My boss said lots of agents take payment from customers for auto insurance and we get a lot of cancellations, so he wants to accept emergency payments, or high risk accounts automatically and electronically. Does anyone know who does this? Not some credit card company, please – my boss is wicked thrifty …
Hi – You didn’t say what agency you were from or what affiliations you had, but the easiest way to do this is to use stand alone software where no merchant account or credit card company is involved. This way, after you buy the software, you won’t have monthly fees or per check charges.
Software like CheckWriter software from checkwriter.net allows insurance agents to take checks by phone for the following reasons:
1. Customer wants to call in a payment due today. [expiring auto policy, dwelling fire, life etc.]
2. Customer needs insurance binder for property closing.
3. Payment to write new coverage or rewrite coverage.
4. Monthly payments on existing policy.
Basically, once you get the customer’s check information by phone, fax or through a website, you enter or import it into the software and print a physical draft of the check that you can deposit into the bank the same business day, with no fees.
Because you have a physical item, it is treated just like a check. You can deposit the check, forward it to the insurance provider, or ACA the payment.
All insurance agencies should offer this service, it drastically drops cancellations. You can call and ask for the payment and take it over the phone, or if they call you just take the information. It increases retention and increases new business.
The software is around $100 and there are no annual fees or setup charges and no transaction fees like there are with so many ACH and Check Draft Providers. If you do 1,000 transactions per month, or 2 transactions in a month there are still no fees.
Drafts are printed on Federal Reserve Regulation ‘CC’ Blank Check Stock which would be the only additional expense when using this type of system. A box of 500 would be about $50 and you can get large quantities for 1/2 that price. You can use any laser or ink-jet printer and blank check stock is about 5 to 10 cents per check.
If you are a Farmers Agent, Farmers Agency, State Farm Insurance Agent or Independent Insurance Agent listed on the Independent Insurance Agent’s online finder, you can get special low group rates for the system.