What is Insurance Management Software?

Insurance management software is an integrated business system designed to automate the entire operations of insurance companies. It streamlines all the backend processes and CRM operations and contacts management processes for insurance companies.

Why Use Insurance Management Software?

• Automated Workflow: Insurance software solutions create an automated workflow for all day-to-day operations of an insurance company, such as policy issuance, premium billing, claims to process, and so on.
• Managed Customer Relationship: The insurance management system allows agents to keep track of all interactions with customers, including communication history, account details, and policy information.
• Consolidated Information: Insurance management software consolidates the data of clients, brokers, agents, and reinsurers into one central repository.
• Accurate Accounting: Insurance companies have extensive and rigid accounting needs. They need to record and process every transaction as per Indian Accounting Standard. Insurance management software allows companies to maintain accounting standards and other reporting needs.
• Document Management: Insurance management software helps companies manage many documents related to clients, policies, and agreements in an organised form.
• Targeted Marketing: Insurance agencies can use marketing features of the software to target customers with relevant offers based on their specific needs.

Who Uses Insurance Software?

• Insurance Companies: All insurance companies use some form of the insurance system to manage their policies, agents, brokers, clients, and claims processing
• Insurance Brokers: Almost all the top insurance brokers use insurance brokerage software to manage their commission, brokerage, ledger, and clients.
• Healthcare Providers: Many healthcare providers use an insurance management system to manage their billing and claims processing operations.
• Insurance Agencies: Most small to mid-sized insurance agencies use insurance software to manage their clients, brokerage, data, and offers.
• Policy Holder: Policy Holders also use self-service portals of insurance claims management software to manage their policies, process claims, and check claim status.

Types of Insurance Software

• Health Insurance Software: Health insurance management software manages health insurance policies, hospital claims, and reimbursement for health service providers. It is used mainly by insurance companies and hospitals.
• Life Insurance Software: Life insurance management software tracks and controls the life cycle of a policy. It's involved at every stage, from taking the application to issuing the policy, billing, and claims processing.
• General Insurance Software: General insurance software handles clients' auto, property, and liability policies. Large insurance corporations mainly use it.
• Commercial Insurance Software: Commercial insurance management software controls claims of businesses against their property, products, and equipment.
• P&C Insurance Software: Property and casualty insurance agency management software manages the property, automobile, liability, and workers' compensations for insurance businesses.

Benefits of Insurance Management Software

• Streamlines Operations: An insurance management software system streamlines the entire operations of an insurance company. It reduces manual data extraction, entry, and calculations processes.
• Reduces Operational Costs: Insurance software reduces operational costs by automating day-to-day backend and CRM operations. The software reduces staffing costs by a considerable margin.
• Speeds up Settlements and Collection: Insurance agency management software helps employees quickly follow up on any policy, client, claim or query. Employees can easily extract any document related to policy or client for a quick settlement and premium collection.
• Improves Client Satisfaction: Insurance software enhances the relationship with customers as they get quicker premium payment with an efficient claiming process. Policyholders can even manage their policies and see claim status from the self-service portal.
• Increases Productivity: Automated billing and claims processing lead to high operational efficiency, growth and profitability.
• Improves Compliance: The software helps companies comply with various rules and regulations, saving insurance companies from fines, penalties, and bad publicity.
• Boosts Sales: Insurance software solutions allow assurance companies to focus on better marketing and upsell strategies based on CRM reports.
• Reduces Error Rates: The software replaces manual data entry with automated calculations and workflow. It makes sure that the premium and other calculations are accurate.
• Consolidated Reporting: Insurance management software can generate consolidated reports of all insurance policies, claims, and operations. This enables insurance agencies to make better business decisions.

Common Features & Functionalities of Insurance Software

• Policy Management: Insurance software manages the entire policy lifecycle, from getting the application for insurance to issuing the policy, billing, and claims management.
• Customer Relationship Management: The insurance software system stores and manages customer information, premium payment history, claims status, etc. This information aids insurance companies in providing seamless service to their customers.
• Claims Processing: Insurance software solutions provide a centralised dashboard where all details about the claimant, policy, and loss are captured in real-time. It helps in the faster and accurate processing of claims.
• Billing and Accounting: Insurance agency management software has inbuilt billing and accounting modules where all premium payments, claims and expenses are recorded and posted in a specific ledger. It gives a complete statement of profit/loss, cash flow, and balance sheet of insurance agencies.
• Marketing Automation: Insurance software provides up-to-date information about clients' life events. It sends automated messages and reminders for due dates, premium payments, and claims.
• Payment Processing: Insurance software solutions support secure premium payments online. With a payment processing module, customers can quickly pay insurance premiums, charges, and fines to the insurance company.
• Brokerage Management: Insurance brokerage software can track, calculate and process brokerage/commission payable to agents and sub-brokers.
• Data management: Insurance agency software manages all data in insurance companies- customer information, policy details, claims, agent details, etc. Cloud-based insurance management software stores all data in a centralised repository in encrypted form.
• Self-Service Portal: Some Insurance management systems offer online access to their customers for checking their policy and claims status. Self-service portal speeds up clients' premium payment and claim filing process.

Key Considerations When Buying Insurance Software

• Choose the Best Deployment: It's essential to know your company's requirements before choosing insurance management software. Choose on-premises deployment if your company wants complete control over its data and security. If you want to reduce IT infrastructure and maintenance costs, go for on-cloud insurance software.
• Select License That Reduces Cost: Insurance software solutions are generally licensed per user, module, or transaction. It would be best to choose software that costs lower for your organisation as per its size and requirements.
• Prefer Software with Necessary Features: Always prefer the insurance management system with all the necessary features to manage your day-to-day functions.
• Read About Post-sales Support and Maintenance: Make sure the software provider offers good support and upgrades post-sales. This will help in case of any technical issue with the software. You can read reviews and customer feedback to decide about any insurance software vendor.
• Consider Remote Mobility: If your employees need field visits for client onboarding, claim settlement, and premium collection, the insurance management app would be a great add-on. It will enable your employees to conduct sales operations from anywhere.
• Check if there is a Demo/ Trial Version: Before making a final purchase decision, always ask for a demo or trial version of the software from the vendor. This will help you understand the software's working and its features.

Trends Related to Insurance Management Software

• Predictive Analysis: Predictive analysis is analysing past and current data of customers to make predictions. Many top insurance software can identify high-potential customers and help companies target such prospects on priority.
• Selective Marketing: Based on past data and customer buying habits, the software can select the best policies for a particular client. These policies are then communicated to clients through automated email, SMS and marketing campaigns.
• Chatbot Support: Chatbots are widely used in the customer service industry to provide 24/7 support to customers. Many insurances software's are incorporating chatbots to provide instant support to their clients.
• Automated Claims Processing: Automated claims processing is different from filing claims online. Insurance software systems can integrate with third parties, banks, and government databases to process the claims from insurers automatically.

How Does Insurance Software Help in Agency Management?

Insurance agency software is highly beneficial for insurance companies. It helps in optimising operations and reducing manual errors. Here is how Insurance software solutions help insurance agencies:

• Automates all back-office operations and front-end customer relationship
• Keeps accurate record of the commission received from allied insurance companies
• Tracks policies and claims status of customers
• Tracks new clients intake, renewals, conversions, etc.
• Provides claim status reports with client information, event date, injury/loss description, etc.
• Maintains the list of sub-brokers along with their ledgers and commission payable.
• Automatically sends reminders for insurance premiums to customers.