Enterprise Premium Audit Solutions
A NATIONWIDE WEB-BASED NETWORK FOR OUTSOURCED PREMIUM AUDITS
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Premium Audit Network

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ISOPAX® Network?

The ISOPAX® Network stands for ISO Premium Audit Xchange®. It’s a tool for efficiently managing premium audits. It’s also an online connection to a network of premium audit vendors covering the entire country.

 

 

Why should we use ISOPAX to outsource our audits?

ISOPAX provides its users with extremely flexible premium audit management. Premium audit vendors all across the United States participate in the ISOPAX Network. Because of broad vendor participation, ISOPAX makes it very convenient to work with one or 50 vendors or in-house auditors from one secure web-based platform.

When you access the ISOPAX Network, you can:

  • order physical, telephone, and mail audits for any size policy
  • track your orders at any step in the process — just like tracking a delivery package
  • attach documents (such as policy endorsements) to an audit when you place an order
  • attach documents (such as certificates of insurance) when the vendor returns the audit
  • check the current status of audits and find the reasons for late audits
  • create a variety of management reports that show vendor activity by state, date of completion, frequency of late audits, and other factors
  • view and print your completed audits

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Does ISOPAX help manage audits conducted by in-house premium auditors, too?

Yes. ISOPAX can accommodate in-house auditors, vendor auditors, or a combination of both.

Can a parent company use ISOPAX to manage premium audits across all carriers in a group?

When you create a new customer profile in ISOPAX, you can establish a company as a parent company or as a separate company reporting to the parent. That enables each company in the group to manage audits on its own. It also allows the parent company to view the premium audit inventories of the companies in its group individually or in the aggregate.

Can you control user access to ISOPAX by unique user IDs and passwords?

Yes. You can access ISOPAX through ISOnetSM, the customer access point for all ISO products. User access is through password-protected user ID. Security and privacy options in ISOPAX are menu-driven. The system assigns users “roles” that allow access to the various ISOPAX features.

How does ISOPAX differentiate between types of users, for example, data entry personnel, quality- review personnel, management personnel, and so forth?

ISOPAX assigns users roles depending on their function in the premium audit process. Each role allows specific access to the respective role features in the ISOPAX platform. You can keep roles separate or combined depending on the flexibility or security desired. For example, you can combine an administration role with a quality-control reviewer role and assign to one person, or you can keep the two roles separate by assigning each to different people.

Can a customer customize workflows in ISOPAX?

Yes. ISOPAX has work queues designed to manage workflow. ISOPAX uses role assignments to manage each user’s ISOPAX capabilities. You can add or remove users from any specific function in ISOPAX at any time as needed.

How do you enter orders into the ISOPAX system?

The customer or ISOPAX personnel can manually enter orders or create them by batch. Two batch file formats are available for submitting batch orders — fixed-width or XML.


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Does ISOPAX provide confirmation of batch-order delivery?

Yes. ISOPAX notifies the customer through e-mail when the system has processed a batch.

What kind of support does ISOPAX provide for converting data for use in the batch-ordering feature?

ISOPAX provides a data file format used for communicating orders in and out of ISOPAX, and it’s the same format for both. ISO’s IT department is available to help with the setup of this easy-to-use feature.

How can you distribute premium audit orders to premium audit vendors or in-house auditors?

The system electronically posts and disburses orders to all participating premium audit vendors or in-house auditors based on order type, geographic area, and customer-defined preferences within each geographic area.

Can ISOPAX help improve the quality and performance of premium audit vendors?

Yes. The ISOPAX Network platform aggregates vendor performance data related to the premium audit reports they complete. You can use the data to benchmark performance in the areas of quality, time service, and overdue audits. Those benchmarks can foster performance competition. The competition, in turn, can promote continuous improvement in the overall quality and performance of each vendor.

Is special software required to open or review vendor audits in ISOPAX?

No. The vendor uploads all completed premium audit reports into ISOPAX in PDF format, making it convenient to open, save, and forward the reports in each customer’s own work environment. Because vendor report formats can vary, the system converts each report and provides it to customers in PDF format. And to foster greater efficiency for customers, with each order, ISOPAX provides a standard-format one-page summary of the exposures present.

Does ISOPAX have the capability to produce and provide reports to its users?

Yes. ISOPAX has a feature that allows the user to analyze and access reports on premium audit order inventories through a variety of data sorts. The report feature is easy to use. You can access reports for measuring the performance of vendors or in-house auditors performing your audits and get the status of past-due audits. The reports also provide many other useful views by order date range, expiration date range, and so forth. ISOPAX customers can look at historical premium audit expenses and compare them to budgeted expenses, or they can develop their own budget to project future expenses.


