Ken Leibow

There has been a lot reported on the impact of COVID-19 to the life insurance industry. I wanted to research this from a different perspective. Starting with sales illustration vendors from changes to carrier projects to how BGAs and agents are engaging with their clients. Next, I was curious about the truth regarding paramed exams. You will be surprised at what the paramed vendors revealed. Also, there is a growing trend for life insurance carriers using solution platforms to remotely engage with their policy owners.

Sales Illustrations
Let’s take a look at two types of illustration vendors to see how their businesses have changed since COVID-19. The first is illustrate inc. who works with carriers. They have modular point of sales solutions that run quotes, illustrations and eApps on both mobile and desktop devices for life insurance agents and consumers. illustrate inc. works on carrier digital point of sales projects customizing their solutions to integrate in the life insurance sales experience. The second type of illustration vendor is Ensight who focuses on the distribution side. Ensight has a modern multi-carrier intelligent quoting platform with a presentation solution used by BGAs for case design and analyzing permanent products like index universal life to visually help the agent explain the benefits of the UL product to their clients.

The feedback we received from illustrate inc. is that their business continued uninterrupted due to COVID-19, however they did see an impact on short term projects with some life insurance carriers as they shifted their immediate attention towards their own operations. Carriers recognize the impact COVID-19 has had on their distribution channels, clients, and operations, which has led them to start to reevaluate and review their current digital strategies to ensure that they’re aligned with the new business environment. Lyndon Edwards, president of illustrate inc., stated, “We’ve experienced a significant increase in conversations, largely due to COVID-19, with carriers who are ramping up their digital capabilities. This ranges from those just starting to look for a practical solution to those who see this as an opportunity to expand on their existing capabilities, as the pandemic has reinforced the need for automated and digital services from both a sales and business continuity perspective. Vendors, like us at illustrate inc., must be flexible, nimble, and innovative to deal with the changing requirements, immediate needs, and long-term scalability and sustainability of our solutions in order to support carriers and provide continuous value.”

From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ensight has seen a dramatic shift to the remote sales engagement model on virtual meetings such as Zoom and Go To Meeting-whether it is BGA case designers and wholesalers virtually supporting producers and financial professionals on key cases or providing product training, or life and annuity producers engaging with prospects over the Zoom to help fulfill the increased demand driven by the pandemic, or financial advisors, almost 50 percent of whom were already moving to a virtual client engagement model, interactively walking clients through the benefits of life insurance. Bill Unrue, CEO of Ensight, commented, “At Ensight, we have seen a dramatic shift towards the virtual sales experience with growth of 155 percent in just the last three months. We have also been supporting hundreds of wholesalers and financial professionals on a weekly basis via webinars and interactive training sessions to enable interactive client engagements on remote meetings. The pandemic has acted as an accelerant in the march toward digital transformation for the life and annuity sector. The rapid and agile response over the last seven months to COVID-19 bodes well for returning the sector to long-term growth and wider financial protection in society.”

Paramed Exams
APPS Paramedical Services has been able to not only “make it through” the initial stages of the COVID-19 crisis, APPS has seen significant paramedical exam order volume increases, and completions that are exceeding year over year projections. Joe Klein, SVP of National Accounts at APPS, was eager to provide some details, “As we entered mid-March, Coronavirus and uncertainty were at an all-time height in the U.S. Markets were shaken, neighborhoods were rocked, and many people hunkered down in isolation. Life insurance sales fell sharply, and paramedical exam orders were only half of what was expected. Fortunately, APPS responded by pulling together non-N95 masks and other PPE. Exam services continued, albeit slower, but fortunately in line with the speed of sales. Only four to six weeks later Americans were back in the saddle. The paramedical exam orders were flowing full force. Sure, some carriers deferred exams in lieu of higher rating offers, but those that saw their applicants’ continued desire to be fully medically underwritten had their exams completed and completed safely. Thus far into the pandemic the number of exams completed by APPS eclipses half a million. Paramedical exams are getting completed safely every day in the privacy of applicants’ homes. APPS is proud to not only help more Americans secure the financial security of their families, we are proud to serve our underwriting customers as they ensure the correct decisions are being made.”

As some actuaries are predicting, the mortality impact of COVID-19 will stretch far past the missed doctors’ appointments for preventative health and skyrocketing binge drinking. Just take a read of the newly published Hank George article titled Dire Diagnosis-COVID-19, the Great Recession, and the coming underwriting apocalypse. You will find it a sobering reminder that right now, more than ever, the value of fluids results cannot be replaced.

I spoke with a second paramedical service provider, MediPro Direct. Ryan Janeway, president, and CEO stated, “The impact of the SARS-CoV2 virus (COVID-19) on the insurance industry is significant. As a paramedical service provider, we experienced an immediate decline in exams being performed due to state and community shutdowns, economic uncertainty, and an increase by carriers in the policy amount required for these exams. We also experienced the demise of one of our largest competitors due directly to the impact of this virus on their business. As an organization MediPro Direct was well-positioned to respond to these market shifts, having already established a virtual office environment for our entire national team and utilizing secure and redundant cloud services for our case management systems. Setting up a virtual office offered a flexible workspace with the required space and technology, and also the company does not have to bear the traditional lease expense. You might find it unconventional when big companies like MediPro Direct choose a virtual workspace, but you should click here and see the benefits of adopting a virtual office in times like these. Our multifaceted business meant we were also able to hire some of the top talent made available by the sudden shut-down of our competitor, further increasing our ability to exceed client expectations.” In addition to operational consistency and data security, MediPro Direct was able to provide its field examiners with immediate access to PPE, as well as PCR and antigen testing through MediPro Direct’s genetic and clinical lab. This meant the safety for examiners and the applicants they service was never in question. Ryan continued optimistically, “Looking forward, we see the future of the insurance industry requiring a more data-conscious and capable paramedical network, including access to data on the health of the examiners in the field. With one the largest examiner networks in the nation, real-time reporting through our Quality First system, and examiner health tracking, MediPro Direct is ready to lead the way.”

