Really thinking through a process

When requesting company medical insurance quotes from UK private medical insurance companies there is a lot of data to capture and present to insurers. Some of them need more or less than others and some have their own standardised versions of quote request forms that mean sending one request to multiple insurers means a fair amount of work on my part.

Every now and then I miss something and need to send an additional bit of data before the figures can be calculated by the insurer. This isn't a problem but if there is a delay when requesting this missing data or in spotting it at all there is a delay (in which I am obviously culpable, but a delay nonetheless) it obviously causes me issues in terms of getting reports over to clients.

One insurer though - BUPA, interestingly seems to check the requests they receive as they arrive in their quote mailbox and not two or three days later when the e-mail finally gets to the top of their 'to do' pile. This is a really simple idea, easy to implement that takes no more time on their part (after all the check has to be done at some point) and means that their figures often arrive much earlier than other insurers.

Really simple, clever idea.