Insurance companies produce a vast amount of mailpieces for customers. From property and casualty declarations to auto monthly billing statements, insurers in these verticals face operational challenges in managing insurance mailing.
In addition to rising costs, insurance companies must also follow strict rules and regulations for these communications. Vital to meeting these are accuracy and compliance. You can ease these burdens and improve accuracy and compliance by working with an expert in the space.
What Are Transactional Insurance Mailing Services?
This category of insurance mailing services describes those communications that contain PII (protected personal information) or other confidential information. It represents various types of insurance mail pieces, including:
Claim letters
- Policy renewals and declarations
- Monthly billing statements
- Policy reinstatement notices with POM (Proof of Mailing)
- Lender-related documents
- Notifications of collateral protection insurance
When insurance companies choose to outsource their production and mailing, third parties provide the service. They handle the entire lifecycle of the mailpiece, from data submission to delivery.
What Rules Do Insurance Communications Have to Follow?
Any documents that contain PII or PHI must adhere to regulations regarding the security and privacy of the data. Insurers must practice due diligence and have processes in place to protect PII and PHI. The same applies to transactional print and mail companies. They typically have layers of protection for electronic data and physical mailpieces.
Depending on the content and type of mailing, rules from other regulations may comply. Ideally, providers in the industry comply with SOC I & II, HIPAA, HITRUST, PCI-DSS, and FISMA.
These regulations form the backbone of accuracy and compliance best practices.
How Do Insurance Transactional Mailing Services Strengthen Accuracy?
Mis-mailings can be rampant without proper guardrails and workflows. Each of these can result in noncompliance claims and reputational harm. It’s a complex framework that must be consistent throughout operations.
Insurance companies fulfilling in-house communications may lack the funding or expertise to achieve high accuracy ratings. It’s not their core competency, but it is for commercial transactional printers.
The keys to strong accuracy rates include:
- White Paper Factory™ (WPF): This production framework feeds reams of white paper into printers to create fully variable documents. It marries fully composed files with in-line production. Each document is unique with dynamic content relevant to that customer.
- Intelligent insertion and integrity cameras: The step in production that makes or breaks accuracy is insertion into envelopes. The way to ensure the equipment performs accurately is for cameras to scan 2D barcodes printed on each document. This tells the inserter what pages go into the envelope. Another camera verifies the insertion by taking an image of the envelope.
- High-speed cameras: Cameras track documents throughout production.
By using these strategies, PCI Group has accomplished a 99.9999% accuracy rating, for the past 6 years, which is industry-leading. Our accuracy efforts are ongoing with regular audits and retooling of standard works as needed.
How Does Outsourcing Insurance Print and Mail Enhance Compliance?
Compliance builds from a foundation of accuracy. If that’s not there, it’s easy for noncompliance to follow. That’s why it’s crucial to outsource to a provider that only manages transactional mailings. Their entire facility and workflows derive from compliance.
Having certifications in all the major regulations regarding PII or PHI is the minimum requirement. Elevating beyond mandated processes demonstrates a commitment to compliance.
Workflows with built-in compliance aren’t just good for meeting regulations. They also support efficiency and quality.
When evaluating companies, look for these compliance measures:
- Advanced data security via secure transmissions and encryption
- Proactive cybersecurity activities, such as pen testing and vulnerability assessments
- Firewalls and IPS (Intrusion Protection System)
- User-level security
- Physical security measures, such as internal and external cameras, door alarms, access-limiting key cards, and a secure entry and perimeter
- Having a Compliance Officer and a team
A company with a real compliance commitment weaves it into every process, immediately addressing issues and implementing new rules.
Insurance Mailing Services from PCI Group
Our decades of insurance communications expertise have created an accurate and compliant service. If you’ve decided to outsource or are looking for a new vendor, you can trust in our work. Learn more about our tailored solutions for:
