Features
Pega Sales Automation for Insurance provides the following key sales capabilities:
Policy
Quote
Insurance reports and widgets
Opportunity enhancements for insurance and renewals
Customer search (B2C)
Engagement map enhancements
Private data -- independent agents and partner sellers
Knowledge management enhancements for insurance
Tagging work objects and pulse posts enhancements for insurance
Policy
Pega Sales Automation for Insurance enables the carrier's producers to see summary-level information about policies in the account (client) context to provide a 360° client view and drive sales activity. Pega Sales Automation for Insurance's Policy is not a complete representation of a policy contract, nor is it a system of record for policies. The policy is designed to store summary data about a real policy (insurance contract) that exists on another system (usually a Policy Administration System or PAS).
Internal and external policies
Policies in Pega Sales Automation for Insurance represent a policy contract between an insurance carrier and an insured (client).
If a policy is internal, the carrier is receiving premium and insuring a risk. Typically, a policy is stored on a system of record (or PAS) somewhere within the carrier's enterprise. Occasionally, policy data resides on an application that a third-party administrator (TPA) or business process outsourcer (BPO) maintains.
External policies store information about policies our prospects or clients already have with another (competing) carrier. The following are the two typical ways that a producer can discover and then store external policy information:
Client-reported -- Client (policyholder) tells their producer that they already have a policy with a competitor. Producers can capture other details that may be shared or estimated, like premium and policy start and expiration dates.
Public sources -- In some places, policy information is a public record.
Information about external policies is helpful for many reasons.
It helps producers avoid offering a client a product they have already purchased. If a client already has an auto policy with a competitor and they do not want a new product, the producer can enter as much as they know about the existing product in an external policy in the client's account.
You can use it to calculate client lifetime value and when running marketing campaigns that may use client lifetime value.
You can use it to create a needs analysis for a prospect or client and can help identify gaps in protection (that is, risks that are not currently covered by insurance).
Policy list and detail screens
Policies are associated with a client's account (B2B or B2C). You can open the Policy
list for a client from the Policies tab on the Account screen. You can identify the
external policies with an 
icon.
You can view, edit, or delete a policy. You can also use the Files & Documents widget on right panel of the Policy screen to view or attach files related to the policy.
If there is integration to the system of record for policies, you can view the details of the policy.
Enhanced customer timeline expansion for policies
In the UI Kit application of Pega Sales Automation for Insurance, you can see an enhanced view of customer timeline for policy events. As in 8.4, if a policy is deleted or created directly (sales user) or through a policy integration, a new sales (green) event is published and can be seen on the Customer Timeline.
As with other events on the timeline, sales users can drill into policy events to see the event details. The timeline view is organized by date, ranges can be adjusted to surface both exceptions and trends in customer behavior.
Quote
Like Policies, a carrier's producers can see and record summary-level information about quotes that are prepared for Opportunities. Quotes in Pega Sales Automation for Insurance help a producer track activity in quoting, illustration, and underwriting systems. Clients may self-report the external (competitor) quotes. Collecting competitor Quote information helps to understand how one stacks up against the competition by product, industry, price, and so on.
Internal and external quotes
Internal Quotes reference data from applications, illustrations, pricing, and underwriting systems of record that are used to compete for an Opportunity. If the Quote is Internal, the carrier will be receiving premium and ensuring a risk, should the Opportunity be won. A Quote in SAI represents an application or submission stored on an underwriting system somewhere within the carrier's enterprise. Occasionally, quote data resides on an application that is maintained by a (TPA) third party administrator or (BPO) business process outsourcer.
External Quotes are much like external policies; they reference information about a quote presented to clients by competitors. It is typical for prospects and clients to tell a producer that they have received quote from a competitor. Producers can capture other details that is shared, like premium and desired policy start date.
The ability to see all Quotes (Internal and External) presented and which quote was chosen by the client provides producer insight, especially when an Opportunity is lost. Knowing all of what was offered to the client and what was chosen can also be helpful at renewal time.
