Ken Leibow

There is a surge of services, innovative solutions, streamlined processes and automated underwriting for life insurance utilizing Electronic Health Records (EHR). I get it that the availability of electronic medical data still has a mountain to climb to completely replace Attending Physician Statements (APSs), however what you will find is that solution providers are creating intelligent processes to support both. By the end of this article, you will be convinced of the surge of EHR.

Accessing EHR
MIB is e-connected to 99.9 percent of the insurance companies in North America and for over 100 years has been a trusted industry partner, providing unique insights to aid in the underwriting process. Their Electronic Medical Data Service (formerly MIB EHR) improves the life insurance industry’s ability to access electronic medical records, streamlines the broader APS process, reduces overall costs, and accelerates the underwriting process. Offering the only solution in the life insurance market with access to the top three EHR systems in the U.S. (Epic, Cerner and Allscripts), and with access to NextGen and Practice Fusion (through Veradigm) and over 5,400 patient portals, MIB has more than doubled their release rates in the last year. Available to carriers as well as distribution, MIB provides the industry with a single point of access to secure records from multiple data sources, including the ability to systematically reflex to a traditional APS where electronic records are not available.

MIB recognizes the growing opportunity for electronic medical data platforms to provide a greater value to underwriting in 2022 through improved access to data, enhanced speed of data retrieval, and enriched usefulness of the data available to life insurance underwriters. “To meet the full needs of the life insurance industry, we recognize that data needs to be available from multiple sources through a single interface, including electronic data and traditional APSs,” said Andrea Caruso, executive vice president and chief operating officer of MIB. “It must also be provided in a way that makes it easily utilized in the underwriting process and comprehensive so that it can be decisional in nature.” In addition to making the format of the data more useful, MIB recognizes there is a critical need to provide underwriter support and educational materials to encourage use and adoption of electronic medical data. With former underwriters on staff, they are taking a leadership role in providing training and other resources, developed by underwriters for underwriters, which can help organizations get past the learning and adoption barriers.

Last year when I was browsing Human API’s website, their Vision Statement caught my attention and sent a simple yet powerful message, “We exist to radically accelerate the pace of health innovation for everyone, everywhere.” I reached out to the product team at Human API to find out more about their ever evolving EHR platform for life distribution. “Human API launched their Health Intelligence Platform for BGAs to enable better carrier collaboration, improve placement rates, and create better consumer experiences. The platform simplifies EHR and APS ordering into one unified process and turns health data into actionable intelligence that accelerates underwriting. With a single order, Human API searches for all available EHRs through their proprietary network. If no electronic records are found within a predetermined time period, an APS will automatically be ordered, reducing the operational burden on agents and case managers while decreasing the time it takes to get usable medical evidence.

Human API’s electronic health record network consistently exceeds a 50 percent conversion rate for customers by leveraging the largest combination of networks including HIPAA authorized networks, patient portals, and consumer-mediated record retrieval networks. The Health Intelligence Platform was built with distribution in mind, allowing brokerages to securely share evidence directly with carriers, keep agents and case managers informed with automated status notifications, and quickly understand the key aspects of an applicant’s health with simple health summaries. In addition, Human API’s structured health data powers improved client experience and better placement rates with personalized product matches. To learn more about how Human API’s Health Intelligence Platform can empower your business, reach out to Human API through humanapi.co/request-info.

Sharing Information and Integrating Solutions for a Better User Experience
This is the fourth consecutive article where I mention APIs. An open API (Application Programming Interface), is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. The market of Insurtech for life insurance has made it necessary that solution providers offer APIs. This emphasizes the importance of sharing information seamlessly between disparate systems and also building your own user experience. APIs make both of these possible.

MediPro Direct offers simple API connectivity solutions for exam and APS ordering. This includes access to MediPro Direct’s zip scheduler, which identifies coverage and availability for insurance exams before an order is placed. Additionally, MediPro Direct has partnered with Clareto and AdamsBridge Global to deliver real-time access to consolidated EHR data, reducing both time and cost throughout the underwriting process.

Industry consolidation in the life insurance exam space left service gaps including a lack of concierge type services for large, fully underwritten applications. MediPro Direct is filling this gap with a team of highly rated mobile nurses and phlebotomists, as well as informal APS and lab services.

Management Research Services, Inc. (MRS) has 33 years of history with Attending Physician Statement (APS) services, leading the U.S. market. MRS takes pride in its ability to locate the records, obtain needed special authorizations and conduct all research needed to verify requested information. MRS representatives contact the applicant and/or the agent when necessary if your process allows. In essence, MRS makes every effort to find the records prior to closing an order.

Recently, MRS has evolved into a more technology focused company supported by growth capital partners to help enhance its breakthrough no-code platform. This technology focus has resulted in tremendous growth over the past two years, proving MRS’s excellence in insurance technology and automation. MRS migrated its entire APS business to its modern platform in 2021, enabling an agile solution for its clients and internal representatives to process and complete orders with minimal human touch.

MRS’s technology platform allows it to support a stand-alone APS business, or to provide APS as an add-on to an e-App or tele-underwriting service. The MRS platform also provides advanced reporting capabilities that provide standard reports for time-service, volume, and average cost per order. The entire platform is constructed utilizing Application Program Interface (API). This allows for other systems to use their own existing technologies to still harness the power of the MRS rules engine. Data is collected via the MRS call center, online application or both. The next generation of application collection and underwriting technology is here. This is how it works: The rules engine enables the user to construct the detailed scripting and logic necessary for completing and underwriting an application. The MRS self-service model allows any subject to construct the scripting and underwriting decisions without the support of a software developer. This enables a more cost effective and timely process, as well as easy maintenance moving forward.

