Frank Heaps's blog

Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

Carriers are still looking for ways to improve customer service through a variety of channels like web portals and mobile apps. There was great interest during the dawn of the Internet to find ways to extend information securely to customers and allow self service. Banks immediately jumped at the opportunity and insurance carriers lagged behind for a variety of reasons including security, legal constraints, complexity of information, and platform limitations. Carriers today are taking the lead and allowing more and more access to information and the ability to enter information about their policy or claim. Our industry has made good progress to go beyond policy quoting. The goal in the end is to enhance customer experience by serving each customer in the manner in which they want to be served.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

The world of electronic media is expanding rapidly. New methods of communications are being delivered quickly on new devices. Some devices leverage existing technology like email, some provide a complementary communication method like smart phones and tablets, other are breaking new ground. The ironic point of this is that these tools provide more ways to provide personal contact and communications in a traditionally impersonal way--with no human contact.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

Late summer was a rough time for the East Coast of the United States between the earthquake centered in Virginia and Hurricane Irene. Neither event was very severe, and most of the major damage was localized to a few areas. That is good since Irene was a large storm that lost energy, and no one expected the earthquake. Thousands are recovering from the hurricane, but the forecast was for millions to be impacted—at least 1 in 5 Americans. The earthquake was a surprise that was limited in damage.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

The Midwest and South have been hit hard with storms the past few weeks. Rain has fallen on the Mississippi Valley day after day into an area that cannot handle it. Add to that the windstorms, tornadoes, and flooding that is coming and you have a region in peril. Now is the time for carriers to step up and take the lead. This is where our industry can change public perception and show value to their customers; it is time to expedite claims processing to get claims reported quickly.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

Day in and day out aging billing systems still process tens of thousands of transactions throughout our industry. However, these hard-working systems cannot meet the needs of your executive team, nor can they help your company exceed customer expectations.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

The recent news about the AIG agreement to resolve the underreporting of workers’ compensation premiums underlines the need to have proper administration and reporting solutions in place to fulfill state filings. The multi-state investigation looked at AIG’s filings from more than a decade ago (1975 – 2006). The penalty was $100M plus an additional $46.5M in taxes and assessments for misreporting over $2B in workers’ comp premiums in Pennsylvania.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

Remember all of the hype about the Internet back in the 1990’s: insurance carriers were all going to be virtual, agents were a dying breed, no more branches, etc. That was a far reach but we suddenly had a new way to interact with customers to conduct business. Our industry just had to figure out how that would work.

When the Internet first became a reality, it was uncharted territory. Technology was being developed just to be able to use this new communications tool. Browsers were raw, connections were slow, connectivity was unreliable, etc. There were no standards or guidelines for user interaction.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

Are you keeping up with your customers? Technology is changing rapidly; we all know that. We also understand that keeping up is a huge challenge. All this change is reshaping consumer expectations and they will quickly change their expectations of their insurance carriers. Youth generally drives technology change but older consumers are quickly embracing the ability to easily access and update information. All this inter-connectivity has been around for years, but the user interaction has become so simple and so seamless that basically anyone can do it. However, too many carriers are still processing insurance on systems that are 30 years old and cannot easily adapt to the new world.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

Recruiting is a tough proposition for most carriers. The average working age of an insurance professional is 56 and they plan to retire by 66. Within 14 years the approaching talent gap will severely impact our industry. Factor in the time to train people, attrition, and market dynamics, and we are looking at a chasm in our underwriters, adjusters, management, etc.

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Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver

That is a great question. Each year we see a new report from analysts and industry media that laments the aging work force of insurance and insurance IT professionals. When you couple the aging workforce issue with carriers that are downsizing or not replacing staff that leave, this is a real and a serious business problem. We know that the market will turn at some point, and indications are it could happen within the next 12 to 18 months. Will you be ready? How long does it take you to train an underwriter? An adjuster? A CSR?

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