AGIA Program Transitions
Customer Focused.
Reinforced Affinity.

  

Taking the Pain out of
Program Transitions

AGIA Affinity is the go-to Administrator
for Program Transitions.

 

AGIA Affinity’s Competitive Advantages

 
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Practice Makes Perfect

Over the past 5 years, AGIA Affinity has transitioned over 4 million certificates, which we believe is more than any other Third Party Administrator in the Affinity or Association space. While no two Program Transitions are the same, we deploy an extensive Cycle of Learning process at the end of each transition so the lessons learned can be applied to future transitions. As a result, prospective clients don’t need to painfully and expensively “re-learn” what AGIA Affinity has already learned in the past. When done the AGIA Way, Program Transitions are an opportunity to reinforce insureds loyalty not only in the insurance program but also to your Affinity Group or Association itself.

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Customer Focused, Cross-Functional, Systematic, and Repeatable Process

AGIA Affinity has operationalized a Program Transition process that integrates and incorporates all areas of the business. This process moves from the Concept Stage through an in-depth Discovery phase into Execution & Testing before finally reaching the Warranty & Clean-up stage. By following this process, we can “de-risk” the inherent risks that are typically associated with any Program Transition because we are able to proactively address those risks from the start. Furthermore, the underlying theme of doing right by the customer is reiterated throughout each phase of the transition to ensure an optimal customer experience for the impacted insureds.

People

Human Capital

Through a concerted effort to train and develop our most valuable resource, AGIA Affinity has created the perfect blend of human capital resources. Our transition team members are experts in Program Transitions, meaning they have the necessary understanding of product history, as well as technological experience, to create the optimal customer experience for insureds throughout the transition process. We have staffed appropriately to assign dedicated resources to each Program Transition and these resources are 100% committed to work specifically on your Program Transition. That means your Program Transition is their “day job” and not just an additional task on their daily to do list.

 

Have you been told by other Administrators that your transition will be completely seamless? Sound too good to be true? That’s because it is. While no Program Transition is completely seamless, let AGIA Affinity show you how we can “de-risk” your transition by using our extensive experience and proven process to proactively identify and address potential risks, before they materialize into pain points during the transition process.

 

 

Program Transition Success Stories

 

Creating loyalty by doing right by the customer

 

The Challenge

With any Program Transition, there are always key trigger points that have the potential to lead to a less than desirable customer experience. And, no matter how much advance timing or notice there may be prior to the transition date, there will always be a population of insureds where you run into an administrative challenge at some point in the process. During a recent Insurance Company Transition, we proactively identified a billing delay for roughly 400 insureds that led to multiple notices generating over a short period of time which created a less than optimal experience for these members. While there is never a transition that will be completely seamless, it’s not what you did, it’s how you fix it that creates a customer for life!

The Solution

Given our past experience with Insurance Company Transitions, AGIA Affinity has headlights on all of the possible transition pain points from the earliest stages of transition. As such, we were quickly able to identify the underlying issue and proactively develop a plan of attack in order to create the best possible customer experience for these insureds in spite of the billing delays.
This plan included:

  1. Proactive communication to insureds in question including an outbound call and letter regarding the billing issue and the steps we were taking to rectify this matter
  2. A gift card to all impacted insureds as part of this communication plan in acknowledgement of the billing issue and regardless of whether they chose to pay their bill or not
  3. Clear talking points for the call center to field any inbound calls from insureds accompanied by several possible solutions to address their concerns
  4. Insurance Company approval to extend the grace period for the impacted insureds to ensure that all members were given the opportunity to pay their bill in spite of any confusion that may be been caused

The Result

  • Immediately achieved higher persistency rates for the impacted insureds in comparison to standard product persistency rates during the transition
  • Consistent feedback from insureds throughout the process expressing their appreciation for the personal and human touch that accompanied our proactive communication strategy
  • Impacted insureds have continued to persist at a higher rate and continue to have a lower attrition rate in the years following the transition

Complexity? We’ve got you covered!

 

The Challenge

During a recent insurance company transition, AGIA Affinity was faced with the daunting task of consolidating 275 different Cancer Care Master Policies across more than 30 different clients into 10 or less unique product configurations. The original 275 unique Master Policies were subject to termination since one insurance company was exiting the market. As a result, new coverage had to be issued to over 120,000 paying Cancer insureds under a new insurance company (or a classic “Cancel/Rewrite” scenario for the insurance nerds out there). At the same time, the new Master Policies and Benefits were now subject to the Affordable Care Act and needed to be updated in order to be ACA compliant. To add further complexity to the challenge, AGIA Affinity was also tasked with moving the HIP, AD, Travel Accident, and Term Life product lines to the same insurance company with a similar deadline. While this case study focuses primarily on the Cancer Program Transition, it’s worth noting that this herculean effort was set against the backdrop of moving an additional 3 million certificates from several other product lines at the same time.