I reached out to IMS-Insurance Medical Services to see if there was a change in the number of examiners being recruited. IMS offers a full array of services to assist with the pre-underwriting process such as paramedical examinations, attending physician statements, criminal background checks and motor vehicle reports. IMS is open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. They have a national network of over 5,000 paramedical examiners nationwide. Bilal Saeed, VP of Operations at IMS, Paramed Inc. responded, “In spite of COVID-19, we have observed our business has grown due to increased awareness of life insurance and in result we have fully prepared our field staff to wear complete personal protective equipment (PPE) at all times during all examinations in the field. Our recruiting efforts of field examiners has doubled to meet the demands of the life insurance industry.”

Life Insurance Consumer Engagement Platforms
Sureify, a leader in digital enablement in the life insurance arena, has spent the past several years preparing carriers for a moment such as this. The pandemic has illuminated blind spots in the industry, especially reliance on disjointed, disconnected legacy systems that are proving wholly ineffective for remote selling, service and engagement. The Lifetime Platform is focused on helping carriers sell, engage and service with one enterprise platform that was developed to empower insurers and their agents to act, interact, and react in real time-via digital means. Sureify’s LifetimeEngage uses a collection of data and analytics to create robust engagement programs (financial education, health and lifestyle) that foster a life-long relationship with policyholders, while LifetimeAcquire drives placement rates via quoting, e-application, automated underwriting and new business transmission, and LifetimeService offers in-force customers a comprehensive self-service portal and native applications. CEO Dustin Yoder says that, “Sureify has seen significant growth as traditional insurers come to realize the positives (cost savings, functional improvement, and the enhanced ability to meet policyholder expectations) that come with the new digital landscape.”

As expected, the initial month of COVID-19 stalled businesses across the industry. Soon after, digital point of sales projects with carriers picked right up. Vendors used innovation to adapt sales illustration solutions to help agents virtually sell to their clients. Paramed exams, contrary to what many believe, are busier than ever today, and life carriers are looking to consumer engaging platforms to service their policyholders.

Life insurance and annuity carriers figured out a long time ago that speed to market and reducing operational costs with a combination of outsourcing and technology for new business and claims, for example using third party administrators like SE2, EXL and Infosys-McCamish, was significant in allowing for more product launches and focusing on growing sales. A hybrid of this model offered by firms like Employee Pooling and eNoah has been hugely successful in the BGA space. I had the privilege to learn more about the value proposition these firms bring to the table for a life brokerage general agency (BGA) by talking with Tom Gray, founder and Michelle Anderson, head of marketing, L&C Division, at Employee Pooling, as well as Manoj Sherman, SVP, and Stacey Paulsen, director of insurance services, at eNoah.

A BGA Increases Focus on Sales with a Seamless Extension of their Team Using Employee Pooling
While daily operations for most agencies follow the same basic blueprint in processing, managing, and capturing new business opportunities, there is no one-size-fits-all in meeting a company’s needs to get the job done. Some companies may be good at operations while others might need a bit of help from IT managed services Kansas City or elsewhere. The reasons to right-source your agency by seeking support from an offshore firm are diverse, but the expectations are the same–to extend operating hours through the U.S. nighttime and get the job done accurately and on time without breaking the bank.

Companies like Employee Pooling can certainly position an agency to bring scale and bring stability to daily operations while increasing revenue, especially during these trying times when work volume can erratically ebb and flow. Agencies are also taking advantage of outsourcing options when faced with time restraints, or they simply lack the bandwidth to handle everything piling up on their plates. Why wouldn’t you turn to a BPO who’s seen and done it all, knows the intricacies of every major technology platform like Agency Integrator, SmartOffice, OneHQ, and SureLC, who knows all the rules and nuances of dozens of carriers, and has mapped out processes for every departmental task with care and detail? This level of skill and swiftness almost can’t be matched by any new office member. The bonus is these BPOs cost about the price of an intern.

According to Tom Gray, founder and president of Employee Pooling, LLC (EP), in addition to removing obstacles getting in the way of sales, the most important element for establishing a successful relationship with his customers is trust. “We treat every task that we do as if it were our own, whether it’s seeing an agent appointment through or handling comprehensive case management and commission build outs, we take ownership of the task at hand.” The EP team is literally woven into the fabric of a customer’s operations, and because they already know every component of the software technology that’s used in our industry, along with processes and best practices for every agency department from agent appointments, new business and commissions to inforce policy management, onboarding is swift and seamless. Gray adds that the customer relationship reaches a mutually meaningful level when EP earns their trust by assuming full responsibility for the tasks at hand.

In addition to onboarding customers who are looking to maximize their software performance or get more out of their current workforce, EP has taken on countless cases of “What now?” situations from customers who are faced with an unexpected circumstance that could significantly impact the overall flow of operations and their livelihood.

“These immediate employee departures can impact a company overnight,” says Gray, “And even the most dialed-in companies are not equipped to handle the workflow, do not know the ins and outs of software platforms like Agency Integrator, SmartOffice, OneHQ, or SureLC-or worse, they do not know the details of what’s involved in the process of that particular position that is suddenly vacant.” A recent example of the latter occurred when an EP customer suddenly and tragically lost their one and only case manager. They were at a complete loss and needed a case manager to step in overnight. EP was able to escalate from providing basic support to assuming all new business responsibilities in an instant.

Imagine having to step in and fill that role overnight…but EP rises and shines day in day out because of their expertise in every major technology platform, best in class processes, 24-hour service, and their customers’ trust.

