How credit unions can protect the member experience without sacrificing the protection the program is designed to provide
If there's one principle that should guide the decisions that shape a CPI program, it's this: The member relationship comes first. No borrower opens a loan expecting to interact with a CPI program, and every interaction has to be handled with care.
But “handled with care” doesn’t mean “avoided.” The bar for borrower contact should be set with intention, not convenience — and the difference is worth understanding.
The Wrong Way to Reduce Friction
No one disputes the goal: Borrowers shouldn't be contacted unless they need to be, and every provider should be working toward the same thing — fewer unnecessary notices and fewer unnecessary placements.
The question worth asking is how a provider achieves those numbers. Are fewer borrowers being contacted because the program's technology is resolving more accounts silently and accurately? Or are fewer borrowers being contacted because the program simply isn't acting on accounts that need attention?
The Cost of Avoidance
The distinction matters — because one path leads to a genuinely better program, and the other just defers uninsured exposure onto the credit union's balance sheet.
When a provider pulls back on outreach — including on loans where insurance genuinely can't be verified — the credit union may see fewer complaints. But the uninsured exposure doesn't go away. Over time, it shows up exactly where you'd expect: in loss ratios that erode the financial health of the program.
That's not protecting the member experience. That's deferring the cost — and the members who have always been compliant end up absorbing it.
A Better Standard: Resolving Accounts Before Outreach Is Needed
The right approach starts with a straightforward commitment: Resolve as many accounts as possible before a borrower ever knows the program is involved.
That kind of commitment requires sustained investment in verification technology, automation, and data integrations — all aimed at confirming insurance coverage silently, accurately, and fast, so that borrower outreach is minimized not by pulling back, but by getting better at resolving accounts upstream.
What That Looks Like in Practice
When that investment is working, the results show up clearly. In State National's programs:
87.5% of updates are handled through technology and proactive verification that involve no member touch or action at all, and 97.5% are resolved before any certificate is ever placed.
That doesn't happen because the program avoids taking action. It happens because the technology and processes are designed to find the answer before a notice is ever needed.
When Contact Is Necessary, it Should be Exceptional
No program can resolve 100% of cases silently. There will always be borrowers who need to be contacted — because their insurance has lapsed, because coverage can't be verified through any available channel, or because a placement is genuinely required to protect the credit union's interest.
Those moments carry weight — for the borrower and for the credit union's brand.
Giving Borrowers Options, Not Obstacles
When a borrower does need to take action, the experience should be clear, respectful, and easy to navigate.
Our award-winning, in-house service center is staffed by a team trained specifically for portfolio protection — and borrowers can reach them by phone, live chat, email, or text. When your member connects with a person, that person understands the situation and can help resolve it.
Not everyone wants to pick up the phone, though — and they shouldn't have to. Borrowers can quickly check their insurance status and submit documentation through MyLoanInsurance.com, and our AI-powered chat assistant gives them a way to get answers on their own time — roughly 70% of routine questions are resolved without ever needing to wait for a live agent. For members who prefer to handle things themselves, it's a fast, easy path to resolution.
One Team, One Focus
This isn't a shared call center fielding questions about a dozen unrelated products. Our team is trained specifically for CPI interactions — and they understand that every conversation represents the credit union's brand, not theirs.
Borrower contact isn't treated as a routine operational step. It's treated as a direct extension of the credit union's service — because that's exactly what the borrower expects it to be.
The Real Measure of Member Experience
There's a version of "member experience" that's really just avoidance — fewer touchpoints because fewer actions are being taken, regardless of whether those actions were needed. It might feel like things are running smoothly, but underneath, unprotected loans could be piling up — so a program that looks calm on the surface can be masking real exposure underneath.
The better measure is this: How many accounts did the program resolve without any borrower involvement? And when involvement was necessary, how well was it handled?
A program built on that standard protects the member relationship at every stage — not by looking the other way on accounts that need attention, but by resolving them early and handling the exceptions in a way that reflects the credit union’s brand.
The right CPI program protects the member experience and the credit union's financial position at the same time. It's worth knowing how yours measures up.
We can help you objectively assess where it's working — and where it may not be. Let's take a closer look.
