Go Green by Going Paperless

With Earth Day here, now is the perfect time to think about changes you can make around your business to reduce your environmental impact. While there are many earth-friendly practices you could implement, there’s one change you can make that will have a positive impact on the environment and on your bottom line: going paperless.

Working with physical documents has historically weighed down the industry. Now that most insurance staff are working remotely, receiving and mailing physical documents has become an even bigger challenge. Implementing technology can rid the burden of paper, provide staff with the information they need to be effective no matter where they are working, and connect you with insurer partners and customers quickly and simply.

Why Go Paperless?

As you evaluate becoming a paperless agency, consider these stats:

Going paperless can benefit your agency in a number of ways, including:

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  Increased efficiency and productivity: Instead of printing, filing and then having to search for documents manually later, turn your document retrieval process into a few clicks and keystrokes. By going digital, employees can process or update information immediately and share with anyone who needs access to it.

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  Reduced costs: Going paperless increases bottom line savings dramatically. Storing documents electronically and using email replaces the need to print and mail documents to clients, which reduces expenses for paper, toner, envelopes and postage.

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  Increased security: Paper documents are at a greater risk of being lost or damaged. Not to mention, you run the risk of sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. Storing documents digitally ensures your company’s data is continually backed up and secured.

How to Go Paperless

The biggest barrier to activating the benefits of ditching paper is not knowing where to start. Going paperless involves deploying technology to simplify and transform day-to-day business operations.

Get your agency on the road to paperless with the following technology:

• Market search tools

  You can eliminate your reliance on paper risk guides that are often outdated by using easy-to-use market search tools. Available integrated into your management system or as a stand-alone website, you simply enter two fields to denote the specific type of commercial risk and are returned real-time information as to the most likely insurers to have appetite for that risk and appropriate pricing. These tools are complimentary and provide you with greater access to markets, making it extraordinarily easy and much quicker to find the best markets for clients to drive more new and renewal business.

• Download

  Taking advantage of download technology eliminates a long, difficult process of logging into insurer portals, downloading individual documents, organizing those documents, and then manually attaching them into your management system. Instead, you benefit from an automated process where documents are transferred directly into your management system when they become available. Implementation of download allows you to increase overall operational efficiency with immense time savings. In fact, agencies save approximately two hours of time per employee per day by using automated information exchange technologies like download.

• eSignature

  You can also use electronic signatures to further reduce the amount of time employees spend processing paper. eSignature offers a quick and seamless way for your business to provide customers the convenient digital service they expect while keeping all workflows within the management system. Plus, eSignatures can boost sales by enabling clients and prospects to complete and return agreements on the spot from their desktop.

There’s much more to celebrate in addition to the earth-friendly factor of going paperless. Without paper documents holding you back, your business processes will go much more smoothly. That’s because digital document management allows you to set up automated workflows that seamlessly transition between steps in a process and provide helpful alerts when documents are missing or actions are delayed. Ultimately, going paperless enables you to spend less time managing paperwork and more time giving your customers what they need: prompt service and quality coverage.

IVANS and ACT have come together to deliver training and support on how less is more when it comes to paper in your business. Visit our Less Is More Resource Hub for webinars, reference guides and other resources to enable your paperless business.

Industry Trends, 2021, Agents, Carriers, MGAs