BGAs Faced with Operational Challenges like COVID-19 are Using eNoah
The learning curve to onboard new talent is long, and finding experienced talent is not easy. It’s an extremely competitive space and with each BGA’s unique culture, finding the right person can be challenging not to mention costly. To add to the learning curve, the diversification of products coupled with state and federal regulations and the carrier’s own interpretation of compliance and the requirements that go along with them, have created a spiderweb of different processes. All which the BGA space has to consume and assist their advisors with. This role often falls on case management to be the “expert” for not only their advisors, but internally within their organization. They are also often involved in pre-sale activities to ensure paperwork and compliance is handled properly before the application hits their desk. eNoah has been successful in helping their BGA customers take on certain tasks so they can prioritize what is most important for their internal team members to focus on.

eNoah’s contingency plan ensures there is always an additional resource who knows your business and it’s needs. “We have resources ready with little to no onboarding to support our BGA customers. This also served us well with the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Because of our proactive service model, we were able to support our customers during a transition to work-from-home without a drop in quality or time service,” says Stacey Paulsen, director of insurance services at eNoah.

In this “want it now” environment, providing consistent and timely customer service is table stakes. The ultimate challenge is how one maintains time service commitments with excellent quality, all while still being fiscally responsible. eNoah helps juggle these three pain points for their BGA partners by utilizing industry experts who are knowledgeable in all areas of the life of an application while bringing cost savings. eNoah uses a blended approach with a Stateside account manager who has over 20 years of experience in the BGA space. They understand and appreciate the unique differences each BGA brings to the table and work with them to create their own customized onboarding process to make it as seamless as possible.

“We want to be an extension of your office, supporting your culture and contributing to your goals and mission statement,'” Paulson stated. “It simply cannot be a one-size-fits- all approach. I love developing strategic partnerships with our BGA customers and truly understanding where they are today and where they want to go. We can help whether that is with a specific need, such as application scrub and entry into your AMS, to full end to end case management and beyond. We customize and support to your unique needs with a delivery team who has over 25 years of experience in the insurance services industry.”

Unique Projects for IMOs/FMOs/BGAs
I have been directly or indirectly working on some unique projects to help solve pain-points for IMOs, FMOs and BGAs. As a co-chair of the ACORD Life Inforce Product Working Group, I am helping build out standards for messaging life inforce policies like pre-lapse notifications, policy owner service change requests, term conversions, and inforce illustrations just to name a few. One of the popular inforce policy management platforms is offered by Proformex. As great as the system is in managing an agent’s book of business and discovering new sales opportunities, the critical fuel to function is “data” that gets inputted into the system manually and/or through a data feed. I learned that ePooling plays a key role working with BGAs to manage that data and get it into the inforce policy management system. Another unique project is around commission accounting. The commission accounting systems out in the market today are focused on the BGA commission workflow. These vendors have not directly addressed the needs of commission management for an IMO or FMO. eNoah, with a combination of technology developed internally coupled with using personnel to set up contracts, commission schedules and hierarchies, has been able to remove the commission pain-points and automate what was a very manual process for IMOs and FMOs.

With the need for a scalable professional workforce, a BGA’s back-office is servicing agents for licensing/contracting, new business, commission accounting, inforce policy management, and sales illustrations, while also providing product and underwriting expertise. Typically, BGAs are using just a couple of solution platforms, specifically an agency management system, to manage their business. Partnering with a firm like Employee Pooling or eNoah to reduce operational costs and improve efficiencies with the integration of experienced people and faster processes while leveraging the BGAs existing technology is available today.

With the Coronavirus changing the way life insurance carriers, distributors and agents conduct business, selling insurance virtually requires powerful sales tools, critical business intelligence, and beautiful presentations. We are going to look at three innovative solutions that will help drive virtual sales of life permanent products.

Ensight™
Ensight™ presentations enable wholesalers, producers and financial advisors to engage in meaningful, interactive sales discussions–across any virtual meeting platform. Ensight’s single entry quoting and presentation platform supports all types of life insurance products on the market including term, guaranteed UL, indexed UL and variable UL. It supports 25 carriers and has over 150 plus products on it. Recently there has been a huge adoption in the market and it is being used to help with remote/e-selling for life insurance. This is big now with everyone operating remotely–and some of the new state guidelines are driving even faster adoption of Ensight’s platform.

Proven to help increase sales, Ensight’s platform is compliant and a huge timesaver. BGAs are also using it to recruit advisors that are now looking for advanced remote selling capabilities. Ensight’s recent weekly webinars on remote selling have been oversubscribed because everyone is being forced to sell remotely. The best part of the presentation tool is that it’s interactive. It allows the advisor to tell a story on the benefits of the policy.

CVP Analysis for Life Product Illustrations

• “Single-entry” efficiency for case design operations.
• Client (customer) centric case design workflow–the first Best Interest oriented workflow on the market.
• Integrated benchmarking comparison capabilities–based on live (actual) illustration data from the specific case design.

Regarding the Best Interest client-centric case design workflow, Ensight inverted the traditional case design workflow (*start with a product) to “start with the customer need/case design” and then using the platform intelligence to “identify the products that fit the actual case design.” This is significant, given the extension of the Best Interest Rule into life (e.g. NYDFS187).

Remote (Virtual Selling) Capabilities

• Ensight presentations are used by wholesalers, producers and financial advisors at the point of sale.
• Support all the core (most commonly used) concepts–Cost of Waiting; Supplemental Retirement; Term to Perm; IUL Stress Testing; “3 Ways To Fund.”
• Ensight also provides a full digital audit trail of the presentation (*and any iterations)–for compliance books and records.
• Ensight presentations are another plank of our support/enablement for the emerging Best Interest regulations–providing auditability of the point of sale discussion.
• Always incorporated is the actual carrier illustration for compliance reasons.

Generally, Ensight has found phenomenally positive response from Gen X and Millennial wholesalers, agents and advisors–who are seeking for a sales experience akin to “eMoney/MoneyGuidePro.” Broadly, Ensight focuses on “sales acceleration” which means a) driving sales growth through sales experience transformation, and b) enhancing compliance through digital auditability, rule engines and advanced hierarchical templating capabilities. Ensight’s aim is to help the industry broaden the appeal of the permanent life product portfolio–and wider accessibility for financial advisors and consumers.

