Despite its benefits relating to saving time, money, and compliance hassles, only 5% of Canadian brokers have implemented an e-signature solution in their daily operations, according to Catherine Smola, president and CEO of Centre for Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO).
This low adoption rate can be attributed to several misconceptions about the product, including the common myth that digital signatures are not legally valid. Service providers are hoping to dispel several of these myths.
“We do hear from people who are skeptical about the technology and ask questions about whether it’s a legal signature,” said Joe Floyd, founder of InsureSign, the only platform specifically designed for the insurance industry. “I point out that what you’ve done until now is fax or email scanned documents, but that’s extremely easy to forge, alter and change.
E-signature programs, on the other hand, time stamp activity while tracking the IP address of every machine and device that ever accessed their forms. It also features such safety provisions as password safeguards and text message verification.
In addition to this added security, electronic signatures hold other advantages for brokers hoping to remain compliant. One provider, for example, requires its users to sign and initial every page, and cannot be submitted otherwise. In addition, it routinely updates to the cloud in case the user’s computer or mobile device crashes.
Finally, clients can sign forms instantaneously and from almost any location. Floyd has heard of customers completing their documents in such unconventional locales as boats, airplanes and while stuck in rush hour traffic.
“We have a lot of agencies who agree to try it, and once they have customers using it, they never want to go back to telling customers ‘print this out, sign it, then fax it back and shred it,” he said.
Brokers who are interested in learning more about this technology can also view CSIO's eSignatures Vendor Dashboard
here and informational videos
here.
