Arlington/Roe Agency Partners,
With the media coverage of cybercrime and the exorbitant demands those incidents produce, another type of low-tech fraud continues to increase. Government studies show since 1993, the number of paper checks in circulation is down 82%. However, check fraud is on the rise. Over the last five years, this type of fraud has doubled to an estimated $24 billion dollars. The reason is simple: it is a low-tech crime committed with easily obtainable supplies that are readily available.
Arlington/Roe has been advocating and encouraging payments made to our agents for commissions and/or return premiums via Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) for the past few years, and over 80% of our agency partners have agreed. EFT lets us make those payments to you quickly and securely, thus avoiding the distribution of paper checks through the postal system. As a reminder, this is only used to remit any payments, commissions, or returns due to your agency. It DOES NOT serve as a mechanism for us to sweep or withdraw any monies from your account, i.e. this is a one-way street from us to you.
Effective 1/1/2024, we are asking for banking information to be provided to receive remittances from us monthly. We are requesting our agency partners who have not given us banking information to please do so to allow these payments via EFT. To mitigate fraud exposure, paper checks will now only be processed and distributed once per year, in December. We feel that the financial environment has evolved to the point where EFT payments are the expected method of payment rather than the exception.
If not previously provided, please utilize the link on the bottom footer of our website or visit arlingtonroe.com/ach-commissions/ which will allow you to supply banking information to us via a secure webpage. Our systems update accordingly, and payments will be made monthly.
As a final note, we highly encourage you to make payments to us electronically using our ePayPolicy payment feature. This will help you and your agency reduce your own internal exposure to paper check fraud. 70% of all payments received by Arlington/Roe have been through our ePay site, and we thank you for your utilization of this service.
For questions, please contact one of the following associates on our accounting team or your state sales and marketing manager.
Greg Etchison
Accounting Manager
getchison@arlingtonroe.com
317-554-8688
Anna Davenport
Senior Accounting Associate
adavenport@arlingtonroe.com
317-554-8586
Becky Stillwell
Senior Accounting Associate
bstillwell@arlingtonroe.com
317-554-8691