By Alvito Vaz
What do you think of a four-day workweek? Going into the pandemic many countries experimented with alternate work arrangements including having employees work four days instead of five. Although some countries ended this practice, others are legislating this change making it permanent. In the UK the trial ended but it was successful enough for many companies to completely adopt the new schedule.
Often success is not in working harder but in working more efficiently. The insurance industry is risk-averse because managing risk is the business of insurance. However, for cybersecurity we should work together and embrace a new model for efficiency. ID Federation’s SignOn Once process allows your employees to leverage a secure connection from a management system to access multiple carrier websites without having to reenter authentication credentials.
According to a recent survey agency representatives have to use three different authentication methods and enter their credentials at least six times daily for Multi Factor Authentication (MFA). Imagine a world where a single authentication from your management system is used to connect securely to carrier sites and systems. For an agency with 10 representatives this could mean eliminating 60 MFA transactions daily. And think of how much time would be saved when the MFA process is through email and the representative needs to wait for the email to arrive. The principal at one agency with 100 employees estimated eliminating the multiple authentication methods would save him $325,000 each year!! It’s about working smarter to get to that four-day workweek!
Even more important to the industry is the ability to attract new talent. Recognizing the shift in work-life balance and adding efficiency to daily activities could make the four-day workweek feasible. Would this make insurance more attractive than other financial service entities that are mandating a return to traditional in-office schedules? My 22-year-old nephew would say “Yes!” And data would support this as some of the countries — Denmark, Iceland and the Netherlands, for example — participating in the four-day workweek rank highest on the happiness index.
The two leading management systems — Vertafore and Applied Systems -— are members of ID Federation. Leading carriers like The Hartford, Nationwide and MMG Insurance have implemented SignOn Once. Ask your carriers to support your agency with a more efficient authentication framework: SignOn Once.
SignOn Once is ID Federation’s primary initiative. For more information visit www.idfederation.org
