How to Explain CPI to a Borrower, Part 2: Simple Answers to Common Borrower Questions

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  

Credit Unions Then and Now When I joined my first credit union almost thirty years ago, the member experience looked a lot different than it does today. Member service was limited to business hours — with the exception of Thursdays, when the credit union was open until 8:00 p.m. so members could deposit their paychecks. Online banking, mobile deposits, digital signatures, online loan applications with automated decisioning, and any number of other technological advancements were still many years away. As I enter my 32nd year as a member of a credit union, and my 21st year working in the credit union space, it is truly amazing to look at how technology has enhanced the member experience as well as the expectations of the individual member. As it has in credit unions and in every industry, technology has certainly had a big impact at State National. As we approach our 50th anniversary as a company and take a look back at our beginnings, it’s funny to think that we used to transcribe insurance information onto 4” x 6” notecards and store them in filing cabinets. Or that each notice had to be typed out before it was mailed to the borrower. Or that the only way to get a borrower’s insurance information was via postal mail from the insurance carrier or client. Today, almost every task we perform for our business partners and their borrowers is completed with the help of technology, and every new innovation we come up with is created with one goal in mind: to enhance the member experience.     Utilizing Today’s Technology to Enhance the Member Experience At State National, we understand how our products can be viewed as detracting from the member experience as opposed to safeguarding the collateral and protecting the institution. This is why, as the industry leader in collateral protection, we are constantly looking for ways to prove that belief wrong by minimizing borrower impact and enhancing the borrower experience. In the last few years, we have introduced some truly game-changing technological innovations, like WRAP, our Web-Based Robotic Automated Processing.  

Tracking Alone Is Not Enough