WinsurTech Blog | Insurance Concepts and Practical Solutions

STARR has a full form in insurance. It is Share, Transfer, Avoid, Reduce and Retain. STARR is related to Risk Management. One can share risk (like group insurance so that risk is divided among the members and loss of individual goes down), transfer risk (like buying a comprehensive insurance policy and transfer the risk to insurance company), avoid risk (like living without the article to be insured), reduce risk (by taking appropriate measures so that risk of loss goes down – for example by following traffic rules while driving) and retain the risk (which means not buying an insurance policy and […]

Avoiding Risk is very different from Reducing Risk. Let’s understand it with an example. Suppose James has a car and has an insurance policy for it. James double checks everyday that the car is in perfect condition. He ensures that air pressure in the tires is appropriate, brake oil, engine oil, oil filter, front and back lights, car battery etc are always well maintained. James also drives the car following all the traffic rules to the best of his ability and remains extra vigilant to avoid accident even if someone else on the road makes mistake. What is James […]

In Insurance, a Hazard is something that increases the risk of occurrence of loss. For example driving recklessly, living near the forest that catches fire every summer, bad intentions to claim insurance are examples of different types of hazards. Moral hazards are intentional claims with bad intent like projecting higher than actual loss, intentionally burning poor crop to claim insurance etc. Morale hazards are which increase the risk due to unsafe acts of the person although person is not intentionally trying to cause the damage to claim money from insurance company. Morale hazards arise out of an insured’s indifference […]

Risk is the uncertainty that a loss may occur. Pure Risk mean it is certain that gain cannot be made out of the situation – only loss or no loss will occur. Like death in accident is a pure risk. Speculative risk is that a loss, no loss or gain – all 3 are possible. Like in gambling or stock market investments all 3 are possible so risk in these is an example of speculative risk. Pure risk can be insured by speculative risk cannot be insured […]

Anybody who produces sales of insurance products is a Producer or Insurance Agent. But based on their mode of working, they can be classified into different types.

Independent Insurance Producers

Independent Insurance Producers are not bound to selling insurance products of a single insurance company. They generally sell insurance products of several insurance companies and get commission for each sale from the insurance company. They figure out the best product for their client irrespective of the insurance company and suggest the same. At renewal time also they look for the best option for their client and may switch […]

Property and Casualty insurance (or P & C as it is usually called), are the types of insurance that cover the following:

Property – Property insurance protects the insured against financial consequences of damage to the property of every kind that is insured like building, automobile, marine etc.

Casualty – Casualty insurance protects the insured against the financial consequences of legal liability – like death, injury or disability to another person due to accident in which insured is found at fault. It also includes protecting against the cost of repair to the affected person’s property. For example in a car accident if […]

Suppose someone has a medical insurance policy from an insurer. He visits hospital and bill is of $25. He claims it from the insurance company. Company pays but they incur $400 on the formalities (paperwork for example) to grant $25. Hence it costs the company $425. From where these $400 be recovered? One way to recover such expenses is to raise the policy premium, but that would mean raising the expenses for the customer (or losing potential customers). An alternative for insurance company is to tell the customer upfront at the time of policy purchase that small expenses up to […]

Policy Downloads is the process of bringing policy related information and transaction details from Insurance Carriers into agency management system in use by the agency. An insurance agency can sell policies of several different insurance carriers (like Hartford, Progressive etc). Insurance policies also undergo changes from time to time like renewals, cancellation, reinstatement, endorsements etc. These are the transactions. This list of transactions is recorded at insurance company’s end (carrier’s end). How to bring this information from each carrier and consolidate into Insurance agency’s database or CRM or agency management system? This requirement is called as Policy […]

When polices are downloaded from carriers (like through IVANS downloads, EBix Team-up Downloads or other 3rd party download applications) what should be done with each policy? Basically policy download actually means policy transactions download. Each downloaded record is a transaction related to a policy. For example policy Renewal (RWL – renewal of an existing policy), Non-Renewal (RWX – user decides to not to renew an existing policy), New Business Issue (NBS – new policy), Rewrite (REW – cancelling and rewriting an existing policy with modifications), Cancellation (XLC – cancel existing ongoing policy), Policy Change (PCH – endorsements or changes to an existing policy) or […]