This publish is a part of a collection sponsored by AgentSync.
Once you implement a brand new tech answer, you assume you personal, and may simply entry, your knowledge from inside stated system. This isn’t essentially the case. Learn the high-quality print and you might study your knowledge isn’t accessible, and even yours in any respect!
Certain, you most likely legally personal your knowledge. You doubtless have it in writing, that should you stroll away from no matter software program providers you contract with, you may export a large CSV file or what have you ever. However do you personal your knowledge? Can you utilize it to raised perceive your online business, your clients, your producers, your course of? As a result of that’s actually proudly owning your knowledge.
Insurance coverage runs on knowledge
ROI, NPS, CBA… Flip instances, lagging indicators, main indicators… Information drives selections – nowhere is that this extra concrete than in insurance coverage, the place the elemental concept of the enterprise is grounded in actuarial tables.
But, in relation to inner processes, knowledge is commonly unstructured, and thus, captured in a black field of operations. Generally it’s info that lives in manually maintained programs similar to spreadsheets, shopper relationship administration (CRM) software program, faxes, and precise paperwork. Different instances, it’s info your workforce has migrated to digital software program, similar to contracting or insurance coverage producer compliance programs.
Good corporations use knowledge to know their clients, producers, and workers. This is applicable simply as totally to inner processes because it does to claims-paying and customer support. Unlocking your knowledge means higher understanding solutions to questions like:
- The place are the bottlenecks in your course of?
- Are you adequately staffed in 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 clients?
For those who’re wanting to make use of data-driven choice making, accessing your knowledge isn’t simply vital, it’s crucial.
Sadly, in relation to inner operations, too many organizations are counting on intestine intuition and an in-the-trenches mentality to drive their selections. And lots of organizations don’t even know the way or the place to get the data they should make good selections.
Missing this type of visibility is about extra than simply avoiding silos (though that’s objectively superior). It’s additionally about knowledge privateness, proudly owning your online business insights, and avoiding regulatory missteps by defending private info.
So, who owns your knowledge? The solutions to those questions might reveal much more about your entry to your individual info.
The place does your knowledge stay?
This will likely appear to be a quite simple or very advanced query relying on whether or not you utilize a collection of handbook entry processes or have a single supply of reality.
For service contract knowledge this will stay in a mix 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 knowledge,your info may stay 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 taking place however you recognize it’s) sticky notes on somebody’s desktop.
For those who’ve been doing issues manually, discovering the place your knowledge lives at any given second is an arduous process. When you’ve got a database, similar to a compliance administration answer or a contracting software program, the information needs to be higher organized.
The place and the way your knowledge is organized is crucial in relation to realizing who owns your knowledge. If it could take your workforce a matter of hours and even days of labor amassing and analyzing your producer knowledge to know onboarding bottlenecks or contracting stuttersteps, then you definately don’t personal your knowledge, your knowledge owns you (even you probably have authorized possession of it).
Does your workforce keep the information?
This query could also be presumptuous – it appears evident that any knowledge assortment would require a point of upkeep to maintain the data present. Nonetheless, whether or not you personal your knowledge might rely upon the place that upkeep comes from.
If it’s a must to manually exit and search knowledge updates from producers, state governments, or different entities, you might not personal your knowledge.
When you’ve got a 3rd occasion deal with your entire knowledge upkeep, whether or not you “personal” your knowledge or not is determined by how accessible it’s after that time. If it’s a must to soar via hoops to get reviews or alerts about vital info, then arguably your possession is nominal. Like the way you “personal” the stationary bike at your sister’s home.
When you’ve got a supply of reality that routinely updates your info no matter whether or not the replace comes from producers, carriers, or state governments (like a compliance software program that integrates with the Nationwide Insurance coverage Producer Registry, as a purely hypothetical instance), then you might be getting very near proudly owning your knowledge. On this case, despite the fact that your workforce isn’t having to do a bunch of labor to maintain info up-to-date, you’ve essentially the most present obtainable knowledge at your fingertips! That’s, in the end, the perfect when it comes to knowledge possession and accessibility.
What does it price to entry your knowledge?
Accessibility arguably is possession.
That is actually the stickiest of sticking factors when it comes to who owns your knowledge. When you’ve got a software program that organizes your knowledge and collects it in easily-compared standardized knowledge fields however then that service supplier then gatekeeps that knowledge – knowledge you entered and keep and pay the SaaS to arrange – then who owns it, actually?
Usually, software program corporations promise to arrange knowledge and offer you extra insights to make knowledgeable selections. But, it pays to ask questions on the way you’ll be capable of entry stated insights.
Do you utilize software program that provides you a set of standardized reviews out of the field, however then nickel-and-dimes you for extra nuanced info down the street? Even that could be tolerable relying on how clear your SaaS companion is about prices, and the extent of knowledge they’ll parse in a single go. Nonetheless, you probably have a software program supplier that gives every report for a charge, you won’t “personal” your knowledge.
How onerous is it to get a customized report?
Much like the earlier query, even carriers, businesses, and MGAs that use a 3rd occasion software program as a service might 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 knowledge, and the way?
Fb is mining your knowledge for advertisers and engagement. Google makes use of your knowledge to enhance merchandise and affect your choice making on all the things from eating places to style selections. We’ve all guessed on the downsides of these limitless knowledge factors. So it stands to purpose, should you can’t entry your individual group’s knowledge to investigate it, then who can? And the way do they intend to make use of it?
If it’s a must to pay via the nostril to know primary conduct about your producers, or generic timelines to finish inner processes, but your compliance SaaS supplier has industry-wide knowledge insights to supply, it poses the query: Who actually owns your knowledge?
Course of knowledge: After you have it, what are you able to do with it?
In case your solutions to the previous questions gave you confidence that you simply personal your knowledge, then you must ask your self whether or not you’re placing it to make use of successfully. For producer compliance knowledge, we’ve seen efficient use circumstances for carriers, MGAs, and businesses to make use of knowledge to reveal:
- Paths of least resistance for distribution progress into each vertical and horizontal companies by analyzing producer LOAs
- Which onboarding processes are contributing to producer churn and will 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 providers (suppose unused licenses or appointments for unproductive producers)
Backside line, if it’s your knowledge, it ought to give you the results you want. And should you’re an AgentSync buyer, it does.
At AgentSync, we’ve got primary reporting inbuilt, together with a Scorecard that exhibits at-a-glance compliance of your entire insurance coverage producer power, out of the field with our Handle product. And extra reporting doesn’t price a factor. Not solely do you personal your knowledge in a literal sense, with AgentSync you OWN your knowledge: You get to resolve the way you slice and cube it for one of the best insights to make data-driven enterprise selections.To see how AgentSync’s product suite might help you higher handle your inner processes and offer you perception into your individual knowledge, try our options.
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