Customer Care Representative

U.S. Retirement & Benefits Partners (USRBP) is one of the largest independently owned insurance brokerage firms in the country providing a full range of employee benefits, compliance, and HR consulting services, along with retirement solutions for both the private and public sectors. The business was formed in 2008 and today serves over three million participants nationally in the K-12, Corporate and Government markets. For more information about USRBP, please visit our website: www.usrbpartners.com.

USRBP is hiring a Customer Care Representative for our Partner Firm, SF&C located in Owings Mills, MD.

The Customer Care Representative’s (CCR) function is to answer ongoing calls from clients, agents, and carriers to resolve issues and clarify data related to new and existing insurance policies. The CCR may also be assigned processing of New Business that involves processing insurance applications from receipt from agents through to the submission to the insurance carrier. This position may overlap with general Administrative Assistant duties or Receptionist duties in designated cases.

The Customer Care Representative:

1. Answer phones and emails, responding to basic questions regarding new and existing policies in terms of policy status, type, terms, and coverage. Track calls, documents notes and resolution in the administration system, and resolve issues as quickly and accurately as possible. Escalates issues as needed to Customer Care Supervisor.

2. Respond to requests, sending enrollment material packets to Direct Pay accounts/clients. Review submitted applications for completeness and either forward applications to appropriate carriers or enter the enrollment in their carrier portal. Provide client payment information to SF&C Accounting department. Transmit eligibility to carriers, as needed. Periodically review union membership against existing enrollment to ensure continued enrollment eligibility.

3. Review/”scrub” client sheets from agents, typically on Mondays and Tuesdays, noting mistakes or omissions on a correction sheet and return them to the agent for correction. Errors and corrections are checked weekly and are reviewed on Carrier Pending reports. Have applications updated and accurately completed and prepared for pickup by late Tuesday. Designated Customer Care Rep will sort the client sheets by group, scan into indexing system, and share the client sheets to Account Administration, as needed.

4. Assist with discrepancy reports, researching and correcting client and carrier data, as needed.

5. Ongoing and as needed, cover for other team members; responsibilities are interchangeable with no specialized duties.

Education and work experience

• High School Diploma or equivalent
• At least one year in an office environment, insurance industry helpful

Competencies

• Proficient computer skills using Excel and Word at a basic to intermediate level.
• Ability to learn document indexing software, a cloud-based database system
• Excellent verbal communication skills using English language. This job requires heavy phone use and the Customer Care Rep must be able to listen, interpret issues, explain concepts, and communicate facts to the members of the public, policyholders, agents, and carriers in a polite and friendly manner, including when under occasional stress.
• Excellent written skills using English language for writing occasional letters of coverage verification and documenting issues for files and to agents and carriers.
• Good sense of teamwork. Application processing must be timely and accurate for all, and all must rise to occasion under instances of heavy volume or deadline.
• Must convey a professional demeanor to project a positive, helpful, patient, and polite demeanor to our agents, policyholders, carriers, vendors, and co-workers.

Challenges for this position

The speed and accuracy of application processing depends in part on the quality of the data on the applications when received. If there are no or only minor corrections needed, things flow efficiently, however, if applications need to be returned to agents for correction, this can slow the work being done by the Customer Care Rep through no fault of their own.

The Customer Care Rep cannot know everything, nor do they have ultimate responsibility to make decisions regarding policies. Once they identify and escalate issues, they have no control over the resolution.

Customer Care Reps must be prepared to answer numerous calls and respond to emails every day, the nature of which is unknown until they are received. The Customer Care Reps must have a working knowledge of the company and carrier processes and products to escalate issues appropriately.

Occasional procedural or software training may be needed at carrier request if they are making changes to their systems and forms.