Tackling Inflation and the Automobile Industry: A Simple Solution to Reduce Future Auto Loan Charge-offs

Despite Inflation, You Can Still Maintain a Competitive Advantage and Protect Your Auto Loan Portfolio   Spotlight Soundbite: The Value of Customized Portfolio Protection in the Subprime Auto Loan Market     Borrowers Are Facing Financial Stress The government’s stimulus checks have long run out, as have the grace periods many financial institutions implemented during the pandemic. Interest rates have soared and prices have inflated. Individuals have returned to work and are again bearing the costs of gas, transportation, and childcare. While cheery, the holiday season may be met equally with foreboding for some as they contemplate how to balance their checkbooks with the looming expectation of events and gifts on top of already heightened regular expenses. While buy now and pay later programs may offer temporary relief, borrowers will ultimately not be able to put off making tough decisions about where to spend and save. Unfortunately, a growing number of auto loan borrowers, and especially subprime borrowers, are choosing to drop or reduce their auto insurance coverage as a result of having to decide which bills to pay with their increasingly stretched paychecks. And these uninsured or underinsured borrowers pose a threat to your institution’s loan portfolio and profitability. The news isn’t all grim, however — State National can help protect your financial institution from the risks posed by this group. How to Minimize Charge-offs Caused by Uninsured Borrowers Do you currently use an insurance tracking system to keep track of your borrowers’ coverage status in an attempt to prevent charge-offs? It’s a good start — tracking is a critical part of monitoring your institution’s risk exposure. However, having your staff track insurance in-house is a time-consuming and inefficient solution. More concerning, even if you employ an outside vendor to track coverage for you, studies show that tracking alone is not enough to encourage borrowers to keep their insurance in force. Without a consequence for remaining uninsured or underinsured, it’s been shown time and time again that a significant portion of borrowers, particularly in the low prime and subprime space, simply will not heed warnings to bring their loans into compliance no matter how many letters or phone calls they get reminding them to do so. Without a mechanism that will actually change borrower behavior, tracking alone still leaves too much risk in your portfolio. A Persistent Problem — With an InsurTech Solution The good news is, you can more thoroughly protect your portfolio while also saving labor costs and freeing up your staff to perform other tasks to grow your business. And you can do it all easily, seamlessly, and with total peace of mind when it comes to compliance. Protecting collateral from loss is most definitely not the same as it was “in the old days” — or even just a few years ago. Advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other leading-edge technology solutions have changed the game when it comes to mitigating the risk from uninsured borrowers. From software bots that can log in to insurer websites and update thousands of insurance statuses in seconds to nearly effortless multichannel borrower submission options including QR codes, email, text, web, and more, collateral protection problems of the past are simply not an issue today, especially with State National as your provider. As I like to say, “This isn’t your grandpa's CPI!”     Save Time, Money, and Aggravation — What’s Not to Like? State National’s solutions provide tracking AND protect your portfolio. We also save your financial institution time with seamless implementation and multi-option borrower insurance submission solutions. Even better, there’s InsurTrak – our custom-designed proprietary technology platform where you can view all program details in real time with just a few clicks. Additionally, you can personalize your coverage around exactly what works best for your business. Whether you need you need a full-featured, comprehensive program, one that keeps costs at a minimum for borrowers, or something in between, State National can customize a program that best fits your needs.   A Simple Solution for Reduced Risk and Increased Profitability We have heard from some financial institutions that they “have no charge-offs” because they planned and allotted for a certain amount of loss. But money lost is still money lost even if you budgeted for it! What if you could save your company hundreds of thousands of dollars this year? Well, you can! Let me show you how you can leverage State National’s advanced technology and 50 years of experience mitigating loss from uninsured borrowers to proactively protect your business against today’s unpredictable economy and the wave of charge-offs your financial institution may be facing soon. It’s not too late to protect your portfolio from what’s coming our way.  

