Outsourcing non-core activities is an increasingly common practice throughout the insurance industry. While outsourcing often comes with benefits like cost savings and better operational efficiency, one of the biggest advantages of partnering with an insurance BPO provider is gaining access to highly skilled and specialized teams.
Continue reading below to learn how you can stay competitive and build high-performing teams by partnering with the right insurance BPO provider.
Learn about Covenir’s industry leading Insurance BPO Services.
The Power and Benefits of an Insurance BPO Team
For many insurers today, staffing is an ongoing challenge. After all, a recent study shows that layoffs in the insurance industry are at a 10-year low while quitting rates are at a 10-year high. This unique combination of labor market dynamics means the internal personnel that insurers do have are often extremely busy and do not have the capacity to take on any additional tasks or duties.
However, for insurers to stay competitive in today’s marketplace, agility is crucial in order to meet evolving policyholder demands and industry trends. Partnering with an experienced insurance BPO provider can help insurers build a high-performance team that is slated for success in the modern market.
This is largely because insurance BPO providers often have teams that have honed their skills in a specific area. For instance, some insurance BPO support teams may be highly skilled in customer support, while others are experts in underwriting processes. Insurers can leverage the support of these expert teams to fill in where they are shorthanded or have possible skill gaps.
Therefore, it’s important to assess the skills and abilities of their existing teams to identify where they require additional support. Partnering with the right BPO partner for your needs will help you create an all-star team that results in better operational performance and an enhanced policyholder experience.
Key Factors for Building a High-Performance Team
There is no room for error in today’s competitive business environment. So, you need to know you have a team—both internal and outsourced—that can consistently deliver exceptional results.
Building a high-performance team with the help of an insurance BPO provider is not something that happens overnight, though it can certainly help you ramp up operations much more quickly than hiring full-time employees internally.
There are some key factors that go into efficiently integrating the BPO provider into your operations, and ensuring the partnership has the necessary tools and resources for success. Here are some important components for creating a high-performance insurance team with a BPO provider.
Finding the Right Talent
As we mentioned earlier, it’s important to find BPO support service teams that have the talent you’re looking for. For example, if your company is already known for its top-tier risk assessment and underwriting capabilities, but needs extra support when it comes to customer service, you should seek out a BPO provider that fits these unique needs.
Again, each insurance BPO provider will have their own areas of expertise, just like insurers do. So, it’s crucial to assess these providers individually to properly vet their skills and experience. Doing so will help you partner with teams that can elevate your overall performance, without cannibalizing the skills of your internal teams.
Training and Development
Ongoing training and professional development is just as important for BPO providers as it is for your in-house team. Given the rapid pace of technological advances and changing trends in the industry, teams that are stagnant and complacent will not have the skills or knowledge to help you surge ahead of competitors.
When seeking out potential BPO partners to build a high-performance team, it’s important to see what kind of ongoing training the BPO provider provides for their teams. If they are forward-thinking and keep their finger on the pulse of new developments in the industry, this can provide great benefits for everyone concerned.
Communication and Collaboration: Fostering Team Cohesion
Lastly, you need to make sure you’re partnering with a BPO provider that prioritizes collaboration and clear communication. Both internal and outsourced teams offer their own unique specialties and areas of expertise. So, in order to enjoy a cohesive and high-performing team, these aspects should not be overlooked.
When partnering with a BPO provider, it’s good practice to establish key points of contact for both organizations, set up a regular schedule for check-ins, and discuss how your provider will handle any issues or challenges.
Measuring Success: KPIs and Metrics for a High-Performance Team
There are some key insurance BPO performance metrics you can track throughout your outsourced engagement. Doing so will ensure that your BPO support team is meeting your expectations and standards, and that any deviations can be met with adjustments to optimize their performance.
As you start outsourcing to an insurance BPO support team, make sure you define the key performance indicators (KPIs) you will use to measure their productivity and success. Here are some of the common KPIs you can track:
- Turnaround time
- Policyholder satisfaction
- Error rate
- Cost-per-claim
- Issue resolution metrics
Conclusion – Elevate Your Team with Covenir BPO
Insurers that want to build a highly competitive and expert team while still remaining a lean organization should consider partnering with a BPO support service provider like Covenir BPO. We have teams with industry-leading expertise in a number of areas, including:
At Covenir, we are more than an outsourcing partner. No matter what area you need extra support with, our onshore team seamlessly integrates with your team to offer the on-brand service your policyholders have come to know and expect from you. We are dedicated to getting every detail right, so we are constantly collaborating with you to make sure we’re exceeding all your expectations.
To see how Covenir BPO could be your missing link to a high-performance insurance team, contact us today to learn about Covenir’s industry leading Insurance BPO Services.