Looking to India
For Roach Howard Smith & Barton (RHSB), based in Dallas with branches in Fort Worth and San Antonio, an outsourcing firm called Patra offered an attractive solution to the agency’s back-office issues. About 70% of the agency’s revenue is generated by commercial accounts, and outsourcing provides the staff the opportunity to meet a key objective: to establish and maintain “high touch” relationships with business clients.
“We started exploring outsourcing options about three or four years ago,” says John Losurdo, partner and chief operating officer of RHSB. “Our interest really picked up steam when some of our Assurex partners shared their experiences with outsourcing using different firms.”
Because the majority of RHSB’s business is commercial accounts, a key objective for the agency is to establish and maintain what Losurdo calls “high touch” relationships with clients.
After researching a number of outsourcing firms, RHSB chose Patra Corporation and began outsourcing workflows to a team in India in October 2009. Founded in 2005 and endorsed by the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, Patra’s headquarters are in Novato, California. Most processing functions are handled at its location in Vizag, India, by employees who are fluent in English and formally educated in business and technology. Like ReSource Pro, Patra provides services to MGAs, carriers, and retail agencies.
“We chose Patra because of their experience and expertise and because they could deliver cost-effective solutions for our needs,” Losurdo says. RHSB has relationships with a number of third-party vendors that involve data sharing, and Losurdo is experienced in verifying the credentials of such partners. “With Patra, I’m satisfied that our data is protected,” he says.
Building communication
Another key concern that agents have about outsourcing is the challenge posed by differences in culture and language. Employees in China and India may speak excellent English, but American English is chock full of idioms and phrases from other languages that simply don’t translate for those for whom English is a second language.
“For every process we want to outsource, we write up a highly detailed workflow,” Losurdo says. “We give our team a checklist for each workflow so they can be sure they’ve completed each of the required steps. With this approach, we don’t really lose anything in translation. Patra made it clear to us that where their office is located in India, they are considered the employer of choice.
“The majority of India’s population is relatively young, and all of Patra’s employees are college educated. Of course we sometimes have language issues, but the detailed written workflows are a powerful tool for ensuring clear communication with our team,” Losurdo declares.
“We’ve been fully ramped up with our Patra team since about June of this year, and right now they’re doing primarily policy checking for two of the commercial P-C departments,” he says. “With coordination through our risk services department, they are also ordering loss runs for our risk management accounts. This information is summarized by the risk services department and used for both marketing and client presentation purposes.
“Outsourcing these back-office functions plays a key role in our agency’s transition from a manual/paper delivery model to our online Virtual Risk Manager platform, which allows us to deliver all of our products and services to our clients electronically,” Losurdo continues. “We’re excited about our partnership with Patra and the opportunity it gives our staff to connect more effectively with our clients.”
Summing up
Not so long ago, agency principals and other business owners viewed the outsourcing of back-office functions as a murky and possibly dangerous enterprise. They worried about possible loss or theft of vital data, bungling of processes, and alienation of valued clients. Today those concerns have been largely put to rest by the emergence of competent, disciplined outsourcing firms that understand the insurance business and can relieve agencies of their growing burden of back-office functions.