New Services and Solutions
eNoah has developed a structured, streamlined, cost-effective, technology-driven solution which addresses not only traditional medical record collection but EHR/HIE retrieval. With this, expert team members have developed time-tested and foolproof methods of speedy and effective communication with hospitals, clinics, physicians’ offices, and their copy services. Their deep long standing relationships with these facilities and copy services also contribute to best-in-class cycle times without compromising quality. Because of new technological developments and increasingly stringent security measures, confidential data is secure and in accordance with the regulatory guidelines of PHI and HIPAA privacy rules.

Traditional medical records collection is not going anywhere any time soon. While electronic health records are making an impact for some carriers, it will be some time before we get strong adoption. eNoah has developed and is continuing to develop advanced technology to assist with getting the records in as quickly as possible without compromising quality. eNoah is partnering with some of the top EHR/HIE vendors to ensure a smooth and timely request process and transition to the traditional records request when needed. Their platform and records retrieval experts insure there is no lost cycle time in being able to immediately switch to the traditional records request.

In response to the increased complexity of the insurance sales and underwriting process, ApplicInt has automated the information collection process. Whether you are an agent, carrier, call center representative consumer or examiner, ApplicInt solutions are utilized by their partners for the life insurance application digital point of sales and fulfillment end-to-end process with the data transmitted to the carrier in-good-order, which significantly decreased cycle time and ultimately results in placing more business. ApplicInt’s EHRComplete platform Integrates the collection of electronic health records (EHR) directly into ApplicInt’s ExamComplete, CallComplete or UComplete data collection processes. It saves time by obtaining permission from the consumer to initiate the collection of EHR in real time when the proposed insured is engaged in providing medical history. This simplifies and speeds the application process and at the same time reduces the workload for the underwriters or other staff from needing to initiate the collection of EHR separately.

I know when this article gets published there will be push back from other firms and vendors whose innovative EHR solutions and services were not mentioned. This just proves my point about EHR surging in 2022.

Let’s draw the roadmap of where life and annuity inforce automation is going as we end this year and move into 2022. Policyholder self service will continue to grow and dominate whether it is account management in a carrier’s portal or an App that can be used to perform inforce transactions on your mobile device. Then there are inforce policy management platforms that can help advisors create policy reviews with their clients and discover new sales opportunities using innovative data mining, analysis, and reporting. The key to these solution platforms to be successful is the data. We will also take a quick look at solutions that leverage your inforce book of business in the social media/online virtual world.

Inforce Self-Service Portals and Apps
Today’s generation of insurance policy portals include a host of features that help modernize and improve the advisor and client experience. Equisoft/servicing portal removes the need to take your team away from more important tasks. Their portal provides policy holders and agents the ability to self-service changes to addresses, beneficiaries, and payment details. Equisoft/servicing portal is a ready to go, out-of-the-box, online solution that drastically improves the customer servicing experience at any time, on any device. It provides detailed policy summaries and coverage information. Customers get up-to-date information like cash value, payment requirements, and more. And, on the portal, changes are able to be made to policy contract info, eliminating the need for paper change request forms to be sent by mail or fax and reducing the need for calls to the agent’s office.

As more organizations seek to put their customers in control of their policy servicing experience, insurers that provide digital self-service will not only improve their customer loyalty but will support their profitability goals by reducing their servicing costs. Sureify’s LifetimeSERVICE platform is a great example of a simple, intuitive online and mobile self-service interface that leads to customer and producer satisfaction. It gives customers control and takes the burden off producers who want to sell, not service, the business. Additionally, insurers will see immediate cost and efficiency savings using Sureify’s LifetimeSERVICE because in weeks, not months, they will be able to comfortably scale new business without increasing customer service salaries.

Notifications to the policyholder are very important. Sureify’s LifetimeSERVICE includes push notifications, emails and text messages for critical information like lapse notices and account changes. The platform has strong support features like Chat, Co-Browsing, Video-Chat, Advisor Lookup and FAQs. There is life and annuity account information which includes performance visualizations. The policyholder can do transactions like withdrawals, loans, payment and billing. Account maintenance is an expected feature like beneficiary changes. To round out the self-service features would be document management like policies/contracts, illustrations and tax documents (upload/download).

Inforce Policy Management Systems and Services
Employee Pooling (EP) has been developing a holistic policy management system since 2018. They can work with your CRM or one of the policy management platforms like Insured Connect (NIC) and Proformex. The current version of EP’s system includes policy data aggregation, updating policy data, policy monitoring (identification of policies in danger of lapsing or rate increases), campaign development, annual review presentations, and lead management. In a version to be released in the first quarter, EP expects to include policy owners’ current contact information (email and/or phone).

Post-sale policy servicing has historically been a nightmare for independent advisors. While writing policies through multiple distributors and carriers has major benefits in terms of product availability for clients, it has its downfalls too, namely in the way that an advisor’s clients’ policy data is all over the place. As a result, the concept of managing and monitoring policy performance for an inforce book has been largely reactive; it’s only when a carrier or client notifies an advisor that they even know there might be a problem like a lapse-pending policy. Proformex is transforming life insurance servicing from a reactive approach to a proactive one. The key to enabling proactive management of policies is access to timely and current information. Carrier data access is critical, and Proformex centralizes carrier data into a single, secure platform. It’s all about having the right information on the right policy at the right time. That enables advisors to have meaningful interactions with their clients and take proactive action to correct a policy that is no longer meeting its owner’s objectives.

Inforce APIs to Exchange Information
This is the part of the article where I discuss API’s again. I am hoping that by illustrating a variety of business cases month after month you will see the value of APIs. API stands for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Insured Connect (NIC) Inforce Data Exchange provides existing NIC carrier and distributor subscribers with even greater access to inforce data and the ability to use that data with multiple tools, apps and solutions. Whether you want to push pending lapse notices to your CRM, populate your sales pipeline with renewal opportunities or update your AMS, NIC’s data products are specifically designed to support your business. NIC’s data products support both life and annuity inforce data.

