The Hanover's New Billing System Adds Value for Agents, Customers

The Hanover Insurance Group (Worcester, Mass) has launched what it calls a distinctive new billing system. Based on Guidewire's BillingCenter offering, the new system delivers a variety of state-of-the-art features and frees agents from a significant time burden associated with answering customer calls about billing.

According to The Hanover's CIO Greg Tranter, agents formerly spent nearly 50% of their time answering customer questions. He describes the new system as an industry-leading platform that demonstrates the company's commitment to extraordinary service and innovation.

“In our industry, billing is the single largest source of customer complaints and therefore one of the most visible and important touch points for our company to help our agent partners do business more efficiently," Tranter adds. "We believe that the investment in our new billing platform has enormous potential to further improve customer satisfaction and our agency operations.”

[For I&T's related interview with Hanover CIO Greg Tranter, see: Q&A: The Hanover Boosts Service, Efficiency With New Billing System.]

The system lets agents work with their customers to create a customized experience, a statement from The Hanover claims. Among the benefits are the following, according to the statement:

• Combined billing options, enables business and personal insurance policyholders who wish to consolidate their Hanover policies within a single bill. The result is less paper, less confusion, and just one Hanover bill to track and one payment to remember.

• Flexible payment dates, empowers policyholders to choose a due date for their premium that works best for them. With this option premium due dates no longer have to coincide with a policy’s effective date. This is convenient for customers who can better align billing dates with their needs.

• More bill payment plans give more options to policyholders, including monthly and bi-monthly billing, one-time payments and more. Each customer has different needs, and the choice of plans provides options and flexibility.

• Convenient ways to pay, whether customers want to make payment online 24/7 at hanover.com, sign-up for automatic, recurring payments from a bank account, use a credit card, debit or e-check, the new system makes it simple and easy.

• Important facts at a glance to help agents and customers when viewing a policyholder’s bill online or on paper find important information such as recent transactions, and amount due. Enabling quick and accurate status updates, eliminates a common area of frustration.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio