Agency Management System Helps Mitigate E&O Risks
Build a permanent email trail with Partner XE’s Outlook Integration feature
Email is great, right? It is faster, cheaper and more environmentally sustainable than snail mail, it doesn’t take up any space in a filing cabinet and it’s easy to stick it in a folder in Outlook and find it later when you need it. While the above is true, what many don’t take into consideration is that computers are not infallible. If a machine decides to die on you, there is a possibility that you’ll lose the files for good. What is also true is that messages sent via email can be subpoenaed. In today’s litigious society, a permanent email trail is a necessity.
Several years ago in his Rough Notes article entitled E-mail: Risky business? John Chivvis quoted Jon Neiditz, an attorney and risk management expert for the Chicago-based law firm of Lord, Bissell & Brook, as saying, “Some business owners don’t realize that e-mail messages are not the same as spoken words, but in fact are treated by courts and regulators as documents…What’s more, many e-mails are not only documents but business records, too, and therefore subject to record retention requirements.”
If your machine has crashed and you can’t pull up the old files it can lead to big problems. In an industry like insurance, poor archiving and lack of a permanent email trail can open doors to legal risks.
Risk mitigation with Partner XE
Fortunately for agencies using the Partner XE agency management system from SIS, the Outlook integration feature that comes with it goes a long way to helping them build a permanent, easily accessible “paper trail” of email communications.
“Emails and protecting them is something that Partner XE can help with in a big way,” said Bryce Lee, National Accounts Manager-Technical Services for SIS.
“When agents use the Outlook integration feature and attach their emails to a client file within the Partner XE system, they are then stored as permanent records and that cannot be deleted or altered.”
Not only does the Outlook integration feature in Partner XE help diminish E&O risk, it also helps with inbox clutter. Once attached to the client file, the email can be deleted from Outlook and Partner XE will still store that email as a permanent record.
Because Partner XE is an online hosted system with redundant backups and secure servers housed off-site at an impregnable data center with around the clock physical security there is no need to worry about your computer crashing or natural disaster striking. Your email messages, along with the rest of your client data, will be safe and secure.
Find out why so many agencies have been switching to the Partner XE insurance agency management system from SIS. Call 800-747-9273 or click here to get in touch with a representative.
