How to Close Insurance Sales Faster With eForms and eSignatures

Every P&C insurance company would like to sell more insurance products, and sell them faster. Unfortunately, many insurance agents still rely on physical paperwork and manual processes during the final stages of the selling process. As a result, insurance sales cycles take longer than they should, preventing agents from moving on to serve other prospects in a timely fashion. As a result, these agents leave money on the table: both due to the prospects that fail to close because of excessive friction in the sales process flow, and due to agents failing to make contact with sufficient numbers of new prospects. Insurance companies can empower their agents to close more deals, faster by turning to two common, easy-to-use digital tools: eForms and eSignatures. We’ll show how it works.

Insurance Sales in a New Remote Realty

Today’s insurance customer is under more time pressure than ever. Between on-and-off lockdowns, an unstable work situation, and possible school closures, the last thing they need is a cumbersome insurance sales process. It’s no longer enough to offer remote and digital sales and onboarding. By now it’s a given that customers can discuss and buy insurance products over the phone, rather than in-person. But all too often, these customers are forced to download T&Cs and insurance product brochures sent via email, sift through dozens of (mostly irrelevant) pages, and fill out cumbersome PDFs that require computer access and relevant software. Insurance companies need to assume that customers are juggling a million different responsibilities, may not be currently home and in front of a computer, and lack access to channels such as scanners and printers. Yet the vast majority of customers have a smartphone — the very smartphone that they’re using to speak with the sales agent to begin with. And from that single mobile channel, they should be able to complete the entire insurance onboarding process. eForms and eSignatures are two essential tools that can be found as part of a mobile-first insurance process. Part of a larger automated workflow, they allow customers to buy and consent to insurance products instantly and from a single digital channel.

eForms Based on Conditional Logic

eForms streamline document completion, enabling customers to glide through their insurance applications from start to finish. By using preconfigured, smart eForms, insurers can limit the effort required to complete forms and avoid the rework associated with not-in-good-order (NIGO) documents that are prevalent with physical paperwork. The best eForm solutions use conditional logic to reduce the number of fields required to fill, limit the time required to complete each field, and ensure the data entered conforms with field requirements. Depending on the insurance product the customer chooses, as well as various customer characteristics (e.g., state of residence) relevant fields are shown or hidden. Smart eForms, in addition to supporting a speedy sales process, are also advantageous for insurance compliance. Individual agents no longer need to guess which forms, or fields within forms, are pertinent to any given customer. It is all built into the digital workflow automation process. A typical form collection procedure works as follows:

1. Formulas built into the workflow allow the admin to determine which form requests are sent to which customers.
2. The appropriate form is requested from the customer.
3. The customer fills out and sends back the form to the agent for review.
4. The form is time-stamped and tamper-proof once it’s saved to the CRM.

eSignatures for Instant Consent

eSignatures are easy and fast for customers to complete. Unlike wet signatures, customers can simply draw or type their signature, and paste it in the required sections as many times as needed. eSignatures that are optimized for smartphone use are ideal as they allow customers to provide consent without needing computer access or PDF readers. This means that insurance agents can sell products to customers wherever they are, without having to wait till they are in front of a computer. Once the customer agrees to purchase an insurance product and reviews the final order, the workflow automatically triggers a request for the customer’s electronic signature. The customer signs instantly via the text message interface, and an audit trail of the signed document is produced and stored in the CRM. While closing more sales processes is one of the most essential benefits of eSignatures, there are also financial incentives: eSignatures reduce the transaction costs of policy sales. Recent estimates show that simply digitizing contracts, policies and signatures save $15 dollars per transaction in paper, faxing, and scanning costs alone. This is not to mention the money that’s left on the table when insurance agents spend excess time chasing customers for signatures or waiting for consent. Every moment that’s not spent actively selling can be considered wasted time and money. These are the steps required to complete a mobile eSignature process:

1. Send customer a text message link
2. Allow customer to review insurance policy summary
3. Establish customer intent and receive consent by having customer sign with a typed signature or finger swipe
4. Send the completed signed documents to all stakeholders (e.g., the customer, insurance company personnel)

eForms and eSignatures For Speedy Insurance Sales

Automated eForms and eSignatures allow Insurance companies to close insurance sales at unprecedented speed. Both within forms and between steps in the sales process, agents can create a zero-friction experience that allows them to move onto the next prospect sooner. Lightico offers a customer-facing solution for insurance providers, including eSignatures, eForms, document collection, digital payments, and ID verification. Our insurance customers see a tangible impact on their sales and servicing cycles. Madanes Insurance, for example, closed 50% more policies on the first call and reduced its cycle time by 80% since adopting Lightico’s platform. Read the case study here.