Information about external quotes is helpful for many reasons.
It helps the producer present a competitive product and price for the opportunity.
It helps the producer quickly disqualify opportunities that they are not likely to win (poor product fit, not competitive on price).
It drives the producer to refine the opportunity amount, which will improve forecasting accuracy.
Quote list and detail screens
Quotes are associated with an opportunity (B2B or B2C) and appear on the Quotes tab of the Opportunity detail screen. The Quote List screen shows all the quotes for the opportunity and compares each quote amount to the opportunity amount, to increase forecasting accuracy. If the percentage difference between a quote amount and the opportunity amount is more than 15%, the producer is alerted to update the opportunity amount.
You can view, edit, or delete a quote. You can also use the Files & Documents widget on right panel of Quote screen to view or attach files related to the quote.
You can also view and print (or save to PDF) quote information for supported product lines (one that have been integrated to systems of record), that information is in the Details tab.
Enhanced underwriting visibility for internal quotes
Pega Sales Automation for Insurance provides additional options for tracking the status of internal quotes, which allows you to assess the status of pending submissions more accurately.
Internal quote pending status
The internal quote status of Pending can be distinguished between quotes pending a premium amount from underwriting (Pending-UW) and quotes pending a response from the customer after a premium offer has been delivered (Pending-Customer). The expanded status options allow you to quickly assess what information is outstanding for each pending quote.
Internal quote Declined-UW status
You can select Declined-UW status for an internal quote. The Declined-UW status allows you to identify quotes that were rejected by underwriting, which, in turn, helps you to identify producers who are not adequately pre-qualifying the business they submit to underwriting.
Underwriting activity
Pega Sales Automation for Insurance provides the Underwriter activity dashboard widget for sales managers and sales reps to show the UW score of salespersons based on their activities on the opportunities. Sales rep can see the UW score of all his peers (encrypted names) reporting to his manager.
Sales manager can see the UW score of all his direct reports. Sales managers can also include territory data to see UW score of all the salespersons in his territory which includes all his direct reports and other sales persons (encrypted names) in the territory. This widget displays the top 5 and bottom 5 operators based on the UW scores for a specified number of months. Currently, the widget is set to present activity for the last 6 months. The period start date is always set to the first day of the current month.
Managers / sales agents can also run and export a report that shows the complete summary of underwriter activities.
Reports
There are four Insurance-specific reports: two for policies and two for quotes.
- Policy reports -- show all policies (External and Internal) for all the client accounts owned by the producer.
- Quote reports -- show all quotes (External and Internal) for all the opportunities owned by the producer.
You can collapse and expand all four Reports by selling model and sort based on report columns.
Opportunity enhancements
Opportunities, Quotes, and Policies in Pega Sales Automation for Insurance are all required to designate a single product. Product breakdowns are prominent in most of the insurance reports and widgets.
Opportunity sales types
All opportunities in Pega Sales Automation for Insurance are required to have a sales type which helps track the results of selling activity. When you create an opportunity, you can select sales type as "New business", "Renewal" or "Remarket". In case of sales type as "Renewal" or "Remarket", opportunity must be linked with expiring internal or external policy respectively.
Forecast and other Opportunity AI models for Insurance now includes sales type as a predictor.
Stage navigation
Opportunity stages in Pega Sales Automation for Insurance have two types of configured steps: Business (B2B) and Individual (B2C). In addition to the steps for each stage, stages will automatically advance to the next stage when all the activities (steps) within the current stage have been completed. You can manually navigate stages and can close the opportunity at any time.
Initiate submission for opportunity
Pega Sales Automation for Insurance provides real-time Initiate submission capability from Sales to Underwriting for individual and business customers, and prospects.
Quote and Policy alerts from Underwriting application are received and processed (internal quote and policy create and update) automatically in Sales application. You can also view active submission details from Underwriting in Sales for internal quotes. You can leverage DocuSign integration capabilities in opportunity life cycle to get the customer approval for submission / application forms.