Policy/Contract API: Includes individual policy information that can be used to populate reports, forms, tools and apps (e.g. inforce illustration tools, digital marketing platform). The policy API supports individual policies or lists of policies. The policy API does not include policy owner PII data.

Policy Owner / Annuitant API: Includes PII data about the policy owner that can be used to populate a CRM or marketing automation solution. The policy owner API supports individual policy owners or lists of policy owners.

Agent Profile API: Includes data about the agent that can be used to populate a CRM or marketing automation solution. The agent profile API supports individual agents or lists of agents.

Agent Book of Business API: Includes all of an agent’s policies with information about each individual policy owner and policy. The API can be used to populate apps and tools (e.g. CRM) for pricing or analyzing an agent’s book.

Distributor Book of Business API: Includes all of a distributor’s policies with information about each individual policy owner and policy. The API can be used to populate apps and tools (e.g. CRM, AMS) for pricing and analyzing a distributor’s book.

Carrier Book of Business API: Includes all of a carrier’s downline firms, agents, policy owners and policies constructed in the distributor’s hierarchy. The API can be used to populate third-party databases.

Sales Opportunities API: Includes sales opportunities including renewal and conversion opportunities identified by NIC. The API can be used to update carrier and distributor CRM, AMS and other systems.

Policy Service API: Includes policy service changes initiated by NIC users, and includes address changes, beneficiary and other policy changes. The API can be used to update carrier and distributor CRM, AMS, and other systems.

Standardization in data exchange for annuity inforce data is widely adopted in the financial institution channel using DTCC services between annuity carriers and banks, clearing firms (e.g. NFS and Pershing), independent broker/dealers and wirehouses (e.g. Merrill Lynch and Raymond James). On the life insurance side, ACORD has a Life Inforce Product Group, which I have been a co-chair for the last couple of years. The group’s objective is to standardize life inforce data transactions from notifications like lapse notices, replacements, and conversions to financial transactions like withdrawals and fund allocations on variable life products. The concept of a next generation digital strategy by ACORD is to establish a common approach to setting standards, structures, and implementation guidelines while leveraging ACORD data standards invoking API methods.

Solutions Using Social Media/Online Finding New Sales for Your Inforce Book of Business
There are solutions driven by algorithms used in social media/online like Verisk Jornaya for example. These are strategic products and solutions that help you adapt your marketing and lead buys in real time by incorporating your consumers’ online shopping behavior. A solution like Jornaya takes your inforce book of business and optimizes timing and messaging for improved acquisition, cross-sell, and retention using this technology. This is a model similar to what Google, Facebook, and Amazon use. A good example: If your customer was shopping for a mortgage online, then in real time it could trigger an event where they may need more life insurance. This is a winning formula that will continue to gain traction in the insurance industry moving forward into 2022.

Digital point of sales solutions for life insurance continue to become more innovative. I am trying to keep up. The auto-fulfillment process for applying for life insurance is all about data and getting an instant underwriting decision. While we all want instant underwriting decisions, the impaired risk business is not going away. There are new enhancements regarding Electronic Health Records (EHR), and lab testing for COVID. The Internet of Things (IOT) is now playing a role in personal wellness that will affect underwriting in the future.

Point-of-Sale Instant Underwriting Decisions and Data Prefill
SCOR’s Velogica^® helps protect families by facilitating easily acquired life insurance at affordable prices while digitally integrating the most advanced evidence sources. Using a patented process to deliver instant underwriting decisions, the Velogica algorithm helps major clients drive new models of efficient distribution through predictive risk assessment and point-of-sale policyholder capture by correlating information from the life insurance application, motor vehicle reports, MIB reports and prescription drug history and other data sources. Velogica is designed with flexibility to incorporate new data sources as they become available.

The most recent release of Velogica integrates SCOR’s predictive analytics capabilities and electronic health records scores and offers powerful data visualization and analytics functions that allow for strong case management and tracking. With more than four million life insurance applications processed, this proven platform has a record of achievement that is unmatched in the industry.

Ash Brokerage, Ameritas and SCOR recently announced a new next-generation term life insurance product, Ash Instant term issued by Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. Ash Instant term is an example of how Velogica’s solution for point-of-sale life insurance combines reinsurance and product development. Ash developed the frontend journey for Ash Instant term and Velogica is the underwriting engine that supports it. This innovative digital product is available to Ash advisors through the Ash Term Express platform.

“We were excited to partner with ASH Brokerage and Ameritas to assist in the development of Ash Instant term. This digital product offers one of the best automation rates in the market while it maintains very competitive prices,” explains Richard De Sousa, senior vice president, deputy head of Growth and Development at SCOR. “Qualified applicants can confirm receipt of coverage within 15 minutes in either an agent-assisted or self-serve fully digital environment.”

LexisNexis^® Life Data Prefill is an interactive single-inquiry solution that streamlines the insurance process at the point of application, reducing the time and cost of capturing data to evaluate applicants. With just a name, address and date of birth, Life Data Prefill can help prefill other important application data in near real-time. This solution reduces the number of questions that need to be asked, minimizes mis-keys and enhances the overall customer experience. Life Data Prefill can help easily reduce Not in Good Order rates, minimize errors and prefill information that is often incorrectly entered. Completing the application more accurately the first time helps reduce customer follow-up so that agents can better place policies in a more efficient manner, carriers can speed up the application process and underwriters can better evaluate risk.

