SIGN a form, but they have to put their request in writing.
7.  We attach BOTH.
8.  Everything is the same until to point where we create the formletter in TAM.  We still select the appropriate formletter and answer the ASK questions, but instead of saving that letter, we copy the body into our email body and then don't save the TAM letter.  We then attach the policy in the email, get the receipient from our Contacts (Using Primary Contact as the recipient), send the email and then attach that email in TAM using the RENL activity or NPOL activity (Renewal or New Business).  When saving the attachment, we create the activity and our description is "eff-exp - Emailed to Insured".

[brinkerdana]

Similar to above, including copying body of cover letter.  Until recently, we were setting up "signatures" in Outlook as cover letters for policies. 

[Crystal]

Thanks for the feedback! Keep it coming! I'm taking all your responses to my boss!

[Mark]

Maybe we can split this thread?  Though definitely related, I can see this interesting topic of signature law burying the original question.

Thanks!

[Marie (Zionkowski) Gozikowski]

Good idea, Mark....

I split the thread.... signature discussion is under "Agent Signatures required on policies?"
thread.

Thanks for pointing it out!

[Bob]

+1 for Split!