Rewrite policy transactions

Insurers must do a rewrite if they need to change the effective date of the policy or producer of record. Insurers cannot change these in a policy change transaction.

Insurers may choose to rewrite a policy when the policy has errors or significant changes. For example, the producer reviews the policy documentation before it is sent out and notices that the name of the insured is misspelled. The insurer can use a policy change to correct the name, however the name will be corrected in an addendum to the policy but not in the policy itself. The insurer decides to do a full-term rewrite of the policy, which reissues the documentation with the insured’s name spelled correctly. The policy rewrite is transparent to the insured because the insured never receives the original policy and documentation.

Although significant changes to a policy can be done as a policy change, it may be preferable to do these as a rewrite. For example, the insured calls and asks that the billing method be changed from agency to direct. The insurer makes this change as a mid-term rewrite to simplify tracking of this change for both the insurer and the insured. Rewrite reissues the policy documentation rather than sending an addendum, and the insurer creates a completely new policy. Rewrite makes it easy to keep track of when the change occurred.

In the base configuration, the rewrite policy transaction allows a user to completely rewrite a policy. It creates a new policy version that can still be tracked to the original submission. Rewrite does not appear as a menu option until a policy has been canceled. The user must first manually cancel the policy.

Rewrite policy transactions are similar to submission policy transactions. However, rewrite can be configured independently of submission, so they have separate user interface screens, wizard flow, permissions, and rules.

There are a few differences between the Policy Info screen in the rewrite wizard and the submission wizard. You can change any or all of the policy information details. However, rewrite has a Boolean radio button which allows you to assign a new policy number. If selected, then PolicyCenter assigns a new policy number when binding the rewrite; otherwise the policy number remains the same. So from the policy holder’s perspective, they have received a completely new policy, and both the newly rewritten policy and the original policy version still exist in PolicyCenter.