Background
The Virginia Bureau of Insurance (the Bureau) serves the public by regulating, licensing, and investigating insurance companies, agencies, and agents. Their mission is to ensure that all Virginians have access to reliable insurance, and that all insurance entities and professionals conduct their business in compliance with Virginia law.
In early 2020, the Bureau chose Prometric to be its new national delivery partner for multiple lines of authority. After more than 10 years with their incumbent exam content and delivery provider, the migration of the Bureau’s data, developing business rules, establishing test content, and publishing exams were all in scope for the implementation. Additionally, the emphasis on building a strong relationship with the Bureau, along with Prometric’s extensive experience and established processes outlined in our proprietary implementation playbook, were viewed as foundational in ensuring a successful change management process.
Situation
In March 2020, the early phases of the Bureau’s program implementation coincided with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—resulting in the standard in-person implementation process needing to be altered to remote. While Prometric key implementation and account management leaders were able to meet with Virginia Insurance’s key stakeholders in person before the global pandemic, which helped establish the basis for a positive relationship, it was imperative that losing face-toface interactions did not impede on ensuring an ongoing and collaborative partnership. In addition to halting all business-related travel, the onset of the pandemic forced Prometric to make the difficult but necessary decision to temporarily close its global test center network, to limit the risk of spread of the novel coronavirus. This created uncertainty around whether or not the Bureau’s exam program would be able to go-live with in-center testing by the original contract date of June 1, 2020. Additionally, with the Bureau’s incumbent provider also unable to administer in-center exam delivery during this time, the need to quickly implement to avoid a larger candidate backlog became even more imperative.
Strategy
To ensure a smooth transition and continuity from contract signing to the implementation of Virginia Insurance’s exam program, Prometric held kick-off meetings to facilitate introductions with Virginia Insurance’s seasoned Prometric implementation manager and account team, who offer key strategic and operational support; walk through the implementation roadmap and contract requirements; establish a cadence and format for project meetings, including major tasks to complete, dates, and owners; and better understand current client processes and the program. Once project meetings could no longer occur in person, the Bureau and Prometric leveraged Microsoft Teams and video to host virtual, ongoing touchpoints, which kept the timeline on track and helped build on the partnership foundation.
To implement the exam content portion of the Bureau’s program, the implementation manager and account team facilitated meetings with Prometric’s test development and publishing teams to submit a schedule request based on the number of exams and first exam administration date, and create a test requirements document with the Bureau for their content and non-content items. Due to the pandemic, the in-person exam review workshop was cancelled, resulting in a two-week delay as virtual sessions were planned and participants were notified to accommodate publishing timelines and committed go-live data. From a test delivery standpoint, Prometric and the Bureau worked together to understand candidate flow and experience to set up registration and scheduling, create all internal and external communications to necessary stakeholders and candidates, and establish self-serve reporting capabilities.
With uncertainty around when Prometric test centers could reopen and recognizing the impact that the unforeseen events of the past few months would have on the ability of test takers to sit for exams and to pursue a career in the insurance industry, Prometric and the Bureau acted swiftly to also incorporate ProProctor™, Prometric’s remote proctoring solution, to the services being implemented for the program. This enhancement to their delivery solution, which leverages the same software solution as in-center testing to provide all candidates with the same user experience across the testing lifecycle, was made without impact to the original timeline of the implementation or without additional cost to the Bureau or Virginia insurance license candidates.
Prior to the first test administration day, Prometric worked with the Bureau to monitor candidate registration, including what test centers were able to resume operations during the pandemic; how many candidates were scheduled for in-center testing versus remote assessment; and any candidate scheduling issues or concerns. Prometric also identified additional seats over time to add to the markets where insurance licensing candidates could test—providing greater testing access.
Outcome
Prometric and the Bureau were able to work together to successfully implement their program and launch their first exam day on time for both in-center and remote delivery. As a part of Prometric’s best practices for the first exam day administration, Prometric’s command center monitored test operations to ensure everything went smoothly. Additionally, Prometric’s implementation and account teams gathered candidate results and testing statistics data from pre-agreed upon reporting mechanisms for the Bureau’s review.
“The relationship the Bureau built with Prometric over the last several months was founded on full transparency and willingness to work through any challenges or opportunities presented during the implementation. This trust allowed for dialogues that helped us move through roadblocks created by the pandemic to meet all deliverables and the committed go-live date, ensuring licensed professionals in the Commonwealth could continue to meet their constituents’ insurance needs.”
Richard Tozer, Agent Licensing Manager, Virginia Bureau of Insurance
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