State National's Retreat Where Female Finance Executives Go to Network and Learn A 2021 report from CUNA indicated that 51% of CEOs at credit unions and 33% of credit union board members are female. Many organizations speak at length about the value of empowering and providing opportunities to women — yet this recognition must be met with action. For example, Kim Sponem, CEO of Summit Credit Union, took action by starting The Red Shoes initiative. Filene Research Institute actively creates research reports about women in credit union leadership. These are just two of many examples across the credit union industry. Missions like these are an important part of transforming the narrative of women and finance. State National Companies also recognizes the unique leadership traits and skillsets that female leaders bring to the financial services industry. To celebrate those traits and provide women leaders from across the country the opportunity to build relationships with their peers, we created our own initiative — an annual event called the Female Executive Networking (FEN) Retreat.   Why a Retreat Specifically for Female Executives? The goal of this annual retreat is multifold: Provide valuable, meaningful, and actionable education, information, and resources to senior credit unions and financial institutions executives that they can use to move their organizations forward. Create a forum for financial institution leaders from across the country to share best practices regarding leadership, retention, business growth, and operational excellence. Provide a rich and rewarding experience that organically allows connections and relationships to grow. Empower and inspire attendees to return to their financial institutions re-energized, with new ideas for accelerating the growth of their organizations. With these goals in mind, we launched our first FEN retreat in early 2020. And, oh, how critical it was for the female leaders who participated in this first event to achieve these goals — because at the time we didn’t realize were heading home to nearly two years of quarantine and isolation! A Most Welcome Return In 2021, after waiting 18 months from our launch date, we were more than eager to resume some sense of normalcy and held our second FEN Retreat. That year’s event featured Terri Trespicio, speaker, coach, and best-selling author of Unfollow Your Passion, as our keynote speaker and workshop leader. This year, our 2022 keynote workshop, titled How Macroeconomic Conditions Will Affect Your Financial Institution, Your Customers, and Your Household, was led by Marlena Lee, Ph.D., Global Head of Investment Solutions at Dimensional Fund Advisors, and Mary Ellen Krueger, Director, Wealth Management and Partner at Aspiriant. Not only are these FEN retreats educational, inspirational, and just plain fun, we at State National are also proud of being a part of the movement to empower even more women to lead in moving the credit union mission forward. After all, studies show that more female executives in a C-suite role can improve both customer orientation and financial performance. That’s a win-win-win — for credit unions, for their members, and for women in financial leadership. If you are interested in learning more about State National’s Female Executive Networking retreat, please contact your State National Client Executive or Regional Vice President.   Comments from FEN attendees:

