Agency Management  Email or File Share? What are you using to send/receive policy documents? 

Remember the days of paper files and 90 page policies? Technology may have saved our backs from stooping & bending and even prevented those irritating paper cuts, but has it solved the problem of getting that 90 page policy from your desk to your client? “Email it!” you say? That’s not a bad idea. But is it the best one? Convenience says yes, security says maybe and server limitations say - not so quick!

As a broker, many times I would receive a call from an underwriter asking if I knew why my email told his email that a file could not be received by my server. My answer – “Wha?” When relying on email alone, situations like this can be problematic.

With paper mail becoming less and less desirable and logistically more cumbersome, one solution may be having multiple solutions. What is your agency doing to ensure the successful retrieval of your insurances documents? How do you get those documents out to your clients?

As we look into different methods of delivery, consideration of our brokers needs and wants is first and foremost! Your thoughts and ideas are greatly appreciated.

Angela,

Interesting questions. Email definitely is convenient but has the issues you outlined (space, anti-spam, etc). In addition, non-secure email is not compliant with any of the major stanadards (SOX, HIPAA, etc).

One of the features we are delivering and enhancing on CompleteMarkets is the ability for agents to submit any size ACORD forms or any supporting documents to the underwriter or program administrator directly on the site  in a secure, non limiting fashion.

We don't have a release date yet, but this feature will be enhanced and available for use by the end of the year.

Have a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend!

Adrian

I use SmartVault - a very secure filing system, usually used by anyone in the legal industry, and this actually ensures that everything is pretty well protected.

I have also began the process of enhancing my websites to include a secured client vault, so that I can control access to the most sensitive of insurance and financial files for my clients.

Being a green insurance and bookkeeping agency for small business owners, we sort of have to be on top of this type of thing. Moving into the future, these types of systems will be a lot more common. My clients absolutely love the scans and locked online storage (cloud-secured) mostly for the security. But in light of recent events, like Hurricane Isaac, another good reason for agents to transition to this ways of sending safe docs is because of the cloud being disaster proof.

Natasha

There are a lot of options to share documents over the internet. The problem with most of the options, as pointed out by Adrian above, is compliance with local laws, federal laws, ethical obligations, and maybe even corporate compliance. The most compliant option will always be one that is created internally, but this will also be the hardest to implement and will require a larger capital investment up front. The problem with storing sensitive data in the cloud stems from not knowing where your data is, this means that auditing physical access to the server can't be accomplished. SmartVault, as mentioned by Natasha, does actually tell you where the servers are located, but that only narrows it down to a data center that contains thousands of servers. The only way to mitigate physical access is to encrypt the data while on the server, and in transit between endpoints. There are some options that could be cobbled together from available components for little to no cost. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) can be used to secure email and attachments between sender and receiver. They could also be used to encrypt large documents for sharing from the cloud provider of your choice. The downside to those options are the complexity involved for your clients to sign and return a document. I think the best cloud option that I have seen to date would probably be Box.net, because they are HIPAA compliant, and store your confidential documents with encryption that staff have no access to. SmartVault on the other hand allows their staff access to your data.

We use Citrix Sharefile in our office. It has an outlook plugin and is very convenient. It allows for varying levels of security depending upon the type of file you're sending. www.sharefile.com We've been very happy with it.