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The Boost Policy Admin System: How We’re Different

By The Boost Team on Sep 16, 2022
5 min read
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As an insurance infrastructure-as-a-service partner, Boost provides more than just white-label insurance products: we also provide the technical infrastructure necessary to digitally offer those products on your website. 

The most important part of any insurance tech stack is the policy administration system (PAS), which is the system of record for every transaction related to an insurance policy. As part of Boost’s API platform, we deliver a state-of-the-art policy admin system (PAS) to support our products at every stage of their policies’ lifecycle.

What makes Boost’s policy admin system so special? Here are seven factors that set us apart.

1. Automated compliance for every state

One of the most complex parts of building a PAS is accounting for the differences between state insurance regulations. Insurance products must be approved by each individual state that you want to sell in, and each state has its own laws, regulations, and requirements regarding the sale of insurance. Depending on the state, you may need to account for changes in areas like:

  • Rates

  • Underwriting guidelines

  • Notification methods or timelines

  • Policy document content and formatting

  • Policy document delivery method

These parameters are built into Boost’s policy admin system. When a transaction takes place, our PAS will automatically apply the necessary rules for the customer’s specific state. This ensures that every transaction is compliant with relevant state regulations.

State regulations change, however, and today’s "fully-compliant" is tomorrow’s "out-of-date." To make sure Boost's policy administration system keeps up, we have a team of in-house insurance law experts who carefully follow insurance regulatory developments in all fifty states, and provide guidance to the Boost technical team to ensure our PAS stays current. With Boost, you never have to worry about staying on top of state regulatory changes - we do it for you.

2. Streamlined claims via FNOL API

A seamless transaction experience is important for converting customers, but a seamless claims experience is important for keeping them. When your customers suffer a covered loss, a fast, easy claims process helps deepen their relationship and engagement with your brand.

With Boost’s PAS, the potentially complex claims management process is made simple. Rather than having to manually contact carriers and manage the process yourself, our first notice of loss (FNOL) API acts as a unified point of entry to all the services you need.

Our FNOL API is connected to all appropriate claims administrators. When a customer submits a claim for their policy, we automatically route that claim to the right administrator, along with all available supporting documentation. The administrator gets everything they need to start working on the claim, in real-time. This helps reduce the overall time needed to process a claim, which then means faster resolution for your customers. 

3. Developer-friendly API for easy integration

User experience is a vital component of any digital service, but we’re equally concerned with developer experience. Our insurance API was built from the ground up to leverage modern RESTful patterns, and to be easy for developers to build to and implement. 

The API is also designed for consistency, so that once developers understand a given resource, they understand how to use it across our platform. From issuing a policy to executing a renewal, midterm endorsement, or cancellation, once your engineers understand how to do it once, they can do it anywhere. 

An essential piece of a developer-friendly API is good documentation, and so we make sure that our documentation is exceptional. Boost’s API documentation is intuitively organized, personalized to your business, and updated in real-time - so you’ll never need to worry about working with outdated docs. You’ll also get permanent access to a dedicated testing environment, so you can build out integrations and test new platform features with no surprises when you go live. 

All this makes it easier than ever to get your developers up to speed, which means you can get to market or make updates to your integration that much faster.

4. Multi-product support, already configured

One reason why building a PAS is a complex and expensive process is that the system must be separately configured for each insurance product it supports, and each additional product adds to the cost and timeline. This can be a roadblock for insurtechs looking to expand their offerings with new lines of business.

At Boost, our partners can choose from seven white-label insurance products (with more to come). Our PAS is fully configured to support each product at their launch, so our partner can easily add new LOBs by simply updating their existing API connections to include additional Boost products. Rather than needing to work with multiple insurance providers to get the breadth of products that you want to sell, and having to integrate multiple other systems and products into a PAS, you can integrate one time with Boost and still benefit from multiple lines. Growing your business by expanding your LOBs has never been simpler.

5. All-digital workflows for seamless transactions

It may feel like the entire world has gone all-digital, but a surprising amount of insurance isn’t quite there yet. Many traditional carriers provide partners with the ability to rate and quote customers digitally…but then switch to manual processes to complete the transaction. Critical insurance functions like issuing policies, creating endorsements, filing claims, or processing renewals regularly require you to contact the carrier, then wait for a response.

Boost’s policy admin system supports an entirely digital workflow end–to-end, allowing you to offer your customers a truly seamless digital insurance experience. From underwriting to policy modification to renewal, any function necessary for an insurance transaction can be performed through the PAS, with an instant automated response. There’s no need for either you or your customers to ever pick up the phone.

