5 ways to pay | things to know to better serve your customers

In this age of convenience, not everything is convenient. As a business owner, paying bills can be difficult when juggling multiple responsibilities. As their agent, you can help your customer with this, leaving a favorable impression on them, and making life just a little bit easier in the process.

SAIF offers policyholders five ways to pay their workers' compensation premium. Some you may be aware of, some may be new to you.

The five methods to pay premium are

• e-check from a policyholder's bank to SAIF 
• Debit card payments using our online e-payment system
• Credit card payments using our online bill pay system
• Debit/credit card payments by phone on an exception basis
• Regular physical check by mail

Online bill-paying advantages 

• Virtually eliminates errors, making a customer's experience managing their policy that much easier 
• Faster than mailing a check. Physical checks mailed to us are manually processed, which has the potential to slow down the time it takes to be applied to a policy.
• Avoid late fees
• Avoid the policy to go into pending cancelation
• Cost savings (postage stamps, time) 
• Security: Online banking is now considered safer than paying by check.

Some agents have asked about making a payment for a client. Generally, that's not something we encourage, but if there's a unique situation you'd like to discuss or a sensitive timeline to consider, please contact us—we'd be happy to discuss it.

We hope you'll use this information to help educate policyholders about their online payment options. The best part about these options? Not only are they quick and simple, they're 100 percent free to policyholders.

For more information, please contact Trinia Eustis, Collection Manager.