LexisNexis^® Risk Solutions also just released four new enhancements to Life Data Prefill that add additional value at the point of sale by providing an even more improved experience for the insurer and agency/broker. The four optional enhancements to Life Data Prefill include:

• Criminal and Bankruptcy Flags, which can be used by insurers to reduce critical application omissions related to criminal and/or bankruptcy records, determining a more appropriate applicant path.
• A Persistency Indicator, used by insurers and agents to identify the potential for early lapse and increase consumer satisfaction.
• A Family History Flag, used by insurers and agents to reduce application omissions related to premature family deaths and determine a more appropriate path for the applicant.
• An Accelerated Indicator, designed for agents, to provide a likelihood that the applicant will progress through accelerated underwriting programs.

All of these new Life Data Prefill enhancements provide point-of-sale data points that enable carriers and agents to approach the underwriting process with more confidence, while simultaneously increasing placement and retention ratios.

EHR, Latest on Labs for COVID, and Personal Health Scoring
I followed up with vendors to find out what they were doing and found that Human API had evolved their solution into a Health Intelligence Platform that connects carriers and distributors and converts health data into actionable information that drives faster underwriting decisioning. All of this is of course aimed at ultimately improving the consumer buying experience and increasing placement rates.

Human API’s new platform has different layers of capabilities designed to make it easy for carriers and distributors to get started with using EHR data. It’s powered by a data network which is a source of raw health data that feeds the platform that converts data into meaningful information. The reporting capabilities then transform this information into contextual knowledge that underwriters can leverage to make their decisions faster. Finally, the analytics layer provides insights to continuously optimize the performance and impact of the Health Intelligence Platform.

Human API is now connected to all electronic health records (EHR) data sources via direct EHR networks (Epic Chart Gateway and Veradigm), public networks like CommonWell Health Alliance, regional health information exchanges (HIEs), and their proprietary patient portal network, in addition to traditional APS vendor partners. It’s now possible to get health data through their platform via a HIPAA authorization or with patient portal credentials. They informed me that these new data integrations along with their Smart Orchestration capabilities which automatically order medical evidence from the best available data source are consistently powering hit rates above 50 percent for their carrier customers (a milestone for our industry). This is a signal that life insurance is really starting to make the transition on the digital transformation journey since there are platforms like Human API that are enabling health data access and useability.

Their new Health Intelligence Platform brings full stack data capabilities under one solution, from access to normalization to customer reporting and analytics. Historically a lot of these data capabilities had to be purchased from different vendors and stitched together, so they designed their platform to make it easy to both retrieve and use health data and expand the utility of EHRs beyond an APS replacement. All the data on Human API’s platform is normalized and feeds a custom reporting engine that creates unique reports tailored to underwriting needs. For example, carriers can triage blind spots with a report that screens for key conditions, or avoid labs and exams with a “Health Check” report. This makes the information within EHRs useful and customizable, reducing the need to manually review all the pages in the records. With the launch of their new platform, they’re making the APS an exception rather than the norm for a lot of their customers.

Additionally, the platform enables distributors and carriers to easily share records with one another for more transparency. Distributors are able to keep their applicants updated on the status of their cases as it moves through underwriting. This single view into the process is not only creating a better experience for customers but also enabling better collaboration between carriers and distributors.

While we looked at medical records, let’s now pivot to labs and the latest in COVID testing. In addition to initial COVID-19 strains, variants such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, are now creating concerns of resurgence in the U.S. According to a New York Times report, overall deaths from COVID remain around 1.6 percent, which the CDC indicates is a staggering 100 times that of the combined total of influenza and pneumonia.

While even vaccinated individuals are being infected, the CDC indicates that breakthrough infection rates, as well as hospitalization rates for breakthrough infections, are 1/10th that of the infection and hospitalization rate among unvaccinated individuals. This is good news for the vaccinated; however, not all vaccines are created equally, and none are 100 percent effective.

In fact, effectiveness rates among the top three vaccines range from 66 percent to 94.1 percent. This means as many as three out of every 10 vaccinated individuals will not develop the antibodies capable of neutralizing the COVID-19 virus. The only way to really know if a vaccination is effective is to get a test that identifies neutralizing antibodies post vaccination, such as the ImmunoRank Neutralization Assay offered by MediPro Direct.

MediPro Direct also offers a COVID-19 Titer test three to six months post-vaccination, which will identify the number of neutralizing antibodies remaining in an individual’s body. This result indicates whether a booster shot for COVID-19 is necessary for that individual. Results from these tests help individuals and organizations manage risk and better account for mortality rates by identifying the “truly” vaccinated.

I have an Apple Watch, iPhone, Withings Digital Blood Pressure Kit and Scale, plus health and workout Apps. These are all IOT devices capturing health and wellness data. I discovered a White Paper by dacadoo called “Health Scoring and The Personalization of Risk.” It had been developed in conjunction with a Data Science team to bring to life the tangible outcomes of Health Scoring technology. The results can be significant for healthcare expenditure savings. They also explore how new personalization efforts in life or health insurance can combine new technologies and correlative analysis techniques that leverage Big Data to deliver real-time customization of offerings, content, and customer experience at an individual level. There are a lot of important statistics in the report. A simple example is how adding an additional 1,850 steps to your daily activity can translate into hundreds of dollars of healthcare savings, which is especially beneficial today with the spiraling costs of healthcare. The Digital Health Engagement Platform from dacadoo is a mobile app. The platform includes its Health Score and Risk Engine for Life and Health Carriers globally. Click here to download the free White Paper.

It seems in 2021 that every couple of months I learn about a software solution, new process, or new service that innovates, enhances, and accelerates life insurance underwriting. There are now platforms for engaging the life agent, and outsourcing the BGA underwriting tasks that helps accelerate the informal process. Solution providers have created for carriers new innovative outsource underwriting services that result in reduced costs and more efficiencies. And yes I continue to share new information on APIs, specifically impacting the whole underwriting experience from digital point-of-sale to a carrier’s back office.