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Does ISOPAX allow for ad hoc reporting?

Yes. ISOPAX has a custom report feature that allows for multipurpose reports. The feature has a variety of drop-down options from which to choose. The system e-mails reports to the requestor within 15 minutes of a request. The Custom Report feature allows for comprehensive ad hoc reporting.

How does ISOPAX measure up as a paperless solution?

ISOPAX supports a completely paperless process from order entry to the upload of completed premium audit results into a carrier’s policy processing system. An electronic copy of the premium audit report is always available to the customer.

Does ISOPAX allow vendors or in-house auditors to provide status updates for overdue audits?

Yes. An important feature of ISOPAX is its status reporting capability. Customers can set performance parameters regarding their expectations for status updates, and ISOPAX tracks the performance of each vendor or auditor in providing status updates according to the defined expectations.

What other services are available to the customer through ISOPAX?

ISOPAX provides optional services such as premium audit management consulting, data entry services for inputting new job orders, vendor selection, and quality-control services.

Can ISOPAX users enter and send additional comments directly to an assigned vendor or company auditor?

Yes. “Notes” features are conveniently located throughout the ISOPAX application for that purpose.

Can ISOPAX customers track disputes, reasons, and resolutions?

Absolutely. ISOPAX has a dispute feature designed for that specific purpose. You can use the feature to initiate and track disputed reports separately from other orders. You can use different “Notes” sections to enter the reason for the dispute and document the resolution.


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Does ISOPAX provide the capability to view historical audit data for quality-review purposes?

Yes. Audit reports from previous vendors or in-house auditors are available. ISOPAX also retains the exposure summary data mentioned above for all audits. The data is available for reviewing and comparing current audit results with previous results.

Can a customer pilot test ISOPAX?

Yes. Setting up a trial account with ISOPAX is easy and accomplished in a day or two depending on how many users are involved in the trial.

How do I establish a new ISOPAX account?

It’s easy to open an ISOPAX account. All we need is your contact information. From there, ISO creates an ISOPAX account and provides you with an ISO registration key that allows access to ISOPAX.

Can you describe how ISOPAX pricing works?

The ISOPAX product and pricing offerings are very flexible, and we can tailor them to each customer’s specific needs. ISOPAX has traditionally provided both our audit management system and vendors to customers but now offers the audit management system stand-alone if a customer already has satisfactory vendor relationships. ISOPAX can provide several additional services to fit each customer’s needs.

The associated pricing is as flexible as the product offerings. We can base pricing on audit count and type or on time (use of ISOPAX for a year for any number of audits, for example). There’s even an option called ISOPAX Direct: Customers don’t pay anything to use ISOPAX, and the vendors who receive their audits pay order-placement fees instead.

Does ISOPAX provide any value-added services?

Yes. Value-added services are performed by premium audit professionals employed by ISO. Some examples of value-added services are vendor audit quality control and proactive follow-up related to securing overdue audits from the vendor community.


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How do we train new ISOPAX customers?

ISOPAX includes on-site training or training through WebEx/teleconference for individuals or groups. We’re committed to making sure that every customer becomes comfortable using ISOPAX.

Do you provide training materials?

Yes. We provide an ISOPAX user guide — electronically in PDF format — as an aid in training. It includes ISOPAX screen images and instructions for using and navigating through the ISOPAX system.

How does ISO handle ISOPAX customer service?

During normal work hours, customers can contact an ISOPAX representative; we provide phone numbers and e-mail addresses for that purpose. After normal work hours, customers can contact the ISOPAX Help Desk to expedite issue notification. Calls are resolved either by the frontline support staff or escalated to appropriate personnel. Help Desk representatives are available from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday. On-call assistance is available beyond those hours as needed.

How much should a customer expect to spend on hardware or software to implement ISOPAX?

ISOPAX is a secure web-based premium audit automation solution. There are no technology costs associated with ISOPAX because it’s a web-based solution requiring no additional software or hardware.

Can ISOPAX help reduce premium audit management and outsourcing costs?

Yes. Bottom line, ISOPAX is an automation platform designed to effectively reduce expenses associated with managing or outsourcing premium audits by centralizing those processes for the customer. In addition, the ISOPAX platform has many of the same automation benefits as other proprietary software solutions, but ISOPAX doesn’t require a capital investment to achieve those benefits. Premium audit vendors nationwide have broadly accepted and received the ISOPAX Network concept.


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For more information . . .
. . . on the ISOPAX Network, send your inquiry to isopaxinfo@iso.com. If you’re interested in joining the ISOPAX Network, please contact ISO to get in touch with a sales representative, or call us at 1-800-888-4476.