How Agentsync Helps Insurance coverage Producers and Adjusters Handle Service Necessities for Paper Licensing

This put up is a part of a collection sponsored by AgentSync.

Whereas trendy insurance coverage infrastructure permits insurance coverage carriers to entry to-the-day reporting for insurance coverage producers’ and adjusters’ licenses, many nonetheless require a paper copy of licenses.

At AgentSync, we’re agency believers that requiring copies of paper licensing is a factor of the previous, for a number of causes, not least of which:

• The paper license solely validates that the insurance coverage producer or adjuster was licensed on X day – a single time limit.
• The paper license doesn’t point out issues like a producer’s nationally reported compliance violations.
• If a producer didn’t obtain and print their preliminary license inside days of getting it, some states will cost them to obtain it afterward.
• Digital compliance choices can ship correct, present knowledge with out the paper!
• Paper licensing is a big danger for insurance coverage businesses, MGAs, MGUs, and carriers alike

Why printed licensing is a danger to your company, MGA, MGU, or service

The aforementioned causes ought to be sufficient – out-of-date knowledge, errors, mistyped or smudged data all current their very own dangers to numerous levels. However, as we see it, by not validating knowledge towards a supply of reality just like the Nationwide Insurance coverage Producer Registry, you allow your self uncovered to unscrupulous actors.

The unlucky reality is, whereas the vast majority of folks work in insurance coverage to ship on its promise of offering a security web to folks and companies, some folks function with damaged compasses. Whether or not somebody is simply hoping to obscure their motives or historical past, or whether or not they intentionally intend to deceive for malevolent functions, leaving it fully as much as producers to enter their data precisely is a chance for errors and malfeasance.

In a best-case state of affairs, guide processes lead producers to accidents and errors, from mistyped addresses or wrongly entered dates of delivery. In a worst-case state of affairs, they’re a possibility for dangerous actors to cowl their previous misdeeds, and, with no course of for validating that knowledge, you possibly can end up in a long-term partnership with somebody who has a documented historical past of unethical habits.

So, for those who’re an insurance coverage agent, company, MGA, or different downstream distribution accomplice whose service requires paper licensing, listed here are three tricks to get you thru what could be a extremely guide course of.

1. Printing particulars from AgentSync’s knowledge

Carriers can use an agent’s nationwide producer quantity and pull knowledge from the nationwide insurance coverage producer database. However even when a service’s compliance processes don’t use that kind of course of, we’ve discovered that when businesses clarify how up-to-date and correct the data in AgentSync is, carriers might enable producers to print their detailed abstract to make use of for verification. In spite of everything, the rationale carriers ask for paper copies is often to validate that the producer is licensed – however once more, that is much more precisely achieved with present data than with a point-in-time picture of the unique license.

In case your service is keen to simply accept a extra simple proof of licensing, you or your company can print your knowledge from AgentSync. Utilizing the “Printable View” button in AgentSync, you may get a PDF or printed copy of the to-the-day abstract of producer (or adjuster) license data to e mail or in any other case ship to your service in the event that they’ll settle for this knowledge as an alternative choice to a paper license.

2. Obtain picture copy of report state and save PDF to AgentSync

In case your service requires a picture copy of the bodily license and isn’t but keen to simply accept validated knowledge from AgentSync or different insurance coverage databases, it’s at all times finest to conform.

All states have some model of the paper license accessible free of charge inside a number of weeks of acquiring your first license; you might have to request it, or they might mail you a paper license in a number of uncommon situations.

For many who remembered to request a obtain of their free copy of the paper insurance coverage license, utilizing AgentSync’s front-end producer or adjuster portal could also be a simple approach to retain a duplicate. Merely add the PDF to the portal and preserve it saved with NIPR’s Attachment Warehouse for these occasions that your company should ship it to carriers.

Once more, whereas the each day synchronized knowledge is much extra reliably correct than a static copy of a license, some carriers might insist that their inner protocols use a paper copy because the supply of validation.

3. Printing or downloading a paper insurance coverage license after the actual fact

If you happen to didn’t retain a PDF copy of your preliminary state license (we don’t blame you) and your company is now working with a service that requires one, you have got a number of choices left to you. States that use State Primarily based Providers will present a PDF at no further value. Different states might use service suppliers that cost a charge to acquire a duplicate of your authentic license.

We now have a roundup of which states use which procedures and what you’ll be able to anticipate so far as prices right here.

Or, for those who’d quite, you’ll be able to use NIPR’s widget to find the most effective supply to print or obtain a paper copy of your varied state licenses.

Convincing insurance coverage carriers to cease requiring paper licensing

Whereas AgentSync might help your insurance coverage company, MGA, or MGU retailer and validate paper licensing data, the most effective plan of action is really to persuade insurance coverage carriers throughout the trade to cease requiring paper license verification.

Paper licenses are a factor of the previous. Most state departments of insurance coverage not print and mail copies of producer or adjuster licenses for a motive: There’s a greater approach to do issues. Insurance coverage carriers have to confirm {that a} producer or adjuster has a sound, in-force license. However a paper license merely isn’t the easiest way to perform this job anymore!

To recap:

• Paper licensing penalizes producers or adjusters which can be licensed in a number of states by requiring them to manually request licenses from many state entities, typically at a value.
• Paper licensing requires digital cupboard space and processes that usually require extra steps and guide enter.
• Paper licensing solely validates the point-in-time truth of the unique licensing and leaves the service uncovered if the producer or adjuster has engaged in reckless or dangerous habits since acquiring a license.
• Paper licensing protocols don’t replicate any violations states have reported about that producer or adjuster to the nationwide database.
• Paper licensing ends in guide delays, error-prone processes, and slower onboarding for producers and adjusters throughout your group.
• Paper licensing leaves you and your service accomplice uncovered to danger from unscrupulous characters.

So, whereas AgentSync might help facilitate a paper-based license verification course of, we’d actually quite you didn’t have to try this; we’re staff digital knowledge synchronization all the best way!

If you happen to’re searching for methods AgentSync can help your company’s processes, or for those who’re considering how we are able to rework carriers from paper-based processes, schedule a demo immediately.

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