Automating and Accelerating the Informal Process for Impaired Risk Cases
You don’t often see a fully automated platform for agents for tracking underwriting quotes. BackNine Insurance, a leading BGA, has a software solution called Back Office Support System (BOSS), which helps independent agents and larger agencies alike in cultivating new opportunities while keeping everyone informed 24/7 on current quotes, requests, and case updates. The BOSS platform supports anyone selling life insurance by providing structure to write the type of business that best suits the needs of respective clients—from start to finish. BOSS essentially provides instant access to managing the lifecycle of all agents’ policies. Policy status, values, and beneficiaries for multiple carriers are housed in one location, allowing agents to efficiently service their clients. Agents are also able to optimize all elements of their business as the platform also allows them to view appointments, cases, commissions, quotes, and reporting, and it creates a digital hierarchy for commissions within an agency. And, it integrates seamlessly with the Quote & Apply e-application and quoting system.

Ian Ryan, brokerage director at BackNine Insurance, explained, “Impaired risk quotes (also known as quick quotes) are able to be tracked within the BOSS platform. If an application is submitted and the case isn’t approved, the reasons for the decline are sent, or other quotes are provided that the client was approved for with other carriers. This response time is quite efficient, typically within 24-48 hours. At that point we run quotes for the agent, then input all this information into our BOSS system. The client’s name and information won’t be sent to the carrier—they just require the client’s gender, age, and basic information—and it’s all anonymous. They won’t review documents or attachments at this point; we provide a brief synopsis of the client’s situation and any medical issues. It’s important to note that these are tentative offers based strictly upon the information provided. Once the response is received, we’ll include the impaired risk quote before sending a formal application.”

“These impaired risk quotes are typically used when an agent has a client with various health issues—so why waste their time on a formal application if the carrier isn’t going to be in a rate class they can afford. That being said, if the client has one or more health issues that are identified in the MIB or with prescriptions, the quote can change. It’s not a guaranteed offer; it’s tentative based upon the information we give for review. All of these responses and information are saved, and agents can go back into BOSS wherein they can view the carriers that have and haven’t responded. There’s also an easily accessible impaired risk quote section within BOSS where agents can find their client’s name, see exactly what information was sent to carriers, and what responses have been received.”

Outsource Underwriting Services for Distributors and Carriers
Employee Pooling (EP) is renowned for helping customers transform software platforms into software systems, finding the perfect integration of software and expert human capital to deliver solutions that increase efficiencies. For 10 years, EP has partnered with hundreds of distributors, financial institutions, and software companies to make the shift to working smarter by removing obstacles getting in the way of increasing profits and enhancing the customer experience. EP provides straight through processing solutions from sales support and agent appointments to case management and underwriting through commissions and policy services, and countless other tasks that are guaranteed to increase connectivity with your customers and increase profits.

You can finally stop putting your clients through a blind and seemingly endless, expensive, relationship-killing journey that is the traditional informal process. EP Accelerated Informal (AI) will take a case from darkness to light with just $50, an authorization and 24 hours. EP’s in-house underwriters use a rich medical data retrieval platform that delivers a comprehensive applicant profile using prescription drug and clinical lab history, and prescribing physician and actuarial data. In just one day, you have a professional risk summary that points you in the right direction for shopping a case.

Management Research Services, Inc. (MRS) has introduced its newest capability: Outsource Underwriting Services for insurance carriers. With over 30 years of life and health insurance experience, MRS is adding to its robust insurance automation capabilities by building on its proprietary technology platforms. The benefits gained through MRS’ turn-key underwriting services will provide agencies quicker processing as well as time and money savings. MRS and its insurance automation technologies keep carriers at the vanguard of an auto-code movement, allowing them to take advantage of an evolving insurance industry going through a significant digital transformation. MRS’ Outsource Underwriting Services will provide a variety of opportunities, including platform underwriting referrals, fulfillment of the chief underwriting role, audits, APS review/summary by the underwriter, MIB maintenance, MRS AutoCode model inclusion and contestable claim review.

MRS assists with insurance cases referred to underwriting for a decision in which the automated platforms could not make a determination or when additional information is required with intervention by an underwriter. MRS can provide a complete underwriting review and interpretation of attending physician records in conjunction with client acceptance guidelines as well as do periodic audits to remain compliant. For carriers that require underwriters to assist with short-term overflow, handle unanticipated fluctuations in business volumes, or are looking for a strategic outsourcing underwriting partner to support on a long-term basis.

Standardizing Part 2 Medical Questions for Speed-to-Market
The fulfillment process behind the scenes takes quite a bit of money, time and effort to implement from Part 1 questions and forms in a drop ticket, to Part 2 reflexive questions for a call center or digital Paramed. ApplicInt has just launched their “FAST Complete Suite.” It’s a low code, user customizable at a low cost which only takes two to three weeks to implement. The secret sauce is in the best of breed reflexive questions for impairments or positive responses. “FAST U*Complete” is the consumer facing quoting and eApp; “FAST CallComplete” is the reflexive scripted interviews for call centers; and “FAST ExamComplete” is reflexive interview for examiners to accurately collect carrier compliant questions. Top level Part 1 questions are easily customizable and mapped to state-filed forms; and data flows seamlessly from the consumer, call center, paramedical provider to the carrier.

