The Claim Isn't Done Until the Vendor Gets Paid: One Inc's Ian Drysdale

Ask a claims leader where cycle time goes and you'll hear about adjuster capacity, estimates, supplements, and parts. You rarely hear about the check. But the body shop holding a policyholder's car, or the roofer waiting on a draw before starting the next phase, is often waiting on one thing: payment. When the money is slow or confusing, the claim is slow too, and the policyholder blames the carrier.

One Inc runs a digital payments network built for insurance, connecting more than 1.3 million vendors and providers with over 320 carriers. On September 30 it launched XpressOne, which gives vendors one place to manage the claim payments they get from multiple insurers. We sent CEO Ian Drysdale eight questions about where vendor payments actually break down and what changes when they don't. His answers are below, lightly edited.

Vendor payments rarely get talked about as a claims problem. Where does a slow or messy vendor payment actually stall a claim, and what does that cost a carrier?

When a service provider has physical control of something, such as a car, title, or settlement funds, payment can gate their release. A contractor may also wait for one payment before beginning the next phase of work. That means a payment delay can quickly become a claims delay, leaving the policyholder wondering when they will get their vehicle or property back.

For the carrier, that creates additional calls, escalations, and manual work. More importantly, it can prolong the claim and create a frustrating experience for the policyholder.

A contractor or body shop getting paid by a dozen carriers across multiple locations and TINs: what does their reconciliation mess look like today, before XpressOne?

For vendors, it is often a fragmented, highly manual process. They may receive payments from multiple carriers through different payment methods, across numerous locations and tax IDs, with remittance information spread across systems and formats. Sometimes they do not even know what a payment is for.

XpressOne brings those payments, preferences, and supporting data together, while ClaimsPay provides a consistent disbursement and reporting experience across carriers. The goal is to become the vendor disbursements engine for the P&C insurance industry.

Why does this need a network built only for insurance? What do bank rails and bill pay networks get wrong about claim payments?

Moving money is the easy part. The harder part is connecting carriers and vendors while supporting insurance-specific remittance data, reconciliation, workflows, locations, tax IDs, and payment preferences.

Without a network, every vendor would need to enroll separately with every carrier. Multiply that across thousands of carriers and vendors, and it is simply not realistic. The One Inc network solves that enrollment problem at scale. Once a vendor joins, the business can connect to hundreds of carriers, and XpressOne makes that experience even easier and more efficient.

Stop-payments, reissues, and "where's my check" calls: which of those drives the most cost for carriers, and how much of it can XpressOne realistically take out?

The biggest risk is fraud. Check fraud can cost a carrier thousands or even millions of dollars. Moving payments to digital methods can eliminate many of the risks associated with checks.

Stop-payments, reissues, and "where's my check" calls also drive significant expense and dissatisfaction. XpressOne gives vendors greater visibility and self-service tools, helping reduce those routine inquiries and exceptions. It takes a meaningful amount of manual work and risk out of the process.

What's the carrier's role here? Does a carrier have to do anything to get the benefit, or is this mostly on the vendor side?

The good news is that the carrier's only role is to recognize the value of an insurance-native network of digital payments and data and join it. Without that network, building and maintaining individual payment connections between every carrier and vendor becomes an enormous, nearly impossible task.

Once connected, the carrier does not have to manage each payment method separately. Vendors choose how they want to be paid, while XpressOne handles the downstream routing and disbursement. That reduces friction for the carrier while helping lower costs, reduce fraud, and improve policyholder satisfaction.

ClaimsCard vs. direct deposit: what are vendors actually choosing, and does the card option come with fees that eat into a small repair shop's margin?

It depends largely on the vendor's payment volume and operating model. ClaimsCard requires virtually no setup. If a vendor already accepts cards, it can process the payment without sharing bank account credentials. Vendors also recognize the authorization as confirmation of payment, which may allow them to release a vehicle or move work forward before the funds settle.

For a vendor receiving only a few payments each year, that convenience can be very attractive. As payment volume increases, vendors may prefer XpressOne Direct because it eliminates repeated keying and consolidates reporting across carrier payments. Card acceptance costs are part of the consideration, but the right choice comes down to what works best for the vendor.

RTP and FedNow are coming. When claim money can move instantly, what changes about fraud controls and payment approvals on the carrier side?

Little changes on the carrier side. That is true for RTP, FedNow, and other One Inc payment types. The vendor and recipient vetting is completed in advance, so the network can repeatedly pay that recipient using the vendor's chosen payment method.

Vendor choice is central to the model. The carrier sends the payment through the network, and XpressOne handles the selected method. From the carrier's perspective, whether the vendor chooses direct deposit, ClaimsCard, RTP, or FedNow becomes operationally less important because One Inc manages the complexity behind it.

For a policyholder waiting on a roof repair after a storm, what's the realistic time difference between a vendor on XpressOne and one that isn't?

There is not one universal number because timing depends on the carrier, vendor, and payment method. But the vendor can be paid faster, which means the repair can start or be completed sooner.

There is also less confusion about which payments apply to which customers and claims, making reconciliation easier for the contractor. Home repairs are already complicated enough. With XpressOne, payment becomes one less thing the contractor and policyholder must worry about.

The takeaway

Claims teams spend a lot of energy shaving days off inspection and estimating. Ian's point is that the last mile, getting the vendor paid and making it obvious what the payment was for, can quietly undo that work. With hurricane season putting contractors and adjusters under pressure at the same time, it's worth asking how your own vendor payments flow, and how many "where's my check" calls your claims staff are fielding.

Ian Drysdale is CEO and board member of One Inc. Read more about XpressOne in One Inc's announcement.