I recently had the opportunity to meet with Jason Zitney, Head of Sales for the Insurance Compliance Solutions business of Wolters Kluwer, which provides risk management and regulatory compliance solutions for the insurance industry. While many of our members may be familiar with Wolters Kluwer and the amazing work they do in the insurance industry, Mr. Zitney was able to dive more into the Company’s background with the AICP, how Wolters Kluwer is dealing with the current pandemic and its plans to build a better future for the insurance compliance industry.

Please tell me about yourself.

Currently, I am head of sales for insurance compliance solutions business at Wolters Kluwer. I have been at Wolters Kluwer for 11 years and have been in the industry for over 20 years. First, with a carrier here in Cleveland and then consulting for a number of years. I was thinking about when I first attended an AICP event, which was probably about 20 years ago. We have some people on our team who have been attending even longer than that. I live in the Chagrin Falls area outside of Cleveland with my wife, 3 kids and new puppy.

Can you talk more on Wolters Kluwer’s background in the insurance industry?

We are a global organization with over 19,000 employees in 180+ countries. My team’s focus is the insurance compliance space; we are part of the compliance solutions division within Wolters Kluwer. We really are focused on the specific needs of our insurance compliance costumers and leveraging not only our expertise within our team, but also the resources we have as a large organization to try and stay in front of things.

Would you describe yourselves as compliance consultants or as mostly technology solution specialists?

It’s both. We have account teams: teams of two dedicated people who work with every client on day-to-day issues and leverage the different solutions that we provide. Then, we have a whole team of analysts/legal professionals and other resources that support our business and what we do for clients. We don’t typically have what you may refer to as “consulting services” other than our team which implements our OneSumX® for Compliance Program Management suite of solutions for insurers.

Can you give me an example of an instance where a client may come to your company for help?

We have the luxury of having a huge presence in the insurance market. We provide solutions to over 90% of insurance carriers. The biggest area is around managing regulatory activity and change. We have embraced the challenges around that particular topic and have a variety of solutions that help insurance carriers to manage the volume/craziness that is regulatory change management. It is not only about being the single source for receiving everything related to their particular business, but also interpreting, and giving them guidance and tools to be able to understand the impact to the business, in a quick and efficient way, and then helping them manage the process of complying across the business through our OneSumX® solution.

What are some other areas of business that Wolters Kluwer focuses on, besides insurance?

Within our immediate business area, we are largely focused on financial services: insurance, banking, and securities. Wolters Kluwer as an organization supports healthcare, financial, legal, and tax & accounting professionals.

Would you categorize Wolters Kluwer as an InsurTech?

No, only because we have been around over 180 years. But what I will say, my team and I have had a lot of success supporting InsurTechs. I’ve worked with a number of InsurTech organizations, some older and some newer start-ups. What is nice about that is they have an appetite to do things a little bit differently; they are sometimes more willing to embrace technology and using that technology to facilitate their business. We are finding that that’s a great match for a lot of the solutions we are providing to the market. My team is spending a lot of time working with different InsurTechs over the last several years, and I think that is going to continue to grow as we see more of those companies coming to the market.

You previously mentioned that you have been a member of the AICP for 20 years, can you tell me a little more about how Wolters Kluwer became involved with the AICP?

Sure. I did an informal survey and I think our earliest attendee (that I could confirm) was 30 years ago— before it was called the AICP. We have a long history of participating not only on the national level, but also with the local chapters as well. Most people at Wolters Kluwer also participated while in prior roles throughout the industry. That has carried over in terms of bringing that background to Wolters Kluwer, where I was happy to understand that we as an organization support AICP. I still attend chapter events, as does my team.

How is Wolters Kluwer handling and adjusting to the pandemic and the new work-from-home corporate structure?

We, like most everyone else, are still primarily working remotely. Initially, it was a shock to the system. In a weekend, we got about 97% employees working remotely. We went quickly to having a lot of people in offices, to having them set up to work remotely. We were ahead of it, so we could support a lot of our clients as they were seeing a lot of challenges of working from home. It became critical for us to be able to support our clients as they have been transitioning to the new structure. We started providing COVID regulatory bulletin updates on a daily basis, because we started seeing a lot of change coming through that was impacting clients. Additionally, our company has modified our research platforms to incorporate some search terms that enable customers to find COVID-related items. We have learned that you have to be able to effectively support clients, whether they are in office or remote.

What strategies is Wolters Kluwer implementing to stay ahead of the changing times?

We have worked diligently to be an innovator. Even prior to the pandemic, we have worked to leverage technology to look at content and provide it in a much more seamless way. We are seeing that clients have different challenges from the pandemic and the current times, so being able to give them information quickly and effectively allows them to make business decisions. We have also seen an uptick in costumers looking for API connections to the different solutions that we have. At the end of last year, Wolters Kluwer acquired a company called eOriginal a digital transaction management company. This acquisition allows us to facilitate end-to-end digital transactions. Today these capabilities are largely in the mortgage and lending space. But I can see down the road, there may be applications to the insurance business from that. We are aggressively looking to get better and support clients, and the ability to do that digitally is a huge ask.

What message would you like to communicate to the insurance compliance industry?

We are here to support the industry in whatever way that they may need. Most insurance compliance organizations are already somewhat familiar with us. We have restructured my team to better support the requests we are getting from our clients. If we can be a bridge to solutions, that is what we bring to the table a little differently. We will continue to adapt and change as needed, but the reality is we are here to continue to support all our insurance compliance folks as we have in the past, and whatever way is needed going forward.

Finally, we encourage everyone facing risk and compliance challenges to reach out to us. I am always the first one to say, “We are happy to tell you when we can help you, but also happy to tell you when we are not able to, but can point you in the direction with someone who can.” We really like to facilitate our clients’ business in whatever way we can. While we are happy to support remotely, we are also really looking forward to being able to get back and meet with everyone in person again— whether in their offices, at a chapter event or national meetings. We are anxious to get back and connect with our clients in person again.

For more information about Wolters Kluwer, click here.

 

Author: Ilana Kauffman is the owner of Regulatory Compliance Consulting, LLC and proud member/volunteer of the AICP Brand & Marketing Committee.

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