6. Robust, reliable platform

The Boost PAS is built on an enterprise-grade platform, leveraging modern industry tools like Kubernetes and Terraform. With 99.99%+ uptime, multi-region support, and the ability to handle multiple releases per day, you can count on the Boost insurance platform to be available when you need it.

We understand that stability is vital, and that’s why we’re also careful to ensure that the Boost insurance platform is versioned so that it stays backwards-compatible. If you build an integration based on a current feature set, and we make changes in a future release, your integration won’t break. You’ll be able to keep using it the way you always have - which translates to lower development costs over time since you aren’t forced to redo your work every time we make a big update.

7. Fast data processing, smoother purchases

Modern customers expect their digital experiences to be speedy, and Boost delivers. The response time of our API is up to 10x faster than other insurance carriers. That means when we get a request through the API, we can process data and get a response back to the user with unmatched speed. No waiting around for a loading bar to tick through - the customer gets what they need immediately, and gets on with their transaction. 

Working with Boost helps you launch new or expanded insurance offerings at a fraction of the time and cost required to DIY, and a significant part of that savings is driven by our PAS. We built it from the ground up to deliver a fast, reliable, developer-friendly platform, so you can get what you need, when you need it, and get back to growing your business.

To learn more about insurance infrastructure-as-a-service through Boost, contact us, or dive into building your insurance program with Boost Launchpad

