Virtual Viewpoint is a regular feature of this website where weask industry leaders a particular question on insurance technology.This time we've asked Kim Morton, director of global productmarketing for OneShield, a question about billing systems.

What other drivers besides improving customer serviceshould be considered when evaluating a billing system?

Morton: While it is absolutely critical to make certain a newbilling system is going to increase customer service levels andbilling inquiry response time, there are other benefits to begained. If insurers don't look past the trees and into the forestfor additional functionality and benefits, they will miss theopportunity to leverage billing for improved profitability andexpansion into new markets.

With a modern billing system's workflow capabilities, processimprovements are easily made.  In fact, even an insurers'business users can execute changes at any time to improve paymentprocessing, commissions, exception handling, promise anddelinquency processing, carry forwards, write-offs, andrefunds.  All of this automation helps insurers achieveoperational efficiency improvements, as well as decrease processingcosts, especially around invoicing, payment and receivablesmanagement. This leads to enhanced profitability and deliverssignificant process efficiencies.  

The open architecture of a flexible billing system allowsinsurers to have greater control over the system and enablesquicker responses to the changing needs of the market and thegrowing demands of customers.  When combined with powerfulconfiguration tools, a modern billing system can also reduce theneed for in-demand IT resources to be called in for simplechanges.

Besides building out capabilities within a new billing system,an even bigger concern is system maintenance. The more changes thatare made, the harder it is to maintain. With a flexible billingplatform these concerns are reduced significantly. This provideseven more dexterity, and gives insurers every business advantage toexpand into new or emerging markets. 

Modern billing platforms increase an insurer's speed to businessvalue by:

• Leveraging powerful, intuitive configuration tools to rapidlyrespond to emerging market demands;
• Creating customized billing and payment plans, as well as theability to easily modify plans to enter and serve new markets;and
• Extending pre-built integration points to maximize ROI onexisting IT investments.

Today's billing systems are designed to make it easier forinsurers to provide faster resolution of customer questions, bettermanagement of agent commissions, automation of the billinglifecycle, flexible designs of billing, payment and delinquencyplans, painless integration with external systems and  theability to enter new markets quickly. Taking advantage of thesecapabilities provides policyholders with new flexibility andelevates billing to the level of a key strategic investment forinsurers.

Kimberly Morton is the director of global product marketingfor OneShield. She can be reached for further comment via email at[email protected].