As part of its efforts to recover from allegations of fraud, HR service company Zenefits announced Tuesday that it has launched a cloud-based application that would ensure that only licensed agents can sell insurance products.
The app was built on the Salesforce App Cloud, reported GeekWire. Zenefits has been using the app internally since February to ensure that over 250 of the company’s brokers and advisors meet licensing standards.
Zenefits’ app works by automatically verifying brokers’ or advisors’ licensing status. It also prevents their assignment to an account if they do not have a valid insurance license from the respective state they are operating in. The app receives a feed from the regularly-updated National Insurance Producer Registry producer database to ensure that the licensing information is always up-to-date.
Notably, if a broker or advisor’s license is not renewed in time, the app prevents the user from closing transactions.
“[The app is] a smart solution, especially for a large organization with many licensed agents,” said California Association of Health Underwriters Michael Lujan in a release.
The app will be made available this fall at no extra charge to insurance brokerages across the country.
In late 2015, Zenefits was exposed for having failed to enforce legal requirements that anyone selling a health-insurance policy should have the requisite state license to do so. On February 2016, BuzzFeed reported that the company helped insurance brokers falsify their mandatory online training. In the same month, CEO Parker Conrad was forced to resign and approximately 12% of the staff left the company or were laid off.
