Patra has long worked toward revitalizing operational efficiency and optimizing workflows for insurance organizations by delivering outsourcing services powered by automation and AI. With paper-based processes remaining a constant, ongoing pain point in the insurance industry, Patra was formed to address an urgent need for 24-hour operations support and automation to ease the process of supporting tens of millions of policies every year. Patra’s foundation was in response to this pain point in the insurance sector, aiming to provide outsourced help with insurance experts paired with technology to optimize insurance processes and operations.
Outset of Patra
John Simpson founded Patra Corporation in 2005 to aid insurance organizations seeking outsourcing of workflows and tasks related to managing insurance policies. Patra started its journey by providing an outsourced option for certification issuance and later expanded its services across every aspect of the insurance policy lifecycle, including various workflows and tasks involved in the insurance policy lifecycle. After almost 20 years since its inception, Patra continues to leverage its cloud-based platform, PatraOne, to bolster its 24-hour capabilities. Combined with over 6,500 process executives worldwide, the platform is designed to prioritize, monitor, and distribute millions of client work requests.
Patra Services in a Nutshell
Patra has emerged as the best-in-class outsourcing service and software provider within the insurance sector, catering to Property & Casualty (P&C) and Employee Benefits (EB) insurance organizations in the United States and Canada. Their suite of services gives insurance organizations options for driving revenue growth and assisting in cost containment strategies. Patra’s suite of services can be leveraged in numerous ways, as a single service or in conjunction with other services. Advising clients, Patra builds an outsourcing strategy that spans various organizational needs. Patra’s ‘On-Demand’ services focus on operational tasks such as insurance certificate issuing, accounting & billing, and policy & claim services, and integrate with AMS or DMS platforms used by wholesalers, MGAs, brokers, and carriers. This on-demand offer supports various pricing models, provides 24-hour support, and currently executes over 20 million transactions annually on its clients’ behalf.
‘Patra Select’ service line is specially designed for brokers to help keep the brokers’ Agency as the broker of record, assisting in managing a small book of business and allowing agencies to focus on their insureds. Another offer is ‘Patra Direct,’ an omnichannel global contact center capability that serves carriers, InsurTechs, and MGAs in selling insurance directly to customers. ‘Patra Document’ is their printing and mailing center for organizations needing print or virtual mail support, handling documents for quality checks and virtual mailroom operations. Last is ‘Patra Virtual Assistant’ offering, which provides a full-time, 40-hour-a-week virtual assistant (VA) to assist with various insurance back-office tasks, such as managing policy documents, processing claims, or conducting research.
To augment Patra’s outsourcing is their proprietary and patent-pending technology stack that combines AI with intuitive workflows and comprehensive policy checklists, founding the industry’s first PolicyCheckingAI solution. This software solution has set a new standard for quality, accurate, and efficient policy checking, emerging as the only AI-based self-service delivery. It promises to deliver 99.5% accurate and 80% time-savings in policy checking compared to manual review. With its wide array of services and solutions, Patra provides an end-to-end solution for all stages of the P&C and Employee Benefits insurance policy lifecycle and is backed by their Patra Shield support: SOC 2 and ISO 27001, Errors & Omissions (E&O) coverage, and a globally distributed workforce in democratic countries.
Maiden Voyage
The essence of John Simpson’s entrepreneurship lies in his commitment to offering the best viable solutions for his clients. The voyage for John into the world of entrepreneurship has always been an uphill battle, but as an entrepreneur, John believes a company cannot be all things to all people; delivering the best client service should be the company’s north star. Winning customers’ hearts is an ongoing goal and can be challenging, especially during the COVID years, but the effort is worth the reward. In the end, a client’s recognition and appreciation of your work should be utilized to leverage more work in the future and function as a reference for new business. In the words of the CEO – “Over time, one positive interaction leads to two, and then it builds.” It goes without saying that losing focus can be disastrous for any entrepreneurial venture, as it can lead to losing clients. Still, Patra continuously overcomes growth challenges by infusing every employee with a culture of honesty, integrity, and respect as the guiding light for all employees.
Deploying a Purposeful Venture
The insurance industry continues to evolve and change people’s buying behavior for competitive products and how these products contribute to optimizing the insurance lifecycle. Technology has changed the course of creating, selling, and supporting policies and customer interaction in this sector. Those changes have also led to the transformation of Patra’s operations and service delivery. Patra believes that as an industry leader, its job is to listen to market needs and clients and, in doing so, constantly seek to transform operations and services for clients, leveraging their technology to make Patra a purposeful venture.
Acing Competitiveness
Patra integrated innovation into its DNA since its foundation. The firm constantly stays abreast of industry and market trends to offer industry-leading client services, automation, and, recently, AI to their services suite. The company’s extensive product management and development team pairs well with the sophisticated marketing and sales team, ensuring its success. Through feedback from all levels of the organization, it prioritizes innovations and automation in its services. Their ongoing philosophy of continual testing and trial for existing workflow maturation and the introduction of new competitive offerings allows Patra to bring services worthy of the market at a rapid pace, often with multiple service enhancements in a single year.
With a long history of technological integration, the company supports each client’s desire to scale and grow. Every process executive of Patra utilizes their PatraOne platform to offer quality services to more than 850 clients, 24 hours a day. This platform tracks, manages, and distributes every input, output, and process for managing the work queue, tracking time for each activity, and employing data analytics to identify areas of improvement.
Nurturing an Innovative Culture
John believes in the power of observation and believes that uniquely nurturing employees can achieve success. At Patra, John has built a robust leadership team to empower its decision-making, strategic advancements, and the people surrounding the team. As thousands of employees in the company work from various geographical locations, John encourages a strong employee relationship to share and incorporate their ideas into action. The firm fosters a culture of innovation by asking its frontline employees, “What can we do better?” With a culture of open communication and trust, Patra derives great ideas from their workforce. “We actively seek areas to improve our operational experience and bring those efficiencies to our clients as a value-added service. We can never rest on our laurels.”
Envisioning Future
Over the years, Patra has seen a proliferation of innovative technology and speed of adoption to provide end-point solutions to the insurance lifecycle. As a solution provider, Patra recognizes the need for a suite of AI-powered solutions to solve multiple policy touchpoints and workflows. Patra’s unique AI and automation-driven platform serves this purpose. In envisioning future trends, Patra projects the approach of providing “Human-in-the-Loop” support to fine-tune output management by the global insurance workforce. “Insurance has too many nuances to say a single solution solves all your problems.” Hence, Patra’s Human + Technology approach has made it the best choice for insurance leaders.
Piece of Advice
“It is hard work and takes persistence to either rise through any organization or start from scratch and achieve excellence.” – John Simpson.
