One of the biggest challenges for insurance organizations today is maintaining a competitive edge in a crowded, fast-moving industry. To keep policyholders happy and customer churn low, insurance carriers must be prepared to meet the changing needs of insureds – a task made more difficult when your organization opts for traditional payment methods over the online payment options true SaaS software applications can provide.

Mail delivery for payments is a drawn-out process, riddled with delays and delinquencies. Walk-in payments pull your staff’s focus from other high-priority projects. Both methods contribute to larger workloads for your team, higher print and mail costs, and an undesirable payment experience for your policyholders. That difficult customer experience is more likely to deter policyholders from paying regularly, leading to spikes in policy cancellations and turnover.

It might seem that all signs are pointing towards online payment methods – and, you’re right, they are! – but not just any electronic bill payment and presentment (EBPP) platform will do the trick. Traditional, on-premises digital models aren’t cutting it when it comes to collecting online payments anymore. These models advertise as a “one size fits all,” ignoring the fact that each insurance organization requires unique customizations, maintenance, and upgrades.

Rather than suffer time consuming and costly updates to support their payment needs, many insurance organizations are realizing the benefits of SaaS, or Software as a Service. True SaaS is a software model that can deliver automatic updates, enhancements, and security patches without cumbersome updates or maintenance. This lessens the burden on internal IT teams while allowing insurance organizations to stay ahead of industry trends.

Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance Company, a Montana-based insurance company, was in search of an EBPP platform that offered the benefits of true SaaS software. After implementing Invoice Cloud, Farmers Mutual didn’t just experience a seamless integration experience, the organization saw an increase in premium collections and a boost to operational efficiencies across the board.

The challenges of traditional payment options

Before choosing Invoice Cloud as its new online payment platform, Farmers Mutual was struggling with several challenges, including:

• High walk-in and call volumes
• Lack of paperless or AutoPay options
• High costs associated with printing and mailing paper bills
• Technology gaps

The biggest of these challenges was undoubtedly the organization’s lack of online payment options. By only offering traditional methods of payments to insureds, the team at Farmers Mutual was experiencing even higher walk-in and call volumes, not to mention the daily struggles of processing paper bills. Mail delivery from remote areas of the state can take up to ten days, causing late payments, unwanted policy cancellations, and an overall difficult payment experience.

Improving user experience with true SaaS software

With staff workloads growing and costs beginning to mount, Farmers Mutual knew it needed to implement a SaaS solution that would simplify payments to increase operational efficiencies and deliver a better customer experience.

The organization was looking for an EBPP provider with a history of successful implementations to help them quickly overcome these pressing challenges. Once Farmers Mutual implemented Invoice Cloud, the innovative payment platform provided everything the company needed to:

• Enable a better user experience to drive more digital payments
• Increase self-service adoption with omni-channel payment options
• Streamline all digital payments through one platform
• Decrease print and mail costs

Increase self-service and customer satisfaction rates

Farmers Mutual is a great example of how a true SaaS solution can create a stronger user experience, allowing insurance companies to cut costs, save time, and boost both self-service and customer satisfaction rates.

To read the full results of Farmers Mutual’s implementation, download the case study below: