It’s an all-too-common problem in the insurance industry: an employee attempts to log into a carrier’s portal and they can’t remember their password. Or an employee is on vacation and forgot to leave behind their management system log-in credentials for their coworkers.
According to IDFederation.org, insurance professionals consistently rank password management as one of the top pain points in day-to-day operations, resulting in lost productivity and increased vulnerability to security risks.
That’s where federated ID management (FIdM) comes in to address these industry-wide credential management concerns faced by agencies and carriers.
What is federated ID management?
FIdM is a system that links individual users’ electronic identity across multiple management systems, which allows users to quickly move between systems while maintaining security. “Single Sign On,” a subset of FIdM, is an authentication method that allows a user to log in with a single ID and password to any of the several related—yet independent—software systems.
Providing ease of doing business
Any insurance company—carrier or agency--knows how important ease of doing business is for retaining and attracting clients. If a client can’t get access to a website portal in a timely manner, they have to call a customer service representative (up to 75% of help-desk calls are from employees who forgot or need to reset a password). Or worse, they will choose to move on to the next carrier or agency.
Agencies in particular face issues managing multiple log-ins due to their very nature of being a third-party company. In a recent Vertafore Accelerate session, one agency reported having over a thousand usernames and passwords across all employees, carrier partners, vendors, and clients. This number is simply unmanageable, especially as carriers implement more security measures they deem necessary, creating more log-in delays.
Having a FIdM methodology in place is critical for helping insurance agencies eliminate these frustrations and saves customers significant time resetting passwords and making calls.
A necessary security measure
Due to the hundreds of credentials required for daily tasks, insurance professionals are especially at risk for a security breach. As cyber attacks become increasingly common, people can no longer get away with outdated methods such as writing passwords on sticky notes. Likewise, when employees leave a company, leaders have the burden of manually changing passwords or disabling user access since employees likely have all their work-related passwords saved on their phone.
By eliminating the chance of stolen passwords, FIdM increases security of the overall connected systems. Companies can also implement their own level of security with FIdM and have the option of activating tools such as multifactor authentication (MFA), which adds an extra layer of security to online systems and software.
Carrier and agency connectivity at Vertafore
Since 2017, Vertafore has offered FIdM through our partnership with SignOn Once by ID Federation to help customers improve efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, and maintain better overall security.
To hear more insights on the importance of FIdM in the insurance industry, log in or register to watch the on-demand “ID Federation” session during Carrier Week at Accelerate, powered by NetVU.