Making Financing Easy for Insureds - ePayPolicy

Story Highlights:

• ​Not all insureds are clear or comfortable with how premium financing actually works.
• ​Finance Connect presents financing terms up-front, at the time of checkout.
• ​Finance Connect allows companies to offer financing with their existing PFC relationships.

“There’s not a week that goes by where we don’t use it.”

That’s what Felix Moesmang, President at Capital Insurance, said when asked about his experience with Finance Connect.

Although Capital has only been using it for a few months, Felix expressed how indispensable the tool is to him as he looks to build his new agency from the ground up in its first year of operations.

“A lot of our customers are interested in financing, but if I just send them the finance agreement in a DocuSign, they’re going to call me immediately with a lot of questions,” Moesmang said. “Finance Connect spells everything out and just makes things easier.”

For the insurance industry, the use of outside financing to help amortize large annual premium payments is nothing new. Premium Finance Companies ("PFCs") have been working with agencies and brokers for decades to create payment flexibility and additional revenue opportunities. Finance Connect enables insurance companies to offer premium financing options – with their existing premium finance partners – at the point of online payment for their insured customers.

Capital Insurance, through their membership with Agents Alliance, has a relationship with AFCO Direct, one of the leading premium finance companies in the insurance space, and an early integration partner with Finance Connect.

“Like so many in the insurance vertical, ePayPolicy has been a trusted payment vendor of AFCO,” said Mike Pappas, COO of AFCO. “We share a similar vision of providing insurance agents with leading digital solutions to grow their business and reduce costs associated with collecting premiums while also providing flexible payment options to insureds.”

Traditional “Buy Now, Pay Later” retail checkout options have been estimated to increase conversion rates by 20-30%, as well as increasing cart value by 30-50%. But unlike new BNPL entrants, many PFCs have long-standing existing relationships with their partners, and need no justification for the value they bring.

“Central to the creation of Finance Connect was our intent to preserve existing partnerships with PFCs,” added Engels. “We didn’t want to try and take business from them, or create a marketplace. We want to help both sides work together faster for the convenience of the insured.”

Once a new or renewal policy has been quoted, the financing offer and terms are presented right at the time of payment. Finance Connect uses existing integrations to streamline recurring payments and payment reminders.

“That transparency is so, so helpful,” said Moesmang. “We like to think it’s simple, because we’re in it every day, but financing can be confusing for the insured. They’re much more comfortable to have it all spelled out in front of them.”

Finance Connect is now available for all existing ePayPolicy companies.

Key Features

• ​Allows insurance companies to work with their existing PFC partners
• ​Premium financing options are presented at checkout alongside pay-in-full options
• ​Simplified financing enrollment and upfront terms for insureds
• ​Easily generates consolidated premium finance agreements (PFAs)
• ​ePayPolicy is integrated with over 90% of the most popular agency management systems, saving time and manual data entry