Ascend is the modern, all-in-one payments solution purpose-built for insurance. Ascend automates insurance payments end-to-end — from online customer payments and financing to the distribution of commissions and carrier payables. We help distributors sell more by simplifying operations and delivering the modern checkout experience customers now expect.
We currently offer two products – an API and a dashboard – which deliver the same functionality and customer experience:
It's free to use our dashboard or integrate with our APIs. Our model is usage-based so there’s no subscription or licensing fee for you, the distributor.
You can use Ascend's dashboard to create online checkout links that you can share with your customers via text or email. Your customer can flexibly pay in full or finance on the go, using a variety of payment methods from credit card to ACH.
Our APIs are publicly available on our website here. Because our code is purpose-built for insurance and has the ability to handle insurance-specific use cases such as endorsements and cancellations, integrations are fairly quick and easy. Depending on the complexity, they typically take a few days, ranging from roughly three days to a week.
No, we’re not just a premium finance company. While premium finance is a key part of our solution, we also provide a modern online checkout experience, handle all downstream funds flow (payables, remittances) for premium financed policies, and give you greater control of and visibility into your customer's journey.
We are partners with a trusted third party that handles ongoing collections and has been servicing premium finance loans for over three decades. We are licensed to lend in all 50 states.
We have no shortage of capital to lend and have no limit on financed premium size.
We work with a trusted third party who has been servicing premium finance loans for decades. They have mapped over 4,000 different carriers and MGAs. In the event a carrier on your list isn’t on theirs, we can easily set them up for payment during onboarding.
We can handle all payables for any financed policy. In the near future, we plan to add this for pay in full. Today, Pay in Full is treated like standard agency bill.
We aim to simplify your operations. Your customers can access premium financing at checkout, review the terms with a click, and sign by checking a box. No need to print papers, send checks, or go back and forth with your premium finance company and insureds.
Today, we accept credit card and ACH payments. We’re always working to expand our payment methods and plan to accept wire and e-check in the near future.
Ascend offers competitive base rates for financed policies. Depending on the policy size, our rates typically range from 5% to 10%. We provide our distributor customers the opportunity to add or subsidize additional points as well.
For pay in full transactions, Ascend charges 2.9% for credit card and 0.8% for ACH up to $5. There is no transaction fee for financed policies.
We want to offer the best optionality for your customers. Therefore, our solution provides both a pay-in-full option and monthly and yearly payment options at the point of sale. We can support rate plans (instead of premium finance) but prefer not to offer pay-in-full only.
Reach out to hello@useascend.com. We'd love to hear from you.