Inflexible Systems Hinder Service


Time-to-market, flexibility of bill plans and poor customer service are the biggest billing challenges facing insurance carries in the United States.


“There are an awful lot of groups that are dedicated to manually dealing with somewhat mundane billing issues because they’re not automated.”


Martina Conlon, Novarica


Batch-oriented legacy technology hinders the ability of many insurers to provide flexible payment plans and to provide the level of customer service that policyholders expect. Legacy systems are very difficult to reconfigure to support flexible billing plans and payment options. They also tend to lack the workflow and rule capability necessary to automate billing exceptions, overpayments and underpayments as well as the ability to allocate payments across policies. The means that many billing issues must be dealt with manually.


These systems make it difficult for insurers to provide a high level of customer service. With batch technology, a customer service representative is often unable to tell customers how policy changes will affect their bill until after the batch updates overnight. That is unsatisfying to customers who expect instant information and updates on their accounts. Premium leakage is another challenge because insurers must cancel and refund balances rather than calculate through what date the balance will extend coverage and cancel as of that date.


Copyright © 2012 by A.M. Best Company, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means; electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise.


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