APIs Supporting Underwriting for Carrier Policy Admin Systems
Everyone is building new technology based on APIs. I reached out to EIS whose platform is considered cutting edge. EIS is a global insurance software company and industry leader for carrier policy administration. Their EIS SuiteTM is an open, flexible platform of core systems and digital solutions that liberate carriers to accelerate and scale innovation, launch products faster, deliver new revenue channels, and create powerful customer experiences. Digital point of sales solutions, call centers for life insurance fulfillment, and other third party trading partners can create a personalized underwriting experience at the individual consumer level as well as at the product level through APIs from a carrier policy admin system and underwriting workbench. A flexible-configurable platform that uses cloud-based technology is able to trigger the API calls that are necessary through a solid rules engine and the right reflexive questioning. This is ideal for the industry for multiple reasons. 1) It allows carriers to reduce underwriting costs per applicant by only calling out to the additional data that is needed based on individual rules; 2) It speeds up the underwriting process, regardless of being fully underwritten or straight-through processing (STP); and, 3) It provides customers with a personalized experience based on who they are, the products they are applying for, and their own health rather than having a one-size-fits-all approach.

EIS’ Cloud-native, microservices, API-based platform gives carriers the ability to be underwriting agnostic. To personalize underwriting at the individual and product levels. Through its extensive API library it enables quick and easy integrations with not only established third-party sources that support underwriting such as Aura, Magnum, MIB, Milliman, ExamOne, etc., but also those third party sources. In addition, the Underwriting Workbench provides all of the collected information in one, easy-to-use system rather than having to go out to multiple systems (such as internal legacy solutions or external web-based applications) to pull in information for human-based underwriting. It keeps all of the external third-party data within the policy admin solution so that data is never lost and can be used down the line for claims.

The EIS Suite sends real-time notifications and updates to the distributor and agent keeping them informed through the underwriting process. At any time, an agent/broker can monitor the status of their clients, see where they are in the process, and get notifications from the underwriter (or third-party call center) if additional information is needed. It can trigger the agent into action to reach out to the applicant to ask for more info or to give them a nudge if they are taking too long to get their APS documentation or paramedical exam. With the EIS Suite persona-based applications, agents are kept in the loop at every stage in the policy lifecycle, from underwriting and service to claims.
Is it advances in technology, COVID, or just coincidence that we have recently seen a flood of innovations in the life insurance underwriting process? Whichever way, from Electronic Health Records (EHR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Predictive Analytics, underwriting automation continues to flourish. Don’t be surprised that I make more discoveries and share them in a future Tech-Tock article.

Automated Underwriting is the hot technology trend this year. There have been advancements since COVID-19 in 2020 from the growth in adoption of Electronic Health Records to AI in digital point of sales automated underwriting decisions. Data Analytics for predictive modeling is not some experimental outlier anymore. It is being used in mainstream underwriting today by life carriers and reinsurers. As we continue to keep you updated on the latest innovations in automated underwriting, it is also important to recognize the automation in the life insurance fulfillment process—like digital parameds and electronic lab slips. New software platforms relating to health and wellness are sprouting up in the market for carriers to offer to their policyholders. We are going to introduce in this article more details around Consumer Digital Health Engagement.

Automated Underwriting is Driven by Data and AI
SCOR is a global reinsurance company providing its clients with a broad range of innovative solutions. They have been on the cutting-edge doing studies, research, and development in automated underwriting (AUW). SCOR’s experts in underwriting have published on their website several articles on the future of life insurance underwriting. What they forecasted last year and in 2019 is being realized today.

I met with SCOR and they directed me to these articles, so here are some important facts: “Most companies agree the future of underwriting will be data driven. Data is one of the most valuable resources available to companies today, with new layers being added continuously. Computing capability is increasing and development of predictive models using machine learning techniques provide the ability to become much smarter in our assessment of risks. What does this mean for the future of underwriting? Underwriting assessments will be predominantly digital, will be unique to the individual risks and will require transparency.”

“Predictive models are an incredibly powerful tool with the potential to drive the life insurance industry forward in ways that are good for both consumers (improving their purchasing experience by removing intrusive requirements and long delays) and carriers (increasing taken rates and persistency and increasing the accuracy of mortality assessments). Traditional rules-based approaches start with assumptions and predict outcomes, while a predictive-model based strategy starts with outcomes and uses modelling techniques to identify data characteristics most likely to produce those outcomes. The predictive power of a model should be supported by a rules-based safety net. This predictive power coupled with the continued emergence of new underwriting data sources, puts us on the cusp of a sea change in what it means to underwrite.“

Velogica is SCOR’s automated underwriting platform designed to make instant underwriting decisions. It is integrated into the life insurance point-of-sales process. Velogica is helping major clients drive new models of efficient distribution through predictive risk assessment and point-of-sale policyholder capture. The Velogica algorithm correlates information from the life insurance application, motor vehicle reports, MIB reports and prescription drug history, and, in some states, criminal history. Clinical lab histories and credit-based mortality scores are on the horizon.

The Challenge of Automated Underwriting of Foreign Nationals
Global Insurance Solutions Group (Global SG) is not your typical life BGA because their niche business is providing life insurance to foreign nationals. They are experts at underwriting proposed insureds who travel to, reside and/or are citizens of other countries. Global SG works with specific carriers and life products that are available for this target market. I contacted Rita Northen, director of operations at Global SG and I asked her, “Does the progress we have made in automated underwriting work for this market?”

Rita explained, “Automated underwriting within the U.S. has expanded dramatically over the last several years. U.S. insurance carriers can collect an enormous amount of data on their insureds during the underwriting process. We are all aware of these data examples, i.e. MVR, script checks, MIB, and EHR. Our business focus at Global Insurance Solutions Group is in the high-net-worth foreign national market. The majority of our insureds reside outside of the U.S. and the automated underwriting processes frequently are not approved for our clients. Most carriers do not have the capabilities to access medical and financial data in other countries (or are not interested in trying).” I would like to clarify that automated underwriting does exist in other countries and medical data is available, however access to this data has either limited or restricted from companies outside of specific countries. Also U.S. life carriers have specific guidelines for underwriting foreign nationals, which a lot of its process involves paper and an underwriter to make a decision.