CPI expert and Sr. Client Executive Kathy St. Clair shares her insights on how to educate borrowers about CPI and what to say if a borrower has questions about a CPI certificate placed on their loan. In Part 1, Equipping Your Staff, she shared the value of informing borrowers proactively and the multitude of resources and support State National has available to assist you. If you do not know what CPI is, we recommend first reading What Is Collateral Protection Insurance (CPI)?   Borrower Questions Covered in This Article Will I receive a refund once I show proof of insurance? I submitted my insurance, but have not received a refund Can I keep CPI as my only car insurance if I want to? How do I rectify my insurance status? Can this insurance be refunded? While you can redirect a borrower to State National at any time to be helped by one of our friendly, highly trained team members, we want to share the answers to some common questions a borrower may ask so you and your staff feel prepared to answer anything.   Borrower Questions: "Will I receive a CPI refund once I show proof of insurance?" "If I go out and get insurance, can I be refunded for what I have paid for CPI so far?" "Will I still have to pay a premium on my loan each month once I show proof of insurance?" Once State National receives proof of insurance, a refund is quickly processed and sent back to your financial institution. If the borrower had adequate insurance for the time period in question, a full refund will be issued. There may be a charge for any verified lapses in coverage. How quickly we can issue a refund will depend on the agreed-upon process, such as ACH or manual check. The refund is then posted to the borrower’s loan. In many cases, this can be done through an automated process, eliminating any manual administration for your staff. Along with quickly processing a refund, we send a notice to the borrower to let them know that their refund was processed.       "I submitted my insurance — why haven’t I received a refund?" or "Why am I still receiving notices?" This is where InsurTrak can once again come to your aid. If InsurTrak indicates that we have sent a borrower an impairment notice, you can let them know that we did receive their insurance but that the information they sent us was not complete. Through our tracking, we are making sure the borrower provides full-coverage insurance, both comprehensive and collision, with you listed as lienholder. Making the borrower aware of this can help them understand what additional information they need to submit for quick rectification.   "Is CPI considered insurance? I may want to keep CPI because it is cheaper and more convenient than my previous insurance." "Can I keep CPI as my only car insurance if I want to?" Some of our CPI partners have shared that borrowers occasionally ask about keeping their CPI insurance instead of purchasing their own auto insurance. A borrower should understand that CPI is not an equal alternative to car insurance they can buy on their own. By educating a borrower on what CPI is, you can deter them from keeping CPI. CPI is meant to cover only the cost financed by you as a lender — it is intended to protect your loan portfolio, not the borrower. While CPI provides comprehensive and collision coverage on the automobile, it does not cover the driver. CPI will not assist a borrower in covering any damages to another individual’s property. Most states also require drivers to carry liability insurance in case an accident occurs and there is another party or property damage involved.   Not realizing the specifics of their insurance, a borrower with CPI coverage will sometimes return to their lender after an accident or other loss and ask for a copy of the policy. You can let them know that even though the insurance policy is mainly there to protect the lender, and excludes damages outside of their vehicle, if they have damage to their own car they can file a claim so that they will remain in good standing on their loan. If they are not delinquent by more than 45 days, we will accept a claim directly from the borrower to repair that collateral and get them back in the driver’s seat. Please encourage your borrowers to get and maintain their own insurance.     "How do I rectify my insurance status?" "Can this insurance be refunded?" The quickest way a borrower can have a CPI certificate removed is to submit proof of insurance to their lienholder — your financial institution — or directly to State National. We use a variety of methods to collect borrowers’ insurance on your behalf, and we make it as simple as possible for them to comply. Options for borrowers to provide evidence of insurance include calling into our Contact Center, or mailing, emailing, or faxing their Declarations Page to our Service Center. But text and email notifications are the fastest and most convenient way for a borrower to provide us with insurance. Each text and email notification we issue includes a link that takes the borrower directly to our self-serve portal, MyLoanInsurance.com, where they can easily upload a copy of their insurance information. This portal features notice-specific videos walking borrowers through their solutions for verification. Alternately, they can choose to reply to the text or email with an image of their coverage details. Borrowers also have the option to provide us with their insurance company name and policy number, and we'll reach out for verification on their behalf. Our goal with this multichannel approach is to make it as easy as possible for borrowers to submit their information in the way that is most convenient for them.   Informed Staff Deliver a Better Borrower Experience All staff members who handle loans at your institution should have a basic understanding of what collateral protection is doing for you and how it works. We offer ongoing training and resources to your staff members. Your staff should also understand the premise and benefits behind the product — mainly, that it is there to protect your financial institution against uninsured losses. Here are some additional resources to build your knowledge about CPI: Short State National Animated Company Explainer Video What Is Collateral Protection Insurance (CPI)? Understanding the Differences Between CPI, Blanket, and Self-Insurance Remember, your financial institution’s dedicated Client Executive is here to help you with any of your CPI questions or needs!   To read the first article in this SNC Spotlight series, visit Part 1, Equipping Your Staff  

At State National, we recognize that collateral protection insurance (CPI) is not a term every borrower knows. Here, CPI expert and Sr. Client Executive Kathy St. Clair shares her insights on how to educate borrowers about CPI and what to say if a borrower has questions about a CPI certificate placed on their loan. If you do not know what CPI is, we recommend first reading What Is Collateral Protection Insurance (CPI)?

There's everyone else — and then there's State National