The Solution

While AGIA Affinity has successfully completed hundreds of Program Transitions through the years, the level of complexity here required a unique approach. However, we were still able to draw on the vast experience and prior lessons learned to implement the most complex transition we’ve ever faced. To start that process out on the right track, AGIA Affinity coordinated with the incoming insurance company to ensure that the appropriate benefits and variable language were included in the initial product filings to support the existing business with fully modernized and ACA compliant policy equipment.

Simultaneously, in a process that was a combination of both art and science, AGIA Affinity bucketed groups of “like” insureds to create the 10 unique product or “transfer configurations” that were needed to support the existing insureds. This mapping effort focused on and minimizing the impact of both benefit and premium changes to the insureds while at the same time accommodating any changes required by the Affordable Care Act. This cross-department effort incorporated feedback from all departments with a special emphasis placed on Marketing, Claims, and the Member Benefits Center to ensure that the most important benefits to the insureds were included in the different transfer configurations.

While AGIA Affinity geared up for the technical logistics of the actual transition, we also created communication pieces for the insureds to outline and explain the benefit changes, why these changes were occurring, and what these changes meant to the insureds. Additionally, the Member Benefits team was equipped with the appropriate materials to help answer any questions that may arise from members throughout the transition process. Member Benefits Advisors were also armed with the necessary tools to address any potential escalation or member confusion as a result of the transition. These tools included but were not limited to an extended grace period during the re-issue process, a money back guarantee for any insureds who wanted more time to review their benefits, and in several cases even forgiving premium at AGIA’s expense to resolve issues where we may have fallen short of the customer service levels our insureds have come to know and expect from AGIA through the years.

The Result

  • 275 unique Cancer Care Master Policies across 30+ clients successfully consolidated into 10 Transfer Configurations
  • Product approval in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia so no insureds needed to be terminated without a new home for their product
  • Target persistency rates achieved for the 120,000 Cancer Insureds insured with no spike in attrition as a result of the transition
  • Program Transitions including HIP, AD, Travel Accident and Term Life in addition to Cancer Care successfully completed on schedule and prior to the deadline
  • Premium levels maintained across all clients and all products

Admin only? Yeah, we do that too!

 

The Challenge

While AGIA Affinity offers a full range of administrative and marketing services that we can bring to any Program Transition, we also support very specific program needs such as administrative only services. We recently had the opportunity to implement a large Program Transition for a client where the incumbent marketer and Insurance Company remained the same and only the Third Party Administrator duties were transitioning to AGIA. The client was looking to improve their administrative services while at the same time taking the opportunity to clean up and modernize a large legacy block of business. This Program Transition involved roughly 60,000 paid insureds across 233 different product variations that were based on 62 different Master Policies. Additionally, their current Administrative Agreement was set to run out in less than 7 months so we were working with a very tight timeline.

The Solution

Based on past experience, AGIA Affinity immediately recognized the need to modernize and clean-up the legacy block vs. recreating the spaghetti that existing with the current Administrator. To further complicate the matter, the client had gone through multiple Program Transitions with multiple Administrators over the past 10 years which resulted in a less than ideal and rather messy transition file. This meant that a simpler approach of a “lift and land” was not a viable option for this Program Transition. And, given the hard deadline for transition it quickly became apparent that a very unique approach would be needed in order to successfully implement this Program Transition. To that end, AGIA Affinity developed a detailed and robust Project Plan to address the specific challenges of this transition that involved the following highlights:

  1. Prioritization of the activities and tasks that needed to occur prior to the transition date accompanied by de-prioritization and de-scoping of items that could wait until after the transition date
  2. Tailored communication levels to ensure that all parties were on the same page with the aforementioned scoping, re-scoping, and de-scoping activities and to match the ebb and flow that accompanies any Program Transition
  3. Consistent and reliable documentation of Project Artifacts supported by a detailed Decision Log to ensure that all relevant conclusions and resolutions could be referenced throughout the Program Transition even after the team had moved on to the next phase of tasks and deliverables
  4. An aggressive but thorough Warranty Period in order to address any items or deliverables that had been de-scoped from the pre-transition timeline to ensure that these efforts could be completed through a “fast follow” with as minimal external impact to the insureds as possible
  5. Establishment and buy-in from all parties for the underlying theme to “Flex, flex again, and flex some more” in regards to the business need for agility and flexibility to address the ever-changing landscape of an incredibly complex Program Transition

The Result

  • Project Plan and deliverables completed in advance of the aggressive Program Transition timeline
  • Solid foundation and working relationship between all parties to the future benefit of the program
  • Premium levels maintained across all products
  • Target persistency rates achieved for all products with no spike in attrition as a result of the transition
  • Legacy block cleaned up and modernized and the spaghetti from the prior transitions unwound to the benefit of all parties including the insureds in particular

Ready to have
a conversation
about your affinity program?

  • AGIA California
  • 1155 Eugenia Place
  • Carpinteria, CA 93013-2062