After the sale: from quote form to claim

A configured product is half the story. This post follows it out into the business: how clients are asked for a quote, how a plan is bought, and what happens to the policy afterwards (payment, premium finance, commission, renewal and claims). Like pricing, all of it is configuration, the same for every class of business and every insurer.

One question form per class of business

Each class (private motor, travel, medical, domestic, personal accident and more) has one standard quote form, the same for every insurer. Each product says how it answers that form (configure a product), which is what lets one quote compare every insurer’s price.

• Nothing personal before prices. A form can’t ask for a name, an ID or a contact before the prices page, and a product can’t need one to price.
• Conditional questions are asked only when an earlier answer calls for them (the contents value only when contents are covered), and their answers are dropped otherwise.
• Search-and-pick lists (makes and models, counties, regions) are versioned platform content, searched a page at a time.
• Price cards show up to four highlights from each plan’s covers: the medical limit, the excess, a waiting period.
• Documents and declarations are named by the form, so buying asks for the right ID copy or logbook and the right wording.

Buying a plan

1. 1

   Choose a price

   The quote is run again and recorded. The price is held for the form’s hold period, 14 days by default; if it changed since the comparison, the buyer is told.

2. 2

   Your details

   A person or a company, with identifiers checked. Staff pick an existing client or add one; a signed-in client buys as themselves; a visitor’s details stay on the application until the policy is booked.

3. 3

   The class’s own details

   The proposal questions, step by step, completing the list priced (the travellers priced by age are now named).

4. 4

   Documents

   One upload per requirement; required ones must be in before submitting.

5. 5

   Review and submit

   Declarations confirmed. Personal answers are sealed (encrypted at rest) and never stored in clear.

Staff do this in the console on a client’s behalf, or send the prices by link; clients do it on the organisation’s own storefront, signed in or not.

Referrals

When a product’s rules refer a quote (a car above a value, a senior traveller outside the allowed zones) the submitted application goes to the product owner’s underwriting queue, with the answers, the reasons and the price. The underwriter accepts it, at the quoted premium or another, or declines it with a reason. Accepted, it is booked at once and the buyer is asked to pay; declined, the seller and buyer see why.

Booking

The form says how a bought plan becomes a policy: which answers start and end cover (travel runs from departure to return), the term when nothing ends it (twelve months by default), and which amounts add up to the sum insured (a car insures its value). A policy bought online is booked through the same path as one booked by hand.

A policy’s life

DRAFT ──submit──▶ PENDING_PAYMENT ──activate──▶ ACTIVE ──▶ CANCELLED | LAPSED | EXPIRED | RENEWED

• Cash before cover. A policy goes into force once its premium is paid in full, or financed with the deposit in. Overriding that needs a separate permission and a reason, and is shown on the policy.
• Terms change only before it is in force. After that only the insurer’s policy number and notes change.
• Cancelling needs a reason and a date within the term; lapsing needs a reason.
• Every change is in its history, with who and when.
• Agents see their own book. Someone without the whole-book permission works only on the policies they service; a colleague’s answers “not found”.

Payments

• Receipts record what a client paid the insurer, by M-Pesa, bank or otherwise, against the policy.
• M-Pesa prompts. Set up a channel per insurer (its paybill or till, with credentials kept in a vault, never in the database), then send a payment prompt to the client’s phone from the policy. The provider’s callback, or a status check, records the receipt once. A prompt nobody answers expires after 15 minutes.
• Statements can be imported to record many payments at once.
• Clients pay from their portal, which shows what they owe across every organisation they deal with.

Premium finance

A financier (the agency itself, the insurer, a bank or finance company) offers terms: a deposit, a number of instalments, a rate on a flat or reducing-balance basis, fees, a smallest premium, per insurer or class and dated. Choose terms on a policy and the schedule is worked out to the cent; or enter the financier’s own schedule, which must repay exactly what is financed.

• FLAT: interest on the whole amount for the whole term, spread evenly.
• REDUCING_BALANCE: interest on what is still owed, in level instalments.
• The deposit in makes the premium FINANCED, so the policy can go into force.
• Instalments are asked for by M-Pesa prompt like any premium; arrears and default are tracked.

Commission

The rate is the one set on that policy, if any; else the configured rate for its insurer in force on its start date, the most specific winning (its product, then its class, then any); else none until one is set. Statements can be imported, and agents see the commission on their own book.

Renewals

• Reminder windows per organisation: one to five, 60, 30 and 14 days before the end by default, to the servicing agent and, if you choose, the client.
• Renew books the next term as a linked draft from the day after the policy ends, cover and agent copied, the premium ready to change.
• Not renewing stops the reminders, with a reason.
• A daily sweep marks policies past their term RENEWED if their renewal is in force, EXPIRED otherwise.

Claims

REPORTED ──submit──▶ SUBMITTED ──review──▶ UNDER_REVIEW ──approve──▶ APPROVED ──settle──▶ SETTLED
SUBMITTED / UNDER_REVIEW ──reject──▶ REJECTED
REPORTED … APPROVED ──withdraw──▶ WITHDRAWN

A claim is logged on a policy that was in force, for an incident inside its cover, with a claim type your organisation configures. The insurer decides; the log records what it said and when, with amounts. A client can follow the claims shared with them in their portal.

Around all of it

• Documents attach to a client, a policy, a payment or a claim, and follow it when it moves to another agent.
• Leads follow a prospect from new to won (a client) or lost, with sources you configure.
• Book import brings an existing book of clients and policies from a workbook: every row checked first, all saved or none.
• Insurers see their business by agreement: an insurer can be shared, read-only, the policies distributors place on its cover.
• Features are released per organisation, so each part above can go live for some organisations before others.