Process customer decision for quote from opportunity
Pega Sales Automation for Insurance provides real-time capability to process customer decision for quote (pending for customer input) from Sales to Underwriting for individual and business customers, and prospects.
Accept or reject quote
Producer can accept or reject a quote based on customer decision for individual and business opportunity.
When Integration to Underwriting application is ON, customer decision for quote is sent to underwriting application for further processing, for example, policy issuance in case quote is accepted or underwriting case closure in case of quote rejection.
Selected quote status is updated accordingly in sales and underwriting applications based on customer decision.
Renegotiate quote
You can renegotiate quote for a business opportunity when customer wants some changes in offered quote, for example, terms and coverages.
Producer can set the sales stage of the opportunity to best reflect where the opportunity is now. You can update other opportunity details such as deal amount, forecast category, close date, and so on.
When Integration to Underwriting application is ON, selected quote is sent back to underwriting and after changing some terms, coverages, a new proposal is created with the updated terms and price. Selected quote status is updated accordingly in Sales and Underwriting applications.
Withdraw submission
Producer can withdraw an open submission for a business opportunity at any time in sales cycle when customer is no longer interested in buying.
When Integration to Underwriting application is ON, you can initiate withdraw of the open submission in Underwriting application from Sales application for selected quote (Pending Customer or Pending UW). Withdrawn submission and linked quotes statuses reflects accordingly in Sales and Underwriting applications. Based on customer decision, status updates for opportunity's quotes in Sales works regardless of integration with Underwriting application is On or Off. Producer can input customer feedback along with customer decision (Accept / Reject / Renegotiate / Withdraw).
Pulse post are triggered for the updates at opportunity and quote level.
Select winning quote at opportunity close
If closing an opportunity as won or lost, the producer can select one winning quote. For wins, producer can select from internal quotes. For losses, the producer can select from external quotes.
Create policies and reminder opportunities at opportunity close
When closing an opportunity as lost, an external (competitor) policy is created for the client. Policy creation uses the winning external quote or opportunity information for product, policy dates, and premium the client purchased. If the producer wants a reminder to compete at policy renewal, checking the "Remarket" option during opportunity close creates a remarket opportunity in the future. When creating or editing an external policy manually, checking the "Remarket" option creates a remarket opportunity for the policy automatically.
When closing an opportunity as won, an internal policy is created for the client if an internal policy does not exist for the opportunity. The policy information reflects the product, policy dates, and premium listed in the opportunity or winning quote.
Renewal opportunity for expiring internal policy
Pega Sales Automation for Insurance provides full automation of renewal opportunity as well as semi-automated generated renewals. Global SalesOps users can configure renewal defaults by product to set up and maintain renewal attributes for product. Pega Sales Automation for Insurance ships with Global Default, as well as selling mode (B2B, B2C) defaults. Defaults can be versioned (expired, replaced).
A Renewal opportunity is created for expiring B2B internal policy automatically by background BOT (on Mondays) based on renewal configuration settings defined by global SalesOps. The producer can also manually create a renewal opportunity from expiring B2B / B2C internal policy detail screen.
After a policy is linked, opportunity and policy link will show on the opportunity view and vice versa.
Sales pipeline view at sales type level
You can use forecast management to see summary of your sales pipeline for the year, broken down by sales type (All vs. New business / Renewal / Remarket) along with fiscal quarter and forecast category.
Producer can update opportunity (New business / Renewal / Remarket) key fields data by utilizing quick edit feature from opportunity list.
Producers can post comments for opportunity quick update which are accessible under pulse notifications at opportunity level. Pega Sales Automation for Insurance also provides an enhanced dashboard widget for win/loss analysis of all opportunities vs. Renewal opportunities.
Underwriting visibility for opportunity
When you close an opportunity, you can select a UW-Declined status as "UW Declined- Appetite" or "UW Declined-Risk". The UW-Declined statuses allow you to identify opportunities that were rejected by underwriting, which, in turn, helps you to identify producers who are not adequately pre-qualifying the opportunities that they submit to underwriting.
