Straight-Through Processing:
Capture more revenues, reduce operating costs
The growing excitement over esignatures and the ability to achieve Straight-Through Processing (STP) correlates directly to the hardware and software advances that are changing the very nature of what insurance companies expect from technology. In today's soft market, STP has become a necessity and end-to-end electronic processes can reduce operating costs and increase revenues immediately.
According to a recent Celent Report: "Enabling STP is a fine strategy for carriers that want to dramatically improve their service levels and cost structures, and it will soon be standard practice. But true STP is not possible without an esignature at the end of the process." ¹
Without proven electronic signature technology, automated processes inevitably revert back to paper in order to capture a signature approval. As you know, the entire lifecycle from document origination to completion is a complex labyrinth of manual processes, taking several days or weeks.
eSignatures provide the tremendous benefits of shortened processing cycles, reduced human errors and not-in-good-order (NIGO), lower operating costs, and greater security over a wet ink signature.
In fact, the TowerGroup states: "In addition to streamlining the application process, e-signature and its companion technology, secure electronic documents, create an audit trail that facilitates process transparency and regulatory compliance for product suitability. US insurers investing in straight-through processing capabilities and working with their distribution partners to facilitate e-signature technology will experience long-term competitive and operational advantage." ²
STP can be achieved with the emergence of business process interoperability and esignatures are necessary for insurance carriers to gain a competitive advantage.
"Celent believes that the majority of Tier 1 and Tier 3 carriers will put e-signatures in production for at least some business processes within the next 24 to 36 months. The time is right for esignatures to finally take off." ¹
Interlink's eSignature Platform
Interlink Electronics has pioneered the use of esignatures in the insurance industry and over 75,000 in-the-field agents and many of the top life and property/casualty companies use our technology. Farmer's insurance alone has over 8,000 ePad Ink units in use for account openings.
Jackson National Life started their initial deployment in 2005 in order to facilitate in-the-field esigning of NASD and SEC required documents. JNL agents embraced the technology because it reduced the amount of charge-backs for processing etransactions, as well as speeding up the payment of commissions for transactions completed online.
Interlink's eSign AnywhereTM platform offers the security, flexibility and scalability for your esignature needs and Straight-Through Processing solutions.
Complete Solution. Interlink's esignature platform enables you to implement the technology across all channels of business: in-branch, in-field and online. In addition, Interlink's Professional Services team can offer you valuable onsite support and services to fit your needs.
Higher Security. Our ePads are the only signature input device to license NCR's patented encryption technology and our IntegriSign Signature Software Suite allows you to create a secure signature stamp as well and offers support for third party digital certificates.
Mature Technology. Over the last decade, Interlink's family of products has been tried and tested by leading organizations around the globe-over 750 million esignatures were capture in 2007 alone using our technology.
Interlink Electronics is the trusted provider for legally-binding esignature solutions and allows organizations to implement end-to-end electronic processes no matter where the signing takes place. www.interlinkelectronics.com/esign.
¹ Weber, Craig: "An E-Signature Update for US Insurers", Celent LLC December 2007 www.celent.com
² "Straight-Through Processing and the Promise of E-Signature: Streamlining the Annuity Sales Process" Analyst Author(s): Rachel Alt-Simmons, Matthew Macauley 02/18/08, www.towergroup.com