In the indirect insurance market, matching unallocated cash to policies is part of the territory. But it doesn’t need to be such a human-capital consuming, laborious and unwieldy part. Rather than the manual reconciliation of payments inherent with legacy systems, Grappler’s Cloud-based software, that leverages machine learning and automation technology coupled with data analytics, removes the manual effort and gives ongoing visibility of broker payments and policy data to make managing unallocated cash far simpler, says Alistair Harold – CEO and co-founder of MSaaS credit control as a service provider Grappler.
“The data, analytics and insights we provide allow our customers to be more proactive in the way they manage their debt, to both future proof and grow their business,” says Harold
Importantly, he adds, “our data analytics can offer greater transparency and identify where the issues lie. Insights that lead to better actions, improved processes, better decisions and ultimately improving the capital position of our customers.”
Grappler’s native Cloud-based solution seamlessly integrates with an insurer’s policy systems and incorporates machine learning to drive users to decision points.
“We are about driving better user decisions,” says Harold. Among the MSaaS provider’s clients are several major New Zealand and Australian insurers and agencies, including Hollard, Ando and ATL.
While Grappler falls into the ‘insurtech bucket’, Harold says many industry counterparts focus on the front office, creating different models to disrupt how consumers buy insurance. Grappler has deliberately focused on the back office.
“When you are talking about operational efficiencies for insurers, it involves both front and back office processes. You can’t drive operational efficiencies, and support scale, without a clear visibility of your payment to policy processes and a way to identify and manage your data processing issues ,” says Harold.
The solution is as much about process as product - identifying where the issues are to get ahead of the unallocated cash problem, thereby improving the insurer’s capital position.
““The focus is to enable insurers and agencies to make proactive decisions by identifying where the issues in the process exist. Is it with a) the broker or b) the insurer or agency? If it’s the insurer or agency, is the problem with booking policies, or the inaccurate entry of data, for example incorrect calculation of a booking fee, or commission? We offer transparency around the payment history, matching a payment all the way through to the policy gives insight to the behaviour of partners.”
If the data showed a particular broker being consistently slow with payments, visibility of the problem allows a conversation between insurer and broker to help understand the ‘why”. Or it might be a problem with reconciliation around a product line. “We can trace that back to a particular system or process that has the issue. Our service is helping our clients continuously improve processes and the quality of their data.”
Insurers and agencies are competing to attract and retain customers, says Harold, but without that back-office efficiency and transparency, they are always held back by not having that granular view.
“The benefit of our system is that real insight in the payment cycle - from the broker right down to policy level - in one place, in real time, on a modern cloud technology stack.”
To learn more, visit Grappler.
