2022 Q3 Tech Recap

Last quarter, we focused on building out key experiences for both the insured and agent workflows. The below features make it to the top of our list as our biggest accomplishments and the most requested by our agents.

Same day ACH

Waiting for ACH to clear can be a huge pain especially for those policies that you’re trying to bind ASAP. To make it faster for agencies to receive their funds, we launched same day ACH processing. Before, ACH took 3-5 days to process followed by up to 3 days to receive funds. Now, agents can receive funds from ACH payments in as fast as 3 days total.

AMS Integrations

Agents can now create payment links directly in their AMS dashboards. We’ve built two-way integrations with several AMS partners so that insured and policy information is automatically sent to Ascend. Agents just need complete the policy in their AMS, request a payment link, and then a link is automatically generated for their review in their management system. We've launched with NowCerts, HawkSoft, Veruna, and are adding more very soon.

Renewals Workflow

It just takes a couple of clicks to renew existing policies with Ascend. Simply select the ones that are up for renewal, make any adjustments if needed, and resend the payment links to your insureds all within the dashboard. We’ve made this process as easy as possible to save precious time for agents. We’ve also added in notifications ahead of time to let you know which policies are up for renewal.

Flexible Loan Terms

Agents love how premium financing is built right into checkout with Ascend but they told us they needed more control to meet special financing requests from their customers. With this in mind, we added the ability for agents to adjust the downpayment, interest rate, and payment schedule (10, 9, 6, 4, or 2-pay) all from within the dashboard. Agents now have the freedom to easily adjust loans to meet the needs of their customers.

Insured Portal

With Ascend billed policies, our agents no longer have to spend time answering any payment related questions. Agencies now have a single insured portal link where insureds can log in and access their payment history,  download past invoices, and change future payment methods all in one place. They can easily answer all their payment questions without having to reach out to their agent.

On top of all this work, we also:

• created role specific views and permissions for producers, accountants, support, and admins
• allow agents to download invoice PDFs to share to insureds
• made it easy to track in our dashboard the status of wired payments

Stay tuned as we continue to listen to your feedback and build the best payments solution for agencies big and small.