COVER STORY
Wallace, iPipeline: I can see new programs emerging with variable
rates. Fitness trackers could become a prevalent method for
determining what individuals pay for their insurance policies.
Improve your health, and you receive a perk, but also as part of
this electable program you could end up paying more if you do
not keep up your end of the bargain.
“If innovations like those taking place
in the car insurance industry were
increasingly made available through
life insurance carriers, the life insurance
gap could begin to close.”
Manandhar, Legal & General America
Automated underwriting is going to drastically impact how the
industry works going forward. This will not only accelerate the
speed with which individuals are insured and policies are issued,
it will change the buying and selling dynamics by delivering new
efficiencies to both agents and advisors.
One of the greatest game changers will be the entrance of
“market killers” into the mix. Costco is developing a proprietary
product with Protective life insurance. Walmart in affiliation
with MetLife is working on a product. Amazon is working on
securing an insurance license, and they are looking to test
their own quote engine in the European markets this year. The
potential for the companies to focus on customers and revenue
over profitability is great.
Ideas for making the grade
When asked what can be done to make the technological changes
more effective for the advisors, the group offered a variety of ideas.
Distribution perspective
Tattersall, BackNine: Continue improving your service in addition
to running your business. If you improve your service by 10% a
week (or even 10% a month), your service will look dramatically
different a year from now.
Ziambras, AIMCOR Group: As I have been watching insurance
companies and third-party vendors launch technology tools and
platforms over the years, I was always puzzled by the absence of
financial incentives for adoption. Collectively speaking, we are
not going to win this battle if we continue to cater to the lowest
14
Perspectives
Q3 2019
common denominator and stick to the not-wanting-to-be-first
mentality. Hope is not a strategy and inertia is not a sustainable
competitive advantage. Carriers and distributors need to
establish aggressive, deliberate and measurable multi-year
objectives to leverage the technology that has and continues
to be built and redirect the resulting savings towards new
distribution enablement and, ultimately, consumer engagement.
Since most of us are betting on an advice-based model, most
of the effort and investment dollars should be directed towards
creating the sale, not processing and servicing it!
Manufacturing perspective
Manandhar, Legal & General America: We want to make it easy
for families to get the coverage they need and to be able to
communicate with their agent in the way that works best for
them, whether face-to-face, utilizing a call center model or
providing a full digital journey. In order to help with the digital
journey, we have been collaborating with a number of tech
companies that will better equip our BGA partners with the
tools and information they need. Our goal is to incorporate
innovations that make the most sense for American families.
One day that might be exploring use cases for more
sophisticated technology that actively monitors baseline
health of individuals and sends data to mobile devices to help
identify risk factors. But today, it’s about leveraging every-day
conveniences like mobile technology, which is an integral part
of our strategy at LGA.
Making purchases and conducting financial transactions
via mobile device is almost second nature in the U.S., so we
want to make sure that customers can access their policy
information on their phones at any time. We also want to make
sure our agents can access information in real-time to complete
the application, check progress on case status or service other
needs of their customers.
Prabhu, Pacific Life: Pacific Life Broad Market is focused on
providing a suite of solutions that allow the BGA/Agent to
effectively serve the mass market, enabled by digital tools to
solicit new business, fulfill requirements during underwriting,
deliver policies, and to case manage. Many of these tools have
existed for several years and the field has grown dependent on
them to do business. Pacific Life is committed to improving on
these tools and providing end to end digital solutions for the
life insurance purchasing process. Our ultimate goal is to help
all of our BGAs and Agents to save time and money by reducing
their work and helping them to focus on the cases that need
their attention.
Practice areas
where digital
tools would
help most
46 %
Marketing and
client acquisition
Advisors in all
channels
Source: Harnessing Growth: The LIMRA-EY
Experienced Financial Advisor Study, LIMRA, 2019.
31 %
Ongoing client
engagement
11 %
Financial
planning
Bank financial
Bank financial
advisors, independent advisors, full-service
broker-dealers &
broker-dealers &
career agents
full-service broker-dealers
Case example for eRequirements
Fulfilling requirements during underwriting is the second
longest driver of cycle time (APS are number 1) so we developed
a solution to present agents and proposed insureds with smart
forms to ensure they are completed in good order, provided
an eSign solution, and mapped all the answers directly into
our admin system. With our eRequirements tool we were able
to load a Replacement form, speak to the proposed insured,
complete the form, collect all signatures and issue the case
within an hour of the first conversation. This process would
have taken days without our eRequirements solution.
9 %
3 %
Practice
management Insurance
planning
Registered investment
advisors, independent
broker-dealers &
bank financial advisors Independent agents
& multiple-line
exclusive agents
business in our industry — 99% of all policies are still delivered
via snail mail. Until we are collectively working to reach a 100%
digital state, inefficiencies will continue to add to cycle time and
reduce the selling of diversified financial products.
Speed to market is everything in today’s world. Technological
innovations can be transformative, but only if they are put to
productive use by agents and advisors as an integral part of
their daily business activities. An occasional nudge on the part
of the insurer and distributor is never a bad idea. We as an
industry are well on our way to digital transformation. Just don’t
take your foot off the accelerator!
Technology perspective Supporting the human factor
Nielsen, GetInsured: Renewing focus on the user experience as
it applies to brokers can have a tremendous impact. Agents are
constantly faced with carrier enrollment solutions and back office
platforms with convoluted navigation and unnecessarily complex
user interfaces that are designed with administration, not brokers,
in mind. Quality of life improvements like guided product tours for
new users and supplemented with an on demand microlearning
platform allows brokers to quickly access information when they
need it and increase production exponentially. As Wallace from iPipeline summarized, “Technology
is the vector to the future and does not signal disaster
for the industry. It simply points to the need to partner
with innovative technology providers to stay one step
ahead in what can be a very competitive landscape.
Achieving digital maturity within our industry will require
a willingness on the part of industry executives to make
disruptive changes that positively influence buying and
selling behaviors. Those who positively embrace these
changes, while maintaining frequent touches with
customers will remain indispensable and be tomorrow’s
most successful leaders.”
There are so many ways for technology to improve
efficiency, accuracy, and communication in the industry.
In the end, however, the advancements are here to forge
the human interactions which are the foundation of the
industry meeting the clients’ needs.
Wallace, iPipeline: Adoption, adoption and adoption. Those
companies on the digital transformation highway need to put
up more green lights, encouraging their agents and advisors to
achieve new efficiencies and accelerate selling by abandoning
old business vehicles. The technology exists today to bring
about drastic industry reform, but to get there requires constant
reinforcement of the benefits to be realized through straight-
through processing. I have long been an advocate of incentives
to promote technology adoption. Deploy the technology,
promote it day in and day out, and recognize those individuals,
whose adoption is increasing your business, by increasing their
commissions and offering other perks.
Paper remains as the dominant medium for transacting
Pam Sheehan
Senior Director, Strategic Partnerships & Media
Initiatives, NAILBA • [email protected]
www.nailba.org
15