This has become a very time consuming problem for our agency. If a bank or mortgage company is listed as the lienholder or mortgagee they get a copy of the policy and any correspondence that goes to the insured. But, we still get calls everyday from someone in India wanting us to fax or email a dec page. When I first tell them I will, then they ask me to verify all the information. The will ask the name, the address, the effective date, the policy number, the annual premium so I started asking them if you already have the information why are you asking me to send a dec page? I have started telling them to fax me a written request and I will reply. If I could I would charge a fee and request a fee of $25 for this aggravation, but the Georgia Insurance Department won't allow an agent to charge a fee, but go to the bank to get a loan and look on the note and you will see a $250 or higher fee to make the loan.
Mortgage Companies and the Insanity that is the Fax
- Thread starter marindependent
- Start date
- 6,472
Old thread bump.
I am not an agent.
As a consumer, in the modern environment of purchasing insurance products, a variant of this discussion is communication of confidential personal financial information with an "out of town" insurance agent.
Are there confidential or encrypted email tools you can comment about that might be financially viable for an individual of modest means who cannot amortize the cost of a communication solution over lots and lots of clients?
Thanks in advance for any comments you would care to make.
I am not an agent.
As a consumer, in the modern environment of purchasing insurance products, a variant of this discussion is communication of confidential personal financial information with an "out of town" insurance agent.
Are there confidential or encrypted email tools you can comment about that might be financially viable for an individual of modest means who cannot amortize the cost of a communication solution over lots and lots of clients?
Thanks in advance for any comments you would care to make.
I don't know that you need to get too crazy with this stuff (as a consumer) but there are a lot of free/inexpensive email encryption tools out there:
[EXTERNAL LINK] - The Best Email Encryption Services for 2023
I can only tell you how I do it but normally, completing an app would be a phone call. Then you're in the carrier's eApp environment so everything goes directly to them (without emailing forms back and forth).
If additional info is needed (tax returns, personal health history, banking info etc.), then we normally send the client a secure link to our digital storage system which is HIPAA compliant and very secure. We can then securely send that information to the carrier.
Most clients aren't going to have sophisticated encryption/cyber security so we don't want the public just sending us stuff and also don't want the process to be onerous.
This process works pretty well for my clients.
Tahoe Ray, I think you are talking about a health policy. The post started about homeowner coverage where a policy has been issued and "put to bed", but then the mortgage company calls the agent to verify coverage and they ask for a declaration page to be faxed to them. This is duplicate work as the mortgage company gets a copy of the policy and a copy of any correspondence sent to the insured including the dec page. The same happens when the policy renews. So, it is a duplication of what has already been sent to the mortgagee. Then the person calling for the dec page ask us to verify the information they already have. The mortgagee has this information because they read it to the agent and ask if it is correct. So, if they have the info why are they calling the agent to get the info again. I am going to stop giving them the info and telling them they already have it and I am not sending it again.
- 6,472
Please note,
He was responding directly to me. I bumped an old thread involving secure communications, asking for agent comments about communication tools between consumers and agents. Iknow my question was NOT specifically on the thread topic. This thread has had no input for over 2 years, so I was not interrupting any current information flow. I have some current consumer information transfer needs and was interested to see how some of the agents posting in this area of insurance handled those things with their clients.
Tahoe Ray's comment went directly to my question.
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