Overview
Policies are a record type for storing product and plan information on your book of business. Policies are a key part of commission processing in AMS+. Every commission received is associated to a policy. Policies also help you find missed commissions and make projections that inform your decision-making processes. Learn more about policies in this article.
IN THIS ARTICLE
Creating Policies
There are many different ways to create policies in AMS+, including data imports, lead forms, and API. Some third-party integrations can also create policies.
Here is how to create a Policy from a Group or Individual record:
- Create a new Group or Individual record, or find an existing one.
To create a Policy, you must associate it with a Group or Individual record. - Go to the Policies tab and select “Add New”.
- Fill out the required fields.
You will have the option to add a coverage now or later, after the Policy has been created. - Save.
Congrats! You’ve created a Policy record. Now, you will want to go to the Policy and fill in more details. In particular, the premium amount.
You can also create Policy records using the +New button in the AMS+ header, from the right-hand summary of Groups or Individuals, or from the Policies page.
Once you have some Policy records, you can:
- Track coverage and plan information for your Group records.
- Track coverage and plan information for your Individual records.
- Process commissions in AMS+. Notably, find missed commissions.
- Run reports to download comprehensive data on your Policies.
- Build email campaigns to send mass communications from AMS+ to policyholders, Group Policy primary contacts, or Group Policy enrollments.
- Set up workflows to automatically create activities or send emails to the policyholder, the policyholder’s servicing agent, the Policy’s servicing agent, or the Policy’s account manager when certain conditions are met.
Deleting Policies
You can't delete a Policy record if it is associated with:
- Commissions. We recommend moving any commission payments to another Policy. This is to ensure you don’t lose any financial or historical payment data.
- Incomplete activities.
If it’s a Group Policy, it’s good practice to check and make sure it doesn’t have any enrollments because that data will be deleted as well.
Data tracked by Policies
Every Policy record is associated with a Group or Individual record. The record is the policyholder and affects the available fields and tabs for enrollments and elections.
Policies are also important for importing commission statements into AMS+. Imported statements are matched to Policy records by policy number or commission number. Both numbers are stored on the Policy record. You can change how statements are matched in carrier setup.
Group Policy |
Individual Policy |
- Policy Detail - Store policy dates, coverage type, premiums, and status specific to the Policy record. If associated with an Individual record, you can add election data to track who is covered, such as spouse and children, for your individual business. Create custom fields to track data unique to your agency and customize the options in dropdown menus.
- Coverages - Track detailed information on the Policy’s coverages and associated carrier products. Change field sets to track different plan information.
- Enrollments (Group policies only) - Add and track enrollments for a Group’s employees (Individuals associated with the Group).
- Commissions (accounts with the Commission Processing module only) - View a Policy’s payment history, projections, payees, and settings. Please note, the data on this tab is in commission processing.
- Activities - A list of assigned to-dos and reminders that are related to the Policy through its Individual or Group policyholder. Activities also serve as a source of historical data because they cannot be altered or deleted.
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Emails - If your agency activated Automated Workflow or Email Marketing, you will see all email traffic related to the Policy. You may find this helpful for previewing:
- Emails that were sent to the policyholder, servicing agent, account manager, primary contact (Group Policy only), associated Group Individuals (Group Policy only), or a user that was associated with the Policy, using Automated Workflow or Email Marketing.
- Active, pending, and completed Email Marketing campaigns that include the policyholder, primary contact (Group Policy only), or associated Group Individuals (Group Policy only).
- Notes & Attachments - A list of notes and attachments associated with the Policy. You can pin a note to display it at the top of the list and add it to the Policy summary for quick and easy access.
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Workflows - If your agency activated Automated Workflow, you will see all workflow activity for the Policy. You may find this helpful for previewing:
- Activities that were created for a Group or Individual and related to the Policy.
- Emails that were sent to the policyholder, the policyholder servicing agent, the Policy servicing agent, the Policy account manager, or a user that was associated with the Policy.
- Policy Summary - Shows important policy dates, commission details, payees, open activities, and pinned note.
Tracking premiums on Policies
There are many practical reasons for tracking policy premiums in AMS+—for example, it's quick and easy to reference if a client calls. It's also important if you use Commissions+, and you pay out splits using the % of Premium rate type. For AMS+ to calculate the splits, you must be tracking the premium amount on your Policy records.
In most cases, you'll only need to store the premium amount on the Policy > Detail tab.
You can add additional information about the premium to the Notes field. This might include information about the premium history, what it was the previous year, and other important details.
You can also store premium amounts for specific policy coverages on the Policy > Coverages tab.
Note: The premium on coverages is not used in commission processing.