Friend or Foe: Assignment Funding

Friend or Foe: Assignment Funding

Do you view the competition in your particular industry as your enemy or friend? 

By being friendly and even helpful, you can learn a lot about your customers and your industry. You don’t have to invite competitors over for socializing but if you keep an open mind, you can help others and even benefit too. Who said: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”?  Well, if you keep your competitors close, they will often turn into your friends. 

Whether you’re a Funeral Home or Insurance Assignment Funding Company, competition is everywhere and unavoidable. After all, where there are customers, there will always be multiple companies competing for their business. But being connected to your competition is both a value to you and your market.

Let me prove this point by sharing why being helpful to others in your line of work works:

Competitors may Share Valuable Information

Your competition may be putting out articles, blogs, and other information on their website, Facebook and Linkedin sites. You can learn from that information and share it with your own network, helping you to stay up on ideas and trends.

For example, Jamie Meredith of C&J Financial recently shared a communication from Torchmark on their Insurance assignment verification processing with other funeral funding companies.  It hurt no one, and only helped to support an environment of cooperation among what some might view as “competitors”.

They Will Look for Ways to Help You

A prospect that is not the best match for your competition’s business could turn to you instead.  Just because your competition has a similar product or service, doesn’t mean it’s identical. So, if a customer is looking for an Assignment Funding Company that is closer to home, a friendly competitor might share your information and help push the potential client in your direction. 

If the relationship is mutual, perhaps you might do the same thing for them sometime in the future.

You May Need them Someday

You never know when a former rival will become a potential lifesaver.  Suppose you have a funeral assignment that is being submitted with you and another funding company, or a family that doesn’t pay their bill.  Wouldn’t you like to have a relationship where all parties can work together for a best outcome?  Or if your company needs a salesperson, your rival may be a great source for a potential candidate.

The moral of the story: It’s always beneficial to have more friends than enemies in the business world.  Believe it or not, competitors can be a valuable resource to you and your company and it’s never wrong to be nice.

About Assignments: Insurance Assignment Funding is a simple process where a 3rd party like Trinity Funeral Funding pays the Funeral Home the cost of funeral services upfront through an assignment of proceeds from an insurance policy. Here’s how it works. A one page insurance assignment is completed by the beneficiary and the Funeral Director, a claim form provided by either the insurance company or Trinity, and a death certificate are sent. Trinity Funeral Funding will advise on what if any added forms are needed for each claim. Once these documents are completed the policy is verified (normally within a day or two), funds are wired to the funeral home. The payments from the insurance company are then sent to Trinity and any additional proceeds are sent directly to the beneficiary. For more information visit http://www.trinityfuneralfunding.com/ or call Cristina at 201-750-1117.

Dignity Memorial Funeral Home

Dear Cristina and Staff, Again, we deeply appreciate all the efforts put forth on our insurance assignments.  You will never realize just how much this means to an old country funeral home to be capable of obtaining funds as quickly as Trinity responds to our needs.  We thank you and deeply praise you for all that is done on our behalf.  Please continue to great response not only for us, but for our families as well.  Dignity Memorial Funeral Home

Insurance Assignments Gone Bad

Insurance Assignments Gone Bad

As a funeral home owner, how do you determine which insurance assignment cases to take? Which ones will take months to collect and which assignments will pay short?  Which insurance policies won’t pay at all; and which ones will require a lot of time and energy to collect on?

These are questions that funeral directors face every day.  Recently we learned that a funeral home accepted an insurance assignment for $14,000; they provided the services and then found that the policy would only cover $2300.   How do you protect your funeral home?

There are many funeral home owners who reluctantly accept insurance assignments and enjoy a great batting average on collections.  Many however have grown tired of the ever changing processes insurance companies require and the delays they causes.  Some directors even discourage their families from utilizing insurance assignments at all, or only as a “last resort”.  This approach hurts business because utilizing insurance assignments is actually a big boost to business when handled correctly.  

Let’s say the cost to use a 3d party “insurance assignment funding company” costs an average of $300.00 and a funeral home received full payment for services in 2 days, prior to providing any services.  3 things happen: 1) cash flow is optimized, 2) the family will increase the services by 25-30% on average and 3) the funeral home is normally out of pocket $0.00, as nearly all funeral homes include this cost on their invoice itemized as financing or funding cost.

At Trinity Funeral Funding, our best clients have come from funeral directors who have come to realize the time and risk of taking on in-house insurance assignment funding is really not worth it.  After a short time working together, directors really appreciate having an assignment funding specialist handling this important aspect of their business.  As we near the half way point in 2016, perhaps considering an insurance assignment funding company could be a meaningful discussion to have?

About Assignments:  Insurance Assignment Funding is a simple process where a 3rd party like Trinity Funeral Funding pays the Funeral Home the cost of funeral services upfront through an assignment of proceeds from an insurance policy. Here’s how it works.  A one page insurance assignment is completed by the beneficiary and the Funeral Director, a claim form provided by either the insurance company or Trinity, and a death certificate are sent. Trinity Funeral Funding will advise on what if any added forms are needed for each claim. Once these documents are completed the policy is verified (normally within a day or two), funds are wired to the funeral home. The payments from the insurance company are then sent to Trinity and any additional proceeds are sent directly to the beneficiary. For more information visit http://www.trinityfuneralfunding.com/ or call Cristina at 201-750-1117.

Insurance Assignments are on the Rise

Insurance Assignments are on the Rise

More than ever families are utilizing life insurance assignment proceeds to pay for funerals.

Using an insurance assignment gives the family comfort knowing that services will be paid for by the insurance company with ease and the funeral home will receive payment upfront prior to performing the service.

Using insurance assignment proceeds results in families spending 20-30% more on funeral services.

If you are not accepting insurance assignments, please inquire about more information from a funeral funding expert or insurance assignment funding company.

If you are handling your insurance assignments in-house, please consider the verification process, the documentation load, the follow-up, the time and headache for your staff goes through to chase down payments for each claim.

Using a skilled assignment specialist like Trinity Funeral Funding will make a major improvement in your cash flow while reducing paperwork and time. Have a professional give you that level of comfort that you like to give your families.

You can probably tell by now that we love answering questions about insurance assignment funding.  We respect how competitive the funeral service business is and how you must give more concentrated focus to your family’s needs at all times.  Offering additional payment options makes a funeral home more attractive and family-friendly.  Not accepting insurance assignments is an invitation for families to move on and call your competitor, the funeral home across town,  While encouraging the use of life insurance assignments is a boost to your business, we’ve found that families spend an average of 25% more when utilizing life insurance than when they pay cash.

Yes, the claim forms are difficult and yes, you may have had to wait up to 6 months to be paid and yes, the insurance companies don’t make it easy, not to mention the constant follow up process.  You may even have had a bad experience working with assignment funding company in the past- but we ask that you give us a chance to change your mind about using insurance assignments.  Ask yourself, as a successful funeral home, can you pass up that extra 25% increase in business sales and how long can you allow your competitors offer more options than you?  Fire away with your questions, let’s see how we can help you boost revenue.  Let’s build a business relationship together!  Visit: www.TrinityFuneralFunding.com or Call: 201-750-1117