How Handling an Underwriting Team is Equivalent to Playing Chess?

Handling people of the underwriting team can be quite tricky. As a matter of fact, it is oftentimes referred as a game of chess. Similar to chess, when you are a part of the underwriting team, you must always look ahead and make an appropriate move at the right time. However, even the pro players of chess face a lot of problems. They are sometimes challenged by unseen situations or moves. So, what they do when challenged?

Rather than hurriedly making a move, they take a step back and look carefully at what’s before them. They take into account the feasible end result of the chess piece they are planning to move. They contemplate what move their opposition would make and analyze the impact their move could have. Thereafter, they cautiously and meticulously make their move.

In the same way, handling resources for your underwriting squad, you need to make the appropriate moves to make sure you have got the suitable people in line with the clients at all times. This necessitates thorough thought, taking into account each one of the possibilities, and foreseeing what type of move could be coming soon at your way. Not to forget, unanticipated problems can come up at any moment and caseload amounts can vary on a nickel.

So how is it possible to tactically handle underwriting resources to succeed the game of chess?

Understanding the volume of resources you require is certainly one thing, however that’s only a baseline. You must be in a position to smoothly and quickly respond whenever unforeseen situations occur (i.e. unpredicted absences, peak in caseload) and make sure the things do not slip sideways. This indicates that it is important to have a master plan for situations when your original plan of action goes awry. This can be done by bringing forth a strong and justifiable contingency process.

Steps to create an effective underwriting resource contingency strategy:

1. Understand your Client and Plan in Advance

We highly recommend you to have a complete knowledge of your clients’ requirements and what precisely is your team’s approachability and proficiencies are to fulfill those requirements. Tad knowledge would go a very long way to make sure you are able to remain ahead of the game. Client delivery is of prime importance at Cogneesol. Our insurance outsourcing team makes complete efforts not only to fulfill our client requirements, however, surpass them. As soon as you understand all the details, plan it out, remain on top of it and revise it on a regular basis.

2. Evaluate SLAs and Metrics:

Remain on top and be on top of your service tiers and metrics to make sure your staff is delivering on a daily basis. This is not just important in order to meet your client standards, however enables you to deal with service as well as staffing problems proactively and in a timely manner.

3. Correspond:

Check in with your team on a regular basis! Make sure you understand who is actually doing what and if there happen to be hurdles that could get in their purpose of providing top-notch services to the clients. Correspond with your team one-by-one and collectively. Generally, when anyone is in a tough spot, another team associate will hop in and lend a hand. Promote an environment of positivity and teamwork!

4. Cross Training:

This is actually an essential element in making certain that you don’t have a single-point of breakdown. Get multiple team members thoroughly cross-trained on client systems, products and beliefs. This would help you in having extra resources hop in and speed things up whenever you want them to. Additionally, it is the bedrock to ensure you can easily deal with your client deliverables when unforeseen obstacles arise in front of your in-house team.

5. Hiring External Resources:

If you happen to be still looking for people after cross-training internally, you may need to add an external team of insurance process experts to your contingency program. Our underwriting support services present a qualified team of resources who are properly trained on your business and can be tapped into whenever you need. From insurance quotes creation, policy loss runs to other underwriting support tasks, our team at Cogneesol can help you with all your insurance back office tasks.

Take your time to take into account what precisely a contingency program would be comprised of for your insurance company. Whilst everyone’s strategy would be a bit different, the most crucial point is the fact that you create one in order to prevail over unforeseen issues. It can be the move which helps to avoid the situation of hearing "checkmate".

To learn more, get in touch with us at +1 646-688-2821 or email at info@cogneesol.com.

Mika Edward is the content marketing head at Cogneesol, insurance business processes outsourcing company.