The digital life insurance sales experience is continuously improving in both agent facing or consumer facing software applications. So what are some of the technologies responsible for these enhancements and why should you know? Look, I don’t want to scare you from reading the rest of this article with technical terms like Electronic Health Records, No-Code software solutions, and APIs. When addressing the digital point of sales solutions to carriers, distributors, or advisors, you need to understand the business problem these technologies solve without having to dive deep into the technology. With this basic understanding, you are better informed and feel more confident in investing in the software solutions that will help sell more life insurance.
Transforming Consumer Experience with the Power of Digital Health Data
So, what could the new customer experience look like for buying life insurance? First, a potential customer meets with an agent to discuss their situation and financial needs in the event of their untimely death, recommending the best life insurance product for their situation and providing a quote. The individual then makes a decision to move forward and, with their agent, they get started on the application and add their health info to the part two. The agent sends the application to the carrier and it goes to the underwriting department. Then, the customer is almost done. An electronic medical record is searched for and comes back within a day. The underwriting team makes a decision and the policy is sent to the customer to officially purchase, just a few days after submitting their application. And, now, one more family has peace of mind that they’re financially covered.
Human API is dedicated to being a key player in this customer experience. I have written several articles about Electronic Health Data (EHR) and Human API has always been a critical player in the discussion, but there’s much more. Human API is not only consumer-forward, not just an EHR provider, not just helpful in replacing APSs, not just sharing better underwriting data, not just tech-agile and API-driven—Human API is a critical partner for carriers seeking to showcase the best in consumer experience and to accomplish their most strategic transformation goals.
- Defining the future of consumer experiences and interactions—across all touch points.
- Expanding and accelerating transformation to better support distribution partners and reinsurers.
- Seamlessly turning data into intelligence by possessing a flexible and scalable data infrastructure for modern, fast and efficient processes.
Here is a quote from a top carrier about leading the changes and best of breed experience, “Human API’s platform further expands our ability to provide our members the best experience buying life insurance. We were the first company to use digital health data and are continually looking for ways to improve our processes—including increasing the percentage of medical records we can receive digitally which cuts down on the time that it takes to get life insurance coverage.”—Christopher Flint, senior vice president and GM, Life Insurance, at USAA. For more information about Human API, visit www.humanapi.co.
How No-Code eApp and EHR Saves Time
Technology that allows for rapid decision-making, the functionality of a no-code platform, and a customer-service driven approach to integration is what Management Research Services (MRS) has created as an industry innovator. Many underwriting decisions are easy ones. The issue is that it requires analysis of massive data sets to arrive at the decision. Technology improvements offered in the MRS no-code platform will never eliminate the need for underwriters; they just eliminate the need for underwriters to spend hours upon hours of reading and scanning the intel provided for each client.
Consider the recent history and changes in record-keeping across the medical industry. Generations of paper records yielded to the first-generation Electronic Medical Record (EMR). EMRs are not standardized across providers, they are really an in-house chart—something of a relic from the days before cloud computing. The lack of standardization means there is a lot to manually unpack and interpret.
The process today has now been turned upside down: Most underwriting decisions are already made. The applications become about seeing how and where each applicant qualifies, according to each client’s pre-programmed rules and decisions. The result is rapid underwriting decisions made at the point of sale; over 95 percent of applicants are processed within just minutes.
The example of the rise of EMRs provides a behind-the-scenes way technology began saving time in application processing. It is notable that where MRS is truly going to save time for insurance carriers or third-party vendors is with the sleek functionality of the no-code platform. Their system bypasses an expensive and time-consuming step in the process by removing the need to work with developers or IT. They have already taken care of that step for you; no programming or coding experience is required in the process. This results in their clients becoming empowered.
MRS has a customer service driven approach which means rapid integration times for systems customized from the ground-up and with minimal maintenance costs. They want to collaborate with you to build the platform or E-App that best serves your organizational and client needs. Click here to learn more or request a demo.
APIs Bridge Together Systems for a Better Life Insurance Sales Experience
As I continue educating the industry on APIs, I reached out to Paperless Solutions Group. Bill Walasek, VP of Sales at Paperless Solutions Group recently spoke with an industry veteran who asked about APIs. Bill asked him to talk about how he did business a few years ago. He recounted the days when, meeting with a prospect, he would scribble down some notes during the meeting and bring those notes back to the office. He would hand those notes over to his staff with some direction on how to proceed in regards to coverage. At that point, like any good businessman, he would move on to the next prospect. He was really not involved with the case unless something unusual came up like a rating or decline. Bottom line, a month or two out, he looked at his commission statement to see if the case was placed. Sound a bit familiar?
After this handoff, a lot goes on behind the scenes. This includes storing the data he collected (likely in a file cabinet or maybe a spreadsheet), getting a quote, filling out an application, submitting it to a carrier, waiting for a response, and if placed, finally receiving a policy and the commission. Take a second, think about how much data has moved through this process and how many different and disparate systems that the data must be ingested into.
The likelihood of information being lost or improperly entered is great and the time to move this data around is even greater. What was and is needed is a way to bridge all this information to systems that can accept it without keystrokes, resources, and wasted time. This is why APIs are so critical for our industry.
We, as an industry, have just begun to see the power of the use of APIs. Other industries have been doing this for years. APIs pull the appropriate data needed, at the time that it is needed, and then move it to the correct place in the next step of the process. So we are now getting to a place where you can take prospect information and feed it into a CRM where it can then be sent to a quoting system. Once the appropriate quote has been agreed upon, that information can then be delivered into an e-application which is sent to the carrier and stored in the CRM. The carrier can then ingest that information into their systems and send the agent status updates that can be stored and displayed wherever they wish. If there are outstanding requirements, those pieces of information or forms can be collected quickly so the case does not go stale. Finally, once the case is placed, policies can be delivered electronically and, yes, the commission almost instantaneously. Aren’t APIs great?
“At Paperless Solutions Group (PSG), we embrace APIs. In fact, we utilized APIs before APIs were cool. All our solutions are API driven from eApplication, to quoting with underwriting (eValuate), to requirements gathering (eRequirement), to eSignature. While these solutions provide a seamless experience, we understand that there are other solutions that you have invested much time, resources, and dollars implementing. What APIs provide is the ability to play nice in the sandbox with other solution providers. And this brings up what should be considered when implementing any solutions: How does it affect what I do today and how will it work with our vision moving forward?” To learn more about PSG solutions visit www.paperlesssolutions.net.