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Learn how APIs work, and the attributes of a high-quality API
What Makes a Good API?
Jan 13, 2023
APIs have become ubiquitous in modern technology - and in modern tech marketing. If you’ve ever looked into buying a software service or platform in the last ten years, the odds are that a good API was listed as one of the selling points. But what exactly makes an API “good?” Before we dive into that question, let’s take a minute to recap what APIs are, and why they’ve become so central to business and technology. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are the mechanisms that allow computer software to communicate with each other. APIs ensure that when one software system makes a request, another system can understand the request and respond correctly. When discussing the relationship between two software systems, the application sending the request for action is called the client, and the application sending the response is called the server For example, your bank’s software system houses all of your banking data–that software system is the server. The banking app on your phone is the client. When you initiate actions in your banking app, like making transactions, checking your account balance, or even chatting with a representative, the app communicates with the bank’s software via its API and tells it which action to perform. The server provides an API for the client to use to perform actions. Let’s say that you want to make a transfer of funds from your checking account to your savings account. You open your banking app and navigate to the transfer tab where you are asked which account you are transferring from, which account you are transferring to, the amount you want to transfer, and any additional notes before you can submit the request. 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You can transfer your money in seconds, and the bank can gather your information, automate manual processes, and make their work more efficient. Now that we’ve established what an API is and why they are important, let’s talk about what makes a good API. While all APIs follow the same principle of allowing systems to communicate, not all APIs function equally well. The quality at which an API is developed impacts how effective any system will be at actually doing what the user is asking for.   So what makes a good, well-constructed API? Here are 5 aspects of a good API. First and foremost, APIs should be simple. This means having clear addresses, endpoints, and easy-to-understand request body structures. In our banking example, the bank’s software and the app’s software are presumably owned and operated by the same company–the bank. Oftentimes, however, the client and the server belong to different companies. 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What is Parental Leave Insurance?
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Guide to Insurance Licensing for the Non-Insurance Business
Jun 1, 2022
If you’re new to the world of insurance, the process of getting an insurance license may seem time-consuming and even a little intimidating, but it’s surprisingly easy if you work with the right partner. In this blog, we’ll go over what an insurance license is, why it matters, how to attain the right licenses for your business, and how to get the help you need along the way.  Embedded insurance is a great opportunity to increase your revenue, diversify your offerings, and deepen customer relationships. To reap the full benefits, however, it’s recommended that your company get licensed.  An insurance license is a certification given by individual states that allows an individual or entity to sell, solicit, or negotiate insurance in that particular state. Each state requires a unique license. So, if you wanted to sell insurance in more than one state, you would need to obtain a license for every state you intended to sell in. If you or your company were to attempt to sell or market insurance without a license, it would be considered illegally selling insurance. You could be subject to large fines and legal repercussions from your state’s insurance regulatory agency (and the agency of any other state you illegally sold insurance in). This makes obtaining a license the crucial first step in the insurance selling process. The good news is, when you work with the right digital insurance partner to get the licenses you need, all of those issues can be easily avoided.  There are many different types of insurance licenses available, for different kinds of insurance (for example, selling cyber insurance requires a different kind of license than selling pet health insurance). For this blog, we’ll be discussing two licenses you need to become a distribution partner who sells and markets property & casualty insurance on behalf of a carrier: the Individual License and Entity License. An Individual License– also referred to as a “Producer” or “Agent” License– is given to an individual after they complete a pre-licensing course and pass the required tests in their resident state, which is a state where an individual has a residence or primary place of business. The purpose of this license is to educate the holder on the ins and outs of the insurance process and ensure that before selling, soliciting, or negotiating insurance, they are informed and responsible. Once someone in your company has attained their Individual License, your company can apply for its Entity License, also known as an “Agency” License. This license is given to the company itself and allows it to sell insurance within the resident state.  For your company to sell and market insurance products on behalf of carriers, you need both an Individual License holder and an Entity License.  When determining who should become licensed on the entity's behalf, the individual should be someone who holds a position of substance and is likely to stay at the company long-term. That usually means someone at the executive level, such as an owner, partner, director, or officer. Once this person has obtained their license, they will be known as the Designated Responsible Licensed Producer (DRLP), sometimes referred to as a “principal agent.” The DRLP needs to be licensed in all jurisdictions that the entity sells in. The DRLP is usually responsible for compliance oversight of the agents operating under them. Because the DRLP is typically held accountable for all entity actions, this kind of oversight is a requirement in most states. When selecting a candidate to become the entity’s DRLP, they should be informed and willing to take responsibility.  Some companies have more than one licensed person working for them, but only one is required to sell. If you lose your DRLP and there isn’t another licensed person at the company, then someone else will need to step in or be elevated to a suitable position to hold the title of DRLP. Otherwise, the entity can’t continue selling insurance. The Individual License should be obtained in your resident state. We’ve outlined the general steps to follow below, but every state has unique requirements. Make sure that you know the steps that apply to your state.  Once your DRLP has obtained their Individual License, your company can begin the process of attaining its Entity License. You and your company might want to sell or market insurance in more than just your resident state. Once the individual and entity are licensed in their resident states, each can begin applying for non-resident licenses in other states.  However, technically a “country-wide license” doesn’t exist. There isn’t one license that covers the whole country. Every state has a unique license and different requirements for its applications, so the process of getting licenses in multiple states can be extensive and complicated. Because the DRLP needs to be licensed in all jurisdictions that the entity sells in, the process involves filling out an application, gathering various supporting documentation, and submitting it individually to each state for both the individual and the entity. To sell nationwide, you would need to do this process multiple times to be licensed in all 51 U.S. jurisdictions—the 50 states and Washington D.C. Luckily, there is some reciprocity amongst the states, which means that if you get licensed in one state, you do not need to satisfy all the requirements like taking a pre-licensing course or licensing exam in all other states to become licensed there.   While reciprocity helps reduce the amount of work that is required to apply for individual and entity licenses in all 51 U.S. jurisdictions, that is still a lot of applications. If you choose to do these processes yourself, it can take a very long time, especially if you are unfamiliar with each state’s requirements. There are processing and wait times, and often you can go back and forth with each state because of missing or incorrect information, which can greatly increase your get-to-market time.  In addition to the application process, there are also unique renewal processes for each state —some are annual, some are every four years. Most states also require that individual license holders complete a certain number of hours of continuing education every renewal period, and the exact number of hours varies by state. To mitigate such a lengthy and complicated process, third parties exist that offer licensing-as-a-service. When you work with a licensing-as-a-service company, you give your information to the company and then they handle the lifecycle of your licenses from applications to ongoing renewals. Not all licensing-as-a-service companies are created equal. Some third parties can actually extend the process by not being clear about what information is required upfront. Ultimately, they can make the process more expensive, cumbersome, and time-consuming, delaying your go-to-market time and defeating their purpose altogether.  When you work with Boost Insurance, on the other hand, we have the experience and expertise to streamline these processes. In addition, it is our goal to get you to market as quickly as possible - that’s the Boost difference. Our in-house licensing experts will collect all your necessary information upfront, process it, and then submit the applications for you, country-wide, saving you a lot of stress and back and forth. Our licensing team knows all of the pitfalls and loopholes in each state. They also know what questions to ask ahead of time, so they can submit licenses and gain approvals quickly. We can get you to market, in as many markets as possible, selling Boost insurance products on our platform in as little as a month.  We will also handle the lifecycle of your licenses, keeping track of your renewals and updating you along the way. And, when you work with Boost, your licenses are not exclusive to Boost products. You can use your licenses for other insurance products as you choose. If you want to learn more about getting your individual or entity insurance licenses through Boost’s licensing-as-a-service, contact us.   Disclaimer: The information set forth herein is intended for informational purposes only and may include links to internet websites maintained by third parties. Boost Insurance Agency, Inc. (“Boost”) assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of such third-party websites. Any timelines or requirements included herein are illustrative based on experience and subject to change. Boost cannot guarantee any state review timing.
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