Kaplan Financial Adds Automated "Just in Time" Appointment Process to CMS G2 Compliance Product |
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Written by U.S. Insurance News
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Sunday, 16 March 2008 |
Indianapolis-based Kaplan Financial Compliance has improved its CMS G2(tm) compliance product by adding a "Just in Time" appointment processing capability. The automated feature can reduce unnecessary state appointment processing fees that carriers pay, thus saving insurance companies a significant amount of money over time.
"Just in Time" enables carriers to complete and hold producer appointment requests electronically. Using this fully automated process, which is based on business rules that are built into the system, users can hold transaction requests for specific states and distribution groups, monitor the aging of the transactions, and release the request for state approval after a sale is made.
As Zach McCoy explained, carriers have struggled for a way to deal with the costs of appointments, since appointment processing fees can cost up to $60 per state for every producer. According to McCoy, the vice president for Compliance Services at Kaplan, carriers report that 80 percent or more of producers for whom appointments are requested fail to make a sale. Thus, carriers are burdened with appointment costs but have no new business to offset those costs.
"Carriers are looking for ways to 'park' appointment requests until a sale is made; however, manual processes are cumbersome, error prone, and lack the ability to actively monitor the process of releasing the request when a sale is made," McCoy explained. "Kaplan Financial Compliance has solved this problem with 'Just in Time.'"
In addition to cost savings, other benefits of CMS G2(tm) "Just in Time" include a reduction in time that staff must spend manually gathering data, filing, tracking, and processing; rules-based compliance validations; and secure transactions and communications.
Kaplan demonstrated "Just in Time" at the 2008 Securities and Insurance Licensing Association (SILA) Spring Regulator/Industry Symposium March 12-14 in Greenville, S.C.
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