Five things you should know before selecting a BPO partner

By Contributor
Sep 19, 2009
07:54 PM ET
By Lisa Hastings, Kaplan Compliance Solutions

In today’s environment, insurance carriers face growing pressure from regulators relating to producer licensing and market conduct issues. Carriers are questioning whether it is enough to be merely compliance-competent. To adopt industry leading best practices and achieve service excellence, the resources of a Business Process Outsource specialist are essential.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), the end-to-end outsourcing of a business line or process, can boost business performance by reducing costs, increasing the quality of processes, accelerating transformation throughout a business, creating a more flexible response to sudden external stresses, or through a combination of several benefits.

While this sounds ideal, below are five things you should look for in a BPO partner if your company is considering outsourcing a process or an entire business line:

1. SAS 70 certification. This certification (technically an opinion letter) signifies that a service organization or provider has adequate controls and safeguards in place when they host or process data belonging to their customers. Developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), SAS 70 reports are critical to companies that use web-based software applications and are involved in exchanging confidential information. The SAS 70 audit report both documents and attests to the adequacy and completeness of the SAS vendor’s internal controls for protecting data. You should require a level II which ensures the stated controls have also been thoroughly tested.

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