While electronic bill presentment and electronic payment is notnews for individual and simple commercial lines, the challenge (andreal value) of Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) liesin the complexity of group list bills and complex commercial lines,where collaboration and timeliness are key to cost containment andcustomer satisfaction.

After the initial insurance industry stampede to create apresence on the Internet, insurance companies began to take a stepback, regroup and reevaluate the real potential of this new medium.While the early hopes, promises and hype of selling insurance onthe Internet have fallen short of expectations, companies havebegun to go back to good old-fashioned ROI analysis to determinethe productivity gains and cost savings that could be derivedthrough the Internet. The search for the right insurance processesto leverage the functionality of the Internet has resulted in theunderstanding of common characteristics of processes best suitedfor implementation on the Web. Those that make good Web-basedapplications are those insurance processes requiring massive paperexchange and that are highly dependent upon timeliness ofcommunication and collaboration among the process stakeholders.

One such process is bill presentment and payment via the Web. Infact, research indicates over the next few years, more than 95percent of all insurance companies will have some form of EBPP(i.e. Web-billing). Ideal candidates for Web-billing are thoseinsurers requiring complex billing functions for the commercial andgroup markets, where premium bills require manipulation orreconciliation by the customer, and recalculation by the billingsystem. The upshot of the enhanced Web-billing functionality:dramatic reductions in premium billing, delinquency, and remittanceprocessing costs.

Group and complex commercial billing should be seen as aWeb-billing opportunity, not an obstacle. While individual andsimple commercial lines of business have rapidly been moving toelectronic bill presentment and automatic debit/electronic paymentfor years, the presentment and payment of a static bill is a fairlystraightforward transaction. Unfortunately, the same approach hasnot worked for group list bills or most commercial property andcasualty bills due to the complexity of the bills and theirnon-statistic characteristics. These types of bills are typicallypresented to the customer with an expectation of changes requiredand a dialogue established between carrier and customer to correctthe bill as needed. In other words, timely collaboration betweenthe stakeholders is critical to the effectiveness of billpresentment and payment for these complex bills a natural fit forInternet implementation.

Rather than hurdles too difficult to overcome, the challenges ofgroup and complex commercial line billing create greatopportunities to streamline processes and achieve significant costreductions and, most importantly, provide better customer service.The fact is, staying ahead of the times and maintaining acompetitive edge in the insurance world means taking advantage ofopportunities and stepping beyond the commonplace.

Web-billing simply provides your customers with the best meanspossible to correct, accurately recalculate and pay their bills;elevating customer service to new highs and administrative costs tonew lows.

For more information, visit WorldGroup on the Web at www.wgcusa.com