Ebix WinFlex Analytics
This is a good lead in to Ebix WinFlex, which also integrates with Ensight. Helping to achieve market potential with over 16 million illustrations run annually, WinFlex touches virtually every permanent life case. Ebix has analyzed these illustrations to understand when and why products are (or aren’t) achieving their market potential. Thirty-four top life carriers A.M. Best “A” rated or better, with over 300 life products and 100,000+ users. Today I want to introduce you to a new solution platform: WinFlex Analytics.

Ebix WinFlex Analytics is a data analytics and alerts platform that gives insurance carriers and distributors an unprecedented picture of how their products are performing in the market. Analytics brings transparency to case design and pre-sales activity using behavioral data that goes beyond benchmarking. There is transparency for carriers. WinFlex Analytics analyzes actual producer behavior to help reflect how products are actually being framed during pre-sales. Carriers can use that information to accelerate revenue and market share growth by identifying sales activity trends that involve (or don’t involve) their product portfolios. Carriers can also minimize unnecessary costs by reacting to alerts about undesirable product illustration activity.

Transforming product design, marketing, and distribution, Ebix Analytics helps your business stay ahead of the curve. From identifying key competitors through actual comparisons, to forecasting premium revenue and commission costs, to discovering growing and underserved market niches, Ebix takes the guesswork out of independent distribution, helping you understand the complex interrelationship between carriers, distributors, and consumers in ways you never could before.

Design with Trends in Mind
WinFlex Analytics allows you to design and prioritize products for growing and shrinking segments by displaying market illustration trends alongside the comparative trends of your own products. You can get answers to key product questions like these:

• What solve-for/solve-type inputs are most popular?
• What “max age” do producers use in their illustrations?
• How often do producers change a default value and use unique features on a product?
• How often do producers include riders on products versus industry averages, and how does that correlate to cases being issued?
• What interest/crediting rates are used on illustrations?
• Do producers illustrate overfunding, max, or partial cash funding on policies?

Transparency for Distributors
For brokers and other distributors, Analytics provides answers to questions that are fundamental to success. Who’s your real competition? Who are you being compared to? Where do you rank? Analytics can help you get answers.

Understand Sales Trends
With aggregate data from millions of illustrations, WinFlex Analytics provides a true look at how all brokers are selling insurance products.

• What products are they comparing?
• What sales strategy are they using?
• What solve options are they running?
• Do they project indexed universal life returns at a bear-market two percent or a bull-run seven percent?
• Are they doing a lifetime pay or short pay?
• Are they taking income?
• What riders are they adding?

Identify Product Trends
Just as important as understanding customer needs is knowing which products are hot in the market. WinFlex Analytics gives you a big-picture look at products that are new, trending, and gaining in popularity—and helps you understand the best way to match those products with customers’ needs.

Equisoft/Illustrate
Equisoft/illustrate is a flexible, user-friendly, multichannel solution for generating and comparing compliant quotes and illustrations. In Canada, it is the Gold Standard for life insurance illustrations. As individual life insurers look for ways to better compete on customer experience, illustration tools have become very important in the sales process. Recognized as the most user-friendly illustration system, it is designed for carriers who want to differentiate themselves by offering an outstanding and customized user experience to advisors and their clients. It has a growing presence in the U.S.

Configure once, distribute everywhere (both online web and an internet disconnected computer), same user experience on both connected and disconnected versions (user interface, reports, calculation logic, rates tables and rules)—mean lower implementation and maintenance costs. The platform features four components—Insurance Needs Analysis, Illustrations and Embedded Sales Strategies, Electronic Application and Policy Servicing, and Agent Portal – available separately or as part of Equisoft’s comprehensive SaaS solution.

Features for Equisoft/Illustrate:

• Access your quotes and illustrations from any device (phone, tablet or laptop).
• Strategies embedded within illustrations.
• Side by side quote comparisons.
• User interface product specific design, not generic.
• Integrates easily with CRMs, eApp, agent portals, and policy admin systems.
• Quick automated rate updates.

Equisoft/Illustrate allows advisors to easily quote and illustrate more advanced and complex products, including variable life products, and embedded sales strategies. What differentiates Equisoft/Illustrate is that you have complete control over the user interface, easy integration with other sales platforms, and the templates are insurance product specific.

In closing, I want to state that introducing carriers, distributors, and agents to new technologies and innovative technology solution platforms is a key objective of the Tech-Tock column. Learning how you can be more efficient, cut costs, and grow your sales is the value that these new innovations bring to the table. Using business intelligence, easy plug-in integration between platforms, and enhancing the sales experience for the client is what these three solutions provide.

I am surprised how many solution providers have developed and implemented tools and processes that automate new business from field underwriting in getting cases approved-as-applied-for, to accelerating a life carrier’s underwriting process using Artificial Intelligence (AI). There is a new turnkey eApp platform for life insurance that snaps into any point of sales process that is very easy to deploy.

New tools for solving pain points in the term ticket process are now available for improving cycle times even quicker, with enhanced automation in ordering requirements and improved accuracy in the Call Center/Exam Lab workflow. A new model with an even more efficient straight through process (STP) for new business is available with growing adoption in the marketplace. Speaking of the marketplace, it’s nice to see a new robust agency management system for BGAs for automating case management. Also, many new businesses seeking out to thrive in this highly competitive world tend to focus on customized services like deploying engineering services, quality programs, custom circuit boards, PCBs, detailed manufacturing processes, and more.

Munich Re Automation Solutions’ ALLFINANZ SPECTRA, is a quick quote processing tool that can be used by agents to provide instant answers to clients with concerns about the impact of medical conditions, hazardous sports, occupations or other risk factors on the price they will need to pay for coverage. Let’s say, for example, a client tells an agent that he has Asthma, ALLFINANZ SPECTRA will present a couple of drill down questions such as: “Has the client been hospitalized or used a rescue inhaler in the last two years? SPECTRA indicates the best expected outcome based on the information provided, helping agents provide better advice to their clients. For example it can indicate that the client is likely to be a “Preferred Non-Tobacco” underwriting class. SPECTRA also supports co-morbidities, allowing multiple risk factors to be assessed at the same time.

