Basic Concept

Intermediary or producer plays an important role in facilitating insurance business with end user. It is a very important capability for any insurance related operation to be able to maintain such producer information and search out them.

User Scenario

For anybody who wants to use our platform to maintain sales channel.

Sales Channel Concept

Sales channel refers to the way through which the insurance products are conducted from insurance company to the insured.

According to whether there are middlemen, insurance sales channels can be divided into direct sales channels and indirect sales channels.

• Direct Sales Channel

Direct sales channel, also known as direct selling system, means that insurance companies employ the business personnel who receive salaries to directly provide insurance consumers with various types of insurance sales and services.

• Indirect Sales Channel

Indirect sales channel, also known as intermediary system, refers to the way that insurance companies promote insurance products through intermediary agencies such as insurance agents and insurance brokers. The insurance intermediary can’t really take the insurance responsibility on behalf of the insurer, but can only participate in, handle, promote or provide specialized technical services and other insurance activities, so as to promote the sales of insurance products.

Usually, we only need to configure one dummy channel for direct sales channel, while for indirect sales channel, we need to configure all of them in order to be able to calculate commission and conduct performance evaluation.

Sales Channel Management

Search

Log in to the home page of InsureMO and click Sales Channel on the left menu bar. Then click Maintain Producer.

Search Filters:

Result Columns:

User can search for and view any sales channel. Producer Code in the search results is a clickable link that navigates to the detail view.

The detail page has three tabs: Information, Agreement Maintenance, License Info. Field details vary by Producer Category (Individual Agent vs Agent Company) — see the Add Sales Channel section below.

Add Sales Channel

Click Add to add a sales channel. User can choose Individual Agent or Agent Company. Take Individual Agent for example.

Create Producer Modal:

Basic Information

In Information, user can fill in the basic information of sales channel including contact and account information.

Individual Agent - Information Tab Fields:

Producer Category Info:

Personal Information:

Agent Company - differs in Basic Information section:

Both types share the same Producer Category Info fields, Bank Account section, and footer actions (Approve, Submit, Reject, Exit).

License Information

Click License Info to add license information.

License Info Tab Fields:

Add Agreement

Click Agreement Maintenance to add agreement code.
Complete the required items and click Send to Approval.
Check whether Agreement Status is Waiting for Approval.

Agreement Information:

Commission Definition:

Agreement Authority:

After sending to approval, the agreement status changes to Waiting for Approval in the list view.

Agreement Approval

Click Agreement Approval menu, search for the agreement code, and user can reject or approve it.

• Click Cancel: Close the page.
  
• Click Reject: Reject the agreement code.
  
• Click Approve: Approve the agreement code.

The Agreement Approval page is accessible via Sales Channel > Agreement Approval menu. The approval modal shows the same agreement details (read-only) with actions: Reject, Approve, Cancel.

Check Agreement Status

Back to Maintain Producer, search for the sales channel and check the Agreement Status in Agreement Maintenance.

• To reject the agreement code, check whether the Agreement Status has changed to Rejection.
  
• To approve the agreement code, check whether the Agreement Status has changed to Valid.

After approval, the agreement status changes to Valid.

Check Producer Status

Click the button in the lower right corner.
In Information, user can check the Producer Status.

• Click Exit: Return to Sales Channel homepage.
  
• Click Submit: Save the information. Producer Status is still In Setup Process.
  
• Click Reject: Reject the sales channel. Producer Status changes to Rejected.
  User can modify the information according to the Reject Reason in Internal Information, and change the Producer Status to In Setup Process.

Clicking Reject opens a Reject Reason modal requiring a reason to be entered before submission.

Producer Status changes to Rejected after rejection.

• Click Approve: Approve the agreement code. Change Producer Status to Active.
  There is a prerequisite for clicking Approve that a valid agreement code is compulsory. There will be corresponding system message.
  If the producer leaves later or other situation happens, user can change the Producer Status accordingly.

Prerequisite for approval: a valid agreement code is required. After approval, Producer Status changes to Active.

Producer Status Values:

Status Lifecycle

Producer Status Lifecycle

[Created] → In Setup Progress ──→ Active ──→ Terminated
                             ↘ Rejected     ↘ Suspended
                                            ↘ Legal

Agreement Status Lifecycle

[Created] → Invalid/Editing → Waiting for Approval ──→ Valid
                                                    ↘ Rejected

Commission Management

Commission management has been moved to a dedicated document: Commission Management.

FAQ

1. If I want to search for sales channel from my application, how can I do it?

At platform level, we provide an API “/saleschannel/channel/searchSCList” for the runtime application to search for sales channel. There usually can be two scenarios to search for sales channel from runtime:

• If it’s for the policy query screen, it needs to capture all sales channel except those still pending for creation.

  Below is a sample JSON request to capture:

{
    "relatedConditionMap": {
        "pageNo": 1,
        "pageSize": 1000
    },
    "searchCondition": {
        "Conditions": {},
        "FuzzyConditions": {},
        "OrFuzzyConditions": {
            "PartyName": "abc",
            "PartyCode": "abc"
        },
        "FromRangeConditions": {},
        "ToRangeConditions": {},
        "orInConditions": {
            "ScStatus": [
                1,
                3,
                4,
                5
            ]
        },
        "PageNo": 1,
        "PageSize": 1000,
        "SortField": "index_time",
        "SortType": "desc",
        "Module": "SalesChannel"
    }
}

• If it’s for the policy entry screen, it’s necessary to only search for effective sales channel but not all that might include conditions such as:

1. Whether sales channel status is effective.
2. Whether sales channel has the agreement whose status is effective.
3. Whether the agreement is within the effective period.
4. Whether the agreement has valid product authority.

Below is a sample JSON request to capture:

{
    "relatedConditionMap": {
        "pageNo": 1,
        "pageSize": 1000,
        "productCode": "PRPCON",
        "productLineCode": -9,
        "effectiveDate": "2023-03-24T00:00:00"
    },
    "searchCondition": {
        "Conditions": {},
        "FuzzyConditions": {},
        "OrFuzzyConditions": {
            "PartyName": "abc",
            "PartyCode": "abc"
        },
        "FromRangeConditions": {},
        "ToRangeConditions": {},
        "orInConditions": {
            "ScStatus": [
                1
            ]
        },
        "PageNo": 1,
        "PageSize": 1000,
        "SortField": "index_time",
        "SortType": "desc",
        "Module": "SalesChannel"
    }
}