There is hope in making progress in getting access to some data. Rita wanted to emphasize the following: “One notable exception is Prudential, who we find takes a deeper dive into the data available on the internet. On our HNW foreign nationals, Prudential runs what it calls a DVR (Data Verification Report). These reports usually take a few days to complete and, although they are not always fully accurate or complete, typically give the carrier some independent information on the insured. The process definitely helps us in completing our cases quicker without having to get “the paper requirements” that, in this day and age, we all try to avoid.”

Consumer Digital Health Engagement
There is another new innovative trend in Insurtech. This new category is “Customer Engagement/Retention.” These are consumer mobile apps designed for carriers to offer to their policyholders to encourage healthy life choices, which in turn helps keep the business on the books.

Why Digital Health Engagement for Insurers? For life insurers, the value proposition is pretty obvious–healthy people are more likely to live longer. Yet, the majority of carriers do not engage with their members around their health (other than the initial exam, which is not exactly helpful). There are many benefits for insurers to implement an ongoing digital engagement strategy centered around health that delights users and provides benefits back to the issuer. Improving and helping to maintain overall health and wellbeing is the foundation. From there, a digital health engagement strategy can be used to differentiate your brand from competitors. With a custom branded white label app, members see your brand on a daily basis while they manage their lifestyle and positively associate it with helping them live better lives. This is very different from the relationship a traditional insurer has with their inforce policy holders. Once members are tracking their health and engaging with the branded platform, new personalized opportunities for cross- and up-sell are created. Rewards can increase use and retention, increase brand loyalty, and provide an attractive selling feature. dacadoo offers a robust health engagement platform, available as fully branded white label solutions, to provide these benefits and more to insurers around the world.

What’s your Health Score? Individuals have more health data than ever before available at their fingertips from trackers, wearables, and smartphone apps. It can be difficult to make sense of the volume of data and understand what truly affects your health. dacadoo’s mission is to make health measurable and understandable. One way it does so is by the Health Score, a real-time number from 1-1,000 based on 300 million person-years of clinical data, which has been patented and validated. dacadoo also offers the Risk Engine for Health quantification, based on the same underlying science as the Health Score, which can be accessed by API.

How can insurers use this data? Most insurers are not taking advantage of the recent advances in health tracking technology. By taking in these new data sources, such as steps and other health data, they can better estimate probabilities for mortality and morbidity. dacadoo’s Risk Engine was created to meet this need and augment existing underwriting. By providing a more complete health data set and imputing missing data points, insurers can strengthen accelerated underwriting, underwriting automation, and pricing engines. Some innovative insurers are creating new products to incentivize healthy behavior and offer premium discounts. Another use case is to recognize what behaviors have the biggest benefit, for instance increasing daily steps and activity, and offer programs for members to maintain or improve these areas. When people are healthier it’s a win-win—the individuals live better lives and it’s better for insurers.

Automating the Life Fulfillment Process
APPS electronic lab slip, in partnership with CRL, provides a fully digital solution. This automated process called eSlip, enables examiners to securely capture applicants’ biometric data and have the applicant sign the consent form via a tablet. Upon completion, the data is transmitted securely to CRL.

This process provides an electronic chain of custody that parallels the physical chain of custody of the specimen. It closes several gaps in the traditional process and ensures the data integrity throughout the process, eliminating the potential for unmatched results upon submission to the carrier. eSlip also reduces the risk associated with potential lost PHI during transit and the resultant consumer friction. It only makes sense that with today’s eApplication processes, the consumer experience continues through an end-to-end digital process. Bye bye paper!

We are hearing new terms like eBGAs and eRetailers for the sale of insurance products. Putting the research, education, quoting, and electronic insurance application submission process in the hands of the consumer while maintaining the agent ecosystem is the new model for marketing and selling insurance. This insurance sales model is growing in popularity. The type of insurance products on the direct-to-consumer platforms include: Simplified term insurance, final expense, guaranteed income, HMA, disability insurance, critical illness, and, yes, even cross-selling to property and casualty. More product types continue to be simplified for this sales model like guaranteed universal life, long term care insurance, and Medicare supplemental insurance. Why is this model growing significantly in 2021? There are three reasons: Social media, Millennials, and COVID-19.

In the U.S.A, the average time spent on social media is two hours and 25 minutes daily. The most effective medium for marketing today is through social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and others. Americans also spend about 5.3 hours daily on their mobile devices. This is an indicator that the platforms you use for quoting insurance and marketing should either be a native mobile app, hybrid mobile app, or mobile browser optimized Web App. Millennials, ages 25-40 born between 1981 and 1996, grew up with access to technology, online retail, and the sharing economy; therefore, they exhibit a discernable preference for experiences over product when spending time and money. Eighty percent of Millennials read reviews and do their own research before making a purchasing decision. They will ask for help when needed after they already have attempted the research. The target market of Millennials make up 72.1 million Americans. Yes, Millennials spend about 5.7 hours daily on their smartphones.

Since COVID-19 hit in 2020, the traditional method of selling insurance has relegated consumers to stay home and life agents to sell remotely. This has resulted in the acceleration of virtual tools, Artificial Intelligence (AI) for automated underwriting, and building out an easy consumer experience while still having an insurance advisor available for assistance when needed. Insurance advisors are given the software solutions and websites for marketing direct to consumers by a wholesaler like a BGA, IMO or GA at little or no cost. These direct-to-consumer tools are used to educate, quote, and have the consumer submit an insurance application direct while the agent and his/her upline receive commissions from the carrier. The consumer has easy access to an insurance advisor or call center for assistance during every step of the process from pre-sales to completing the insurance application. If a life insurance distributor did not develop these consumer tools in-house, then they are using a solution provider. The distributor or carrier purchases a license to use the consumer-direct software solutions, which can be used as a recruiting tool for agents. The huge advantage is that this enables multi-channel penetration like property and casualty shops, banks, health agents, and life insurance direct marketers. The formula for success is all about the consumer experience!

Consumer Engaging Solutions
Covr Financial Technologies’ digital, white-labeled platforms integrate seamlessly with financial brands to provide life, long term care, disability, and supplemental health solutions from top carriers to their clients in a simple, turnkey way. AI-driven tools, a digital advice model and omni-channel sales support seamlessly blend high-tech and high-touch. Covr is dedicated to transforming the insurance purchase process from something that was previously slow and paper-based to an experience that is fast, simple and digital. Covr currently serves over 25,000 financial advisors and over 20 million customers across over 30 financial institutions.

Among its new product launches are Covr’s multi-carrier term life insurance platform, which includes a growing number of instant-purchase journeys, and the proprietary LoanMatch Protector product. With Covr’s multi-carrier term insurance platform customers can apply for life insurance online in minutes, with real-time quotes available from the leading insurance carriers. Leading the way in the journey are product offerings from Bestow, Haven Life, Banner Life and Americo, which all offer fully digital, instant-decision capability and Covr’s technology to help clients find the product that fits best for them.

LoanMatch Protector mirrors the remainder of an existing mortgage, small business loan or other debt. The coverage adjusts to the client’s precise need, saving consumers up to 30 percent and offering the market-leading ability to complete the entire process in 15 minutes. Covr’s industry-leading digital life insurance platform integrates seamlessly into a financial institution’s existing website or other distribution model. This allows these financial institutions to offer a broad range of life insurance products from the leading insurance carriers to their customers. Today’s consumers expect choice, simplicity and speed when purchasing life insurance, and Covr’s technology is tailored to those demands.

Sureify’s Lifetime Platform is made up of three solutions: LifetimeAcquire, LifetimeService, and LifetimeEngage. LifetimeAcquire powers omnichannel sales capabilities that drive increased placement rates via quoting, e-application and automated underwriting. LifetimeService enables insurers to deploy a comprehensive digital self-service solution for their inforce business. And lastly, LifetimeEngage creates insights to foster a lifelong digital relationship with policyholders through multiple forms of engagement and analytics, leading to greater value for each policyholder. Sureify’s LifetimeEngage can help BGAs connect with policyholders in a meaningful, personalized, cost-effective way and engage with every customer in a way that helps ensure protection and maximize lifetime value. Rather than only having access to standard policy transaction data, Sureify’s LifetimeEngage platform delivers real time, actionable insights based on life events, interests, and personalized needs creating an organic source of cross-selling and upselling opportunities that strengthen the customer and agent relationship.

Other Consumer eApp Models
Consumers watch over 500 million hours of video daily. Imagine engaging with your clients with a Virtual Video Quoter. Well Employee Pooling (EP) has created Consumer Direct Insurance Tools (CDIT). An agent or carrier can create personalized videos about their products and educate the consumer on the importance of life insurance. CDIT is white labeled with options for you to select color and design. The videos can walk the consumer through an instant quote and an eApp. This is a great recruiting tool for BGAs. It can be co-branded for property and casualty shops, banks, and health agents. Of course, it is used by advisors for lead generation.

ApplicInt has an eApp solution called U*Complete. The power of this platform is the flexibility of the workflow model. An agent can run a quote, start a life insurance application, and then hand it off to a client to complete. U*Complete can also be integrated into a carrier’s website in a consumer direct model. ApplicInt is well known for fulfillment process software solutions like CallComplete, used at a carrier or paramed provider’s call center. They also have a digital paramed used by top providers like APPS. U*Complete is seamlessly plugged into the end-to-end life insurance electronic application process.

The Power of APIs
Solution providers are investing their research and development money into Application Programming Interface (API), which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Equisoft/apply is an easy to use, sales flow oriented eApp wizard for electronic insurance applications resulting in fast and seamless policy approvals used by insurance advisors. Equisoft is the king of APIs, first building their eApp to easily integrate with a carrier’s back-office policy admin system using an API. They also have an agent and client portal platform that has an API that makes it seamless to plug in third-party applications and data. The eApp engine of products rules, mapping data to the life insurance application forms and sending data and forms to the carrier can be accessed by a user interface (UI) whereby a carrier or distributor can build a consumer facing experience for eApp.

No Code eApp is a self-service model. Management Research Services (mrs) for example has created an administration tool that makes it quick and easy to set up mapping the eApp questions to the life application forms and configure all the product rules without having the vendor to program it for you. The mrs API makes it extremely easy for you to build the UI frontend on your website. This is a low cost and speed-to-market life eApp solution.

The industry has recognized the importance of APIs. The Life Distribution Technology Committee (LDTC) kicked off a project in 2021 to standardize APIs for life insurance.

Tying it all together with Mobile and Social Media
I provided some powerful statistics about how many Americans and how much time is spent daily using their mobile devices and specifically for the purpose of social media. The vendors of these consumer tools for insurance understand that their design needs to work on all devices and have optimization for the best experience possible on a smartphone or tablet like an iPad. The power of the API for eApp is that the user interface can be developed on a mobile app and a web app. An agent, for example, creates a marketing campaign targeting a specific demographic on Facebook, and then there is a link to the consumer insurance tool. The consumer runs a quote and applies for insurance in one seamless experience. The agent and his/her upline get paid their commissions.