Because SPECTRA uses the same underwriting rules that are used in the full application process, this means that agents can be confident that quick quotes will always be consistent with the results of the full application process. For carriers, SPECTRA will result in underwriters and new business support teams spending less time answering pre-sales queries from distribution channels, freeing them up for other activities.

ApplicInt is an innovative technology leader with the only end-to-end digital solution that includes multi-carrier quoting, eApp, integrated call center platform and digital paramed. The CallComplete solution snaps easily into any carrier’s call center. It has scripted reflexive interview questions for Part One and Part Two. Also, CallComplete can be used remotely as a fulfillment process for ExpressComplete term ticket. Forms, including unique special authorizations required for plus-25 percent of APS records, are signed with voice or eSignature. It also uses data from Rx, MIB, MVR, and accelerates additional requirement ordering like an APS. ApplicInt has added four new modules that result in more accuracy and faster cycle time:

• eLab Slip: Electronically collects Lab Slip Information.
• ONE Touch: Cuts time to obtain a special authorization up to 90 percent for medical records.
• Warm Transfer Complete: Client and data seamlessly transferred to call center by examiner.
• Identity Complete: Securely verifies signers identity.

The medical underwriting process is tedious and time-consuming, requiring underwriters to manually sift through vast amounts of information. There is always the danger that a small error will lead to a wrong decision, necessitating intense cross-referencing to trace the mistake back to its source. eXtract Plus™ Medical Underwriting Tool by eNoah enables underwriters to quickly view meaningful data and pertinent medical records and to verify the completeness of the results. It makes the underwriter’s life significantly easier by drastically simplifying the underwriting process, minimizing human labor and human error, and allowing for greater efficiency and accuracy.

• Technology Innovation: eXtract Plus has an innovative approach to:
• Data Abstraction
• Data Extrapolation Methodology
• Next Word Prediction with Algorithm
• LSTM and Deep Learning Neural Networks

Management Research Services (MRS) provides a fully customizable e-App and underwriting platform for life insurance brokers and carriers. In today’s world where “the only thing constant is change,” MRS has designed a solution that enables clients to adapt to changing market and regulatory conditions quickly and in a cost-effective way. Their e-App’s ability to support powerful reflexive logic makes the MRS rules engine extremely efficient in collecting all information needed to make a point-of-sale decision. The No-Code platform supports expedited time to market with new products giving the ability to go from whiteboard to production in two months. Due to no implementation fees or ongoing maintenance costs, the total cost of ownership of the MRS platform is substantially lower than other solutions.

Technology and software platforms offer a wealth of solutions to our industry’s needs in regard to simplifying, organizing, and tracking new business, but human capital is still a necessary tool in bringing the process full cycle. Daily administrative tasks and checks and balances are a mandatory responsibility for organizations, especially in relation to application processing, case management and underwriting.

Employee pooling (EP) is known for removing obstacles getting in the way of sales and development by delivering straight-through-processing solutions with an emphasis on new business. In providing behind-the-scenes support to BGAs, agencies and carriers, EP possesses an innate understanding of a multitude of technology platforms that the industry increasingly relies upon. Organizations utilizing this support see improved cycle times and find operations to become more stable and scalable. This opens doors for these companies to shift their focus to nurturing customer relationships and exploring uncultivated sales opportunities.

But as great as technology is, someone still has to be responsible for due diligence, to understand and test the software, and then to quickly implement and manage its capabilities to the organization’s daily operations. This hefty responsibility falls on the shoulders of organizations that are already pressed for time or the knowledge of how to make the most of today’s software and technology tools. Applications still need to be scrubbed and followed through case management, and underwriting requires attention including APS retrieval and APS summaries. Having an application dependency map with anytime analytics can pinpoint architectural issues. However, all of these tasks would still need the hand of an experienced employee for dedicated assistance.

Technology’s robust software and the use of experienced human resources are the yin and yang for balance and efficiency in this industry. Employee pooling is known for removing obstacles getting in the way of sales and development by delivering straight-through processing solutions with an emphasis on new business. In providing behind-the-scenes support to BGAs, agencies and carriers, EP possesses an innate understanding of a multitude of technology platforms that the industry increasingly relies upon. Organizations utilizing this support to scrub and submit applications and follow through with managing the case to close see improved cycle times and find operations to become more stable and scalable.

A new agency management system (AMS) is entering the U.S. market with all the workflow and features you would expect in a powerful AMS. Centralize by Equisoft is an agency management system designed for life agencies like a BGA. It is used today in Canada in agencies in banks and MGAs. Centralize provides complete record-keeping of clients, policies and brokers for multiple carriers. Data from certain carriers is ingested on a recurring basis through standardized ACORD files (in Canada, CITS compliant files). It has complete workflow management to track the sales and new business underwriting process. One of the main benefits of the solution is that it tracks commissions due and paid directly, reconciles with payments received from carriers and identifies errors (commonly made by carriers). It also has sophisticated hierarchy management to allocate these commissions to the right parties in the organization’s structure. It also offers a portal for agents to see their portfolio. Centralize has dozens of out of the box reports to track production from agents and the firm in general. Its case management capabilities are automated with updates from carrier pending case status data feeds, which makes it an attractive agency management system.

Reducing cycle times results in placing more business. Adding efficiencies in the new business process reduces costs, and innovative technology solutions accelerate speed-to-market. These new platforms, processes and tools are moving the industry forward helping to ultimately drive more sales for the agent, BGA and carrier by providing a fast, streamlined new business experience.

It’s finally here—online tools for life insurance agents and clients to do basic tasks like change beneficiaries, look up paid-to-date information, see account values, and address changes without having to fill out a form or call a customer service phone number. It’s no longer a one-off but being implemented by most life insurance carriers today. You are also now seeing Artificial Intelligence (AI) chat tools for clients to get the information on their policies or to answer basic insurance questions on demand. Readily available for agents is new technology leveraging Big Data Analytics to analyze a policy resulting in new sales opportunities with products that better fit your client’s needs.