Decisioning strategies
The application uses a separate strategy for business and individual opportunity to drive the following insights that are displayed in Opportunity Insight section of Opportunity.
- Probability to move to the next stage
- Win probability
- Close date
Customer search (B2C)
Customer search provides a way for a producer to find and complete "work" for B2C leads, prospects, and existing clients, even when they do not have complete information about the client.
With Pega Sales Automation for Insurance you can:
Find the right person with minimal search criteria.
Leverage intent driven retrieval of client open activities. When you select a client from the search results, the counts of the open leads, opportunities, tasks, quotes, and policies of the contact are retrieved.
View results and details of related objects of individual rows without losing the search results. Search criteria are maintained until the user clears the criteria. This "sticky search" allows the producer to browse and perform activities and keep the search criteria. The last search criteria will be maintained until the producer's session ends.
Complete work with minimal navigation.
View Contact type, personal details (age, gender, etc.), and Household membership from the client search result list.
View the status of the client. Client type indicates whether the client is active by substituting "Active" if the contact is an existing customer and has open activities. This is to eliminate the need to expand rows to determine if the client has open opportunities or remaining follow-up work. When "Prospect" is displayed, the contact will have at least one open lead or opportunity, but they are not yet a client.
Export search results as Excel and PDF files. A client summary view is generated for a consolidated view of client details and open activity. You can export the summary view.
Input search criteria in either basic or advanced search mode, the criteria is "sticky" (settings persist until changed or log off).
Engagement map enhancement
Engagement maps help identify prospects and clients in a producer's assigned territories where the product penetration level is low. For sales managers, the engagement map will also include accounts for all producers reporting to them. Pega Sales Automation for Insurance enhances Engagement Map statuses to include Policy and reduces the navigation needed to override statuses. Clicking on a product panel for a specific client account in the Engagement Map displays both Policy and Opportunity lists and hyperlinks.
Sold - indicates either a won opportunity or an internal policy for the client.
Sold-Active - indicates that a client has at least one internal policy or won opportunity as well as at least one open New business / Remarket opportunity and does not have any open renewal opportunity.
Sold-Renew - indicates that a client has at least one internal policy or won opportunity as well as at least one open renewal opportunity.
Sold Out - indicates that there will be no further opportunity for that product in the near future. If a client has a won opportunity or internal policy for a product, a producer can choose to manually mark a product Sold Out. For example, if a client purchases a Homeowners policy, the product will be marked as Sold automatically. If the producer knows that the client only has one house, the product can be marked Sold Out.
Producers can override the engagement map status for a client account when closing an opportunity vs. needing to navigate to the client's account.
Private data - independent agents and partner sellers
Pega Sales Automation for Insurance provides a Private Data feature for independent producers to enter and manage data about their clients. Private data is only visible to the individual that enters the data. You can view and export private data. When an operator record for an independent producer is deactivated, all the private data is purged from the system and is not retrievable (except for database backups that may exist).
To use the private data feature, do the following:
- Enable the feature by setting the PegaCRM-SFAEnablePrivateData dynamic system setting to "true".
- Configure the Private Data Categories you want to use (Tools menu that is available to global sales operations users). The category names must be unique, and a format type is required for each category (examples shown below).
- Create Partners for the independent producers (Partner create - global sales operations).
- Each independent producer that wants to use the feature must have a partner Organization selected in their Operator profile.
Knowledge management enhancements
You can associate Knowledge Management content to policy and quote objects based on the insurance product. You can add multiple associations to the knowledge management content.
After the knowledge management content is associated, the linked content will show for the policy or quote objects for respective products.
Tagging work objects and pulse posts enhancements
You can tag work objects, for example, policies, quotes using words and phrases that are meaningful to them and use these tags as sorting phrases to organize data in a personalized way. You can add a tag for work objects (organizations, accounts, contacts, leads, households, appointments, opportunities, policies, and quotes) or Pulse posts.
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