Policy Review
As an agent, you should do a review with your client on their life insurance policies at least once a year. Policy review should also occur when there is a life changing event or a family’s situation has changed, which could result in the need to increase or decrease coverage. Interest crediting rates on certain policies are much lower today than when the policy was first purchased. This can affect the future performance of your client’s policy, which could result in having to pay additional premium dollars to meet your client’s needs. Because people are living longer or if your client’s health has improved, then they may need to make an adjustment on their policy. On permanent insurance like universal life policies, loans and withdrawals and other changes to the policy, like premiums not paid as planned, may have impacted the current performance. Of course, if premiums have increased then you should do a policy review with your client. If the client is an owner or co-owner of a business and that business has grown or changed, then that is a compelling reason to do a policy review. Occasionally a life insurance company’s ratings or financials have changed, which may no longer meet your client’s risk tolerance.

The objective of the policy review is to do a thorough analysis of current insurance holdings vs. current needs. There are also industry and product changes to consider as well. I would recommend to carefully look at older life policies because of the way life insurance is designed today—the current changes in pricing, and how it’s medically underwritten, may have a significant difference in 2019 compared to five, 10 or more years ago. Also, you need to be up to date on the current tax, business and estate law changes. Higher life expectancies (mortality tables), lower interest rates and dividend crediting rates affect performance. There are new products on the market today to consider like indexed universal life products. Look at your client’s goals: If their goals are the same, is there a better insurance product for them today? If their goals have changed, then what’s available today to best meet those financial needs? For living benefit needs there are linked benefit products to consider. Should your client consider a way to financially maximize a policy he no longer needs by looking at a life settlement option?

Why Request an Inforce Illustration?
Over time the cash value and credited interest on permanent life products will be different with the inforce illustration than the original illustration. The inforce illustration will take into account the interest rate that has been credited to the policy and illustrate out future values based on the new current illustrated rates. For example, if someone has purchased an indexed universal life (IUL) policy and the cap rate has decreased, the new inforce illustration will reflect a lower interest rate than what was on the original. The original illustration might have used an 8.4 percent assumed rate of return, but now with a lower cap it might reflect a 7.12 percent as the new assumed rate for the future. It is important to remember that illustrations are just projections and the inforce illustration will show how the policy has actually performed and ballpark how it will most likely perform in the future.

Client Account Portal
Most life insurance companies have created self-service client account portals. Carriers like Prudential, John Hancock, Protective Life, and many others offer a client account portal with self-service functionality. Once the policy owner logs into the carrier’s website, they typically see their life insurance policy information overview: Product, policy number, insured name, death benefit amount, account values, policy owner, policy date, policy status, primary and contingent beneficiaries, and policy owner contact information. You can get a more detailed breakdown of the coverages such as riders for example. One of the key pieces of information is related to the premium starting with the paid-to date, current premium mode including premium payment history, receipt of last payment and the next scheduled premium due.

Self Service
The typical self-service option begins with the ability to make a premium payment or setting up recurring payments doing an automatic draft “ACH” from the policy owner’s checking account. This includes managing payments like editing scheduled payments. Policy owners can update their mailing address online and change beneficiaries (primary and contingents). Services that require a signature, like for a change of owner for example, may require a form to be filled out and sent in, or many carriers are implementing secure eSignature to make it completely self-service online. All service requests or changes to a policy have status tracking online and automatic update notifications via email. If a form needs to be completed, then you can access forms from a form’s library. Copies of statements like annual reports on UL policies, tax forms, and notices that were previously mailed or emailed are also available on the client account portal to access. During my research I only found a few carriers that have a PDF of the life insurance policy accessible online.

If the life product was an indexed UL or variable UL, then some carrier self-service portals allow you to do reallocations, loans and withdrawals, index strategy selections and fund transfers online. Carriers are very good at providing FAQ’s, Online Help, Q&A Chat using AI, Customer Service contact information, and basic insurance educational media. If you have more than one policy or even a different line of business like an annuity contract, then they are accessible with a single sign-on to the carrier’s client portal for self-service management.

New Sales Opportunities—Vendor Inforce Management Platforms
It is expensive and time consuming to monitor inforce policies. Many sales opportunities are left on the table because they were missed. Agents are reactive hoping that their clients will contact them. A recent study* shows that:

• 41 percent of policies will lapse before the desired coverage duration.
• 13 percent of term policies have a conversion deadline in the next 12 months.
• Nine percent of policies are set to lapse or for the term to run out within the next five years.
• One percent of policies are set to lapse or for the term to run out within the next 12 months.
• 20 percent of policies have the potential to be sold through a life settlement.
  *Source Proformex

Proformex is a platform built for the life insurance industry that revolutionizes inforce policy management for independent agents, advisors and trustees. Their life insurance policy management software provides powerful portfolio analytics, individual contract monitoring and easy-to-use policy review reporting tools, putting oversight and control within easy reach. Proformex helps you monitor, analyze and manage the performance of policies in a single, distribution-agnostic platform.

Proformex’s key features are:

• Automated illustration ordering.
• Client-ready policy reviews.
• Monitor policies and uncover issues.
• Complete portfolio visibility.
• Schedule premium reminders.
• Drill-down analytics.

Visit Profordex at www.proformex.com.

Another vendor is Insured Connect, which is a cloud-based platform that connects carriers, distributors, advisors and policy owners into a single ecosystem. Insured Connect’s platform is called “NIC” and it is comprised of four main applications for the four customers in the insurance distribution chain: Insurance carriers (“NICcarrier”), distributors (“NICdistributor”), advisors (“NICadvisor”) and policy owners (“NICpolicyowner”). The four applications create an ecosystem for the management and servicing of inforce policies. Insured Connect works behind the scenes as a “secure data transfer” partner, or “service bureau” to the industry, making it easier for insurance companies to push their data to one source while providing distributors and advisors with a single solution to access all their inforce business. NIC operates on a modern cloud-based and open architecture that enables carriers and distributors to integrate their apps, tools and business services, making it much easier for everyone to do business. Visit Insured Connect at www.ins-connect.com.

Life insurance policy management automation is not only providing value to clients and life agents, but also helps carriers reduce their policy service costs, eliminating paper and reducing phone calls while creating secure, quick and easy access to self-service tools. Resource platforms using Big Data can help clients analyze their current life insurance policy and recommend changes that better fit their needs and current goals often resulting in new sales opportunities for life agents. New emerging technologies, tools, and trends for Life Inforce Policy Management can be found at InsurTechExpress.com.

I get asked all the time: “What is life insurance straight through processing (STP)?” The answer varies because there are different perspectives based on whether you are a carrier, vendor, BGA, agent or consumer. Life insurance STP has evolved quickly because of the advancement of insurtech, with each piece contributing to the next phase (Term Ticket Model, Accelerated Underwriting—Predictive Automated Underwriting, Digital Sales Platform). So, let’s explore the different types of STP, the benefits today and the trends for the future.

Term Ticket Model
In the Distribution world, Straight Through Processing was defined as a Drop-Ticket or Term-Ticket during its peak years from 2011-2016—running a term insurance quote, then clicking a button to do an abbreviated eApp, and then ePolicy delivery. A term ticket is not a full eApp. The term ticket platform may be a proprietary platform like Legal & General AppAssist or a multi-carrier platform like iPipeline iGO. Basically, it involves filling out questions for most of a Part 1 and replacement information, then asking the best time to call your client. The data and pre-filled forms are sent to a call center at the carrier or a third-party service provider like ExamOne for example. The client gets a call that typically lasts 30 minutes or less. The person conducting the tele-interview asks questions to complete the Part 1 and the medical questions for the Part II of the life insurance application. The interviewer follows a reflective script. Signatures are captured for the medical authorization in some cases, and for all the relevant forms, via Voice Signature. The interviewer also schedules the Paramed exam.

Once the underwriter receives the lab slip from the exam, with the results from blood drawn from the client, and reviews all the necessary information captured in the interview, then they approve the case—unless the underwriter determines additional information is needed like a copy of medical records from a doctor or hospital (APS). If the case is approved as applied for, and the client has provided his or her email address and opted in for eDelivery, then a notification either goes out to the BGA, agent or client via email depending on the eDelivery workflow setup. The eDelivery process for the client is a ceremony of consenting to eDelivery, even though they already opted in, reviewing the policy, paying the balance of premium due either by credit card or EFT, and then eSigning the delivery requirements like an amendment or delivery receipt. The client then saves or prints their policy. The agent is notified, the case is placed in force, and commissions are paid. This is one example of Term Ticket STP, however each carrier has slight variations of the process described above, and different distribution channels, like direct marketers, have a modified version of a Term Ticket STP. Essentially, it’s the same model.

Benefits to the BGA and Agent:

• Cases submitted in good order;
• Handing off fulfillment to focus on sales;
• Faster cycle time;
• Higher placement ratio;
• No chasing down delivery requirements—especially premiums;
• Commissions paid faster;
• Reduce travel costs in delivering a policy; and,
• Seamless experience.

Benefits to the Carrier:

• Cases submitted in good order;
• Control over the fulfillment process;
• Higher conversion rate from interview to exam;
• Faster cycle time;
• Higher placement ratio;
• Ease of doing business; and,
• Reduced costs of mailing and printing policies.

Accelerated and Predictive Automated Underwriting
The carrier’s secret sauce has always been their fulfillment process—which helps differentiate them from their competitors. Accelerated underwriting is a different fulfillment process than term ticket. It began with a process whereby the agent would fill out a complete Part 1 of a life insurance application, including some medical questions, on a carrier eApp platform or a multi-carrier platform like iPipeline iGO. The client and agent would eSign the application. There would be a tele-interview conducted, typically by a carrier’s underwriter. Based on the information captured on the eApp and the answers on the interview, a decision would be made by the underwriter whether a Paramed exam or additional requirements like an APS were needed. The interview includes information provided by services like MIB, MVR and RX to help the underwriter know if the client has any history of medical issues, driving violations and/or is taking prescription medication. These services were pinged during the eApp process. If approved as a non-med, then the policy would be eDelivered within 48 hours.

Many carriers created similar accelerated underwriting programs with criteria to qualify for a non-med including: Specific age range, face amount limit, no tobacco, certain height/weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and even lifestyle considerations like no DUI. For term insurance, you can get 10, 20, and 30-year term coverage with issue ages up to 60 years old and up to $1 million of death benefit with some carrier products. These programs are not just for term products, but they have expanded to include UL products like index universal life. These accelerated underwriting programs started to grow in popularity in 2017. Some carriers with accelerated underwriting programs include Lincoln Financial LincExpress and TermAccel, Protective Life PLUS, Mutual of Omaha Express, Legal & General APPcelerate, and John Hancock’s Express Track. Other carriers with accelerated underwriting programs are Brighthouse, Principal, SBLI, Nationwide, Transamerica and many more.

Predictive Automated Underwriting is the next step in this evolution. Many of the carriers listed above have modified or created new underwriting programs around specific life products for predictive automated underwriting. What changes in this next phase is that there is no human person touching the case. There is still an eApp submitted with eSignatures, and the MIB, MVR and RX services are automatically ordered, however the results are going into an underwriting scoring system. If the score is favorable than the policy is automatically approved, issued and eDelivered within 24 hours. There are many underwriting systems that can do this scoring such as iPipeline Resonant, SwissRe Magnum, RGA Aura, and ExamOne Risk IQ just to name a few. The science and risk formulas are interesting, but we will save that for another article. To sum it up, life underwriting is the review of a person’s medical history, occupation, lifestyle, and financial status to determine overall life expectancy relative to standard mortality, and that does not change—just the process changes. Accelerated underwriting and predictive automated underwriting are faster, less invasive and easier processes for life insurance, improving the overall straight through process.

Sales Digital Platforms
As we quickly turned the corner from 2018 to 2019, vendors have taken the latest STP (quoting, eApp, predictive automated underwriting, and eDelivery) to another step forward by creating and marketing an end-to-end digital sales platform. Vendors like iPipeline and Insurance Technologies have added a pre-sales component and a post-sales component to the STP. Pre-sale can include integration with CRMs, sales tools and carrier pre-sales workflow. On the post-sales side the platforms are being leveraged for single carrier or multi-carrier inforce services like beneficiary changes, address changes, switching banks for ACH premium payments, and even claim requests. This is just one model of a sales digital platform. New companies are popping up with new sales digital platform models for STP like Quotacy, and Quote & Apply by BackNine Insurance.

NIMBUS has created a digital experience for a straight through process (STP)–Life Click-to-Buy. What’s different from the traditional term life STP is that this digital platform has a flexible design to fit several sales models. The end user is the consumer, not the agent, with the same new business STP (no meds, no underwriter, instant policy approval, instant issue and delivery). There are several types of insurance, like term insurance and final expense products, being offered, some of which are specifically designed for the platform by many top life insurance companies.

The user can run a multi-carrier quote for example and fill out the application, eSign, and submit the premium payment. The system will qualify the client for the insurance they are applying for from the answers to some basic medical questions and the automatic ordering of RX medication prescription check, Medical Insurance Bureau check (MIB), and motor vehicle report (MVR). The results are instantly scored. This is a predictive automated underwriting process that we discussed above. The user experience takes about 13 minutes from quote to issue. If the score does not come back favorably for an instant issue, then there is a workflow that can redirect the customer to alternative life products.

This truly is a sale-to-issue process in the cloud, optimized for both laptop and mobile devices automatically. It is designed to plug via API easily into any website. The foundation from a sales perspective is to fit multiple sales models, therefore distribution channels like financial institutions, brokerage general agencies, direct marketers, and retail life insurance agents can all take advantage of the platform. The uniqueness of NIMBUS is that they have removed the barrier of the technology cost! Their revenue model is to participate in the commission hierarchy. They only get paid when business is placed. There are no setup fees, no license fees, no maintenance fees, and no transaction fees to using the base platform and training. There are consulting services you can purchase for additional customizations. Learn more about NIMBUS at nimbusinsurance.com.

Future of STP
The adage that life insurance is sold and not bought is getting redefined. The reason is two-fold: One, life products have been simplified; and second, the streamlining process. Because of the low cost, quickened experience, and easy accessibility from any device all stemming from the advancement in insurance technology (insurtech), STP will continue to disrupt the traditional sales process. The timing is perfect, as the biggest buying group of life insurance will be Millennials who prefer self-service! These new consumers still need advice from an agent, however as an on-demand model. Selling and processing life insurance applications with a straight through process will continue to grow and evolve. To learn more about life insurance straight through processing, please visit InsurTechExpress.com and then select STP under “Solutions.”

It’s easy to think that this is over simplified, but if you want to place more life insurance business and get paid commissions faster, then you need to eliminate paper! Use eApp instead of submitting a paper application; don’t send licensing and contracting forms via mail or email—do it electronically on a platform like SureLC by SuranceBay; eDeliver life policies rather than mailing or hand delivering paper policies; and process commissions from a carrier’s commission data feed instead of manually using paper commission statements. Trading partners in the life insurance industry have their administration systems and distribution platforms interconnected by using insurance data exchanges that move data seamlessly via standard messages. What you get is speed, accuracy and reduced labor costs.

Accelerate Cycle Time with eApp and eDelivery
There are several ways to submit life business electronically such as using an eApp or eTicket platform plugged into one or more fulfillment models like a tele-interview, accelerated underwriting or predictive underwriting with auto-issue. Whether the agent is submitting the business on a single carrier platform like CBLife QuickApp or a multi-carrier platform like iPipeline iGO, the data is being transmitted to the fulfillment center or directly to the carrier using a standard data message. This data automatically populates the recipient’s admin system in good order, auto-creating the case and triggering requirement ordering or ultimately policy issue. Cycle time compared to processing paper is at least 60 times faster resulting in up to 85 percent placement of paid business.

Delivering life policies electronically (eDelivery) benefits carriers, agencies, agents and consumers. The cost savings are huge; there is also a decrease in NTO rates, better customer experience, tighter legal and compliance control, and commissions are paid faster. Here are some impressive eDelivery statistics:

• 70 percent reduction in cycle time.
• 55 percent of the eDelivered polices are being completed within 48 hours.
• Consumer opt out rate is below 10 percent.
• 95 percent of agents repeat use (Stickiness).
• Reissue time is significantly decreased.
• Eliminates the cost of postage and transportation.
• Higher placement rate (ePayment).
• No need to chase down delivery requirements.

Automate Commission Accounting and Paying Agents
The electronic transmission of commissions provides many benefits to the carrier, general agency and for the agent. If a BGA uses a commission accounting system either as part of their agency management system, like Ebix SmartOffice, or a separate commission system, like SPI GreenWave, to track commissions received, then a commission data feed from a carrier is critical for tracking payables on in-house deals to pay overrides on modalized premium to a BGA’s top producers. This improves the effectiveness and efficiency of commission processing by eliminating and reducing time delays, costs and potential errors with manual processing. The result of an electronic commission statement is automated reconciliation. The data in the electronic commission statement enables the BGA’s commission accounting system to verify if all participants in a case hierarchy were paid correctly on the expected modal premium, identify chargeback of commissions and adjustments, match the transaction total against the commission check amount, and list expected commissions on cases that were not received at all. Another benefit is persistency management, which provides an opportunity to improve and stabilize long-term income. The carrier can reduce expenses by eliminating the printing and mailing of commission statements, not to mention all the urgent “special requests” for commission information. The commission data empowers the BGA to handle more efficiently commission status calls from agents by providing better service, resulting in fewer status calls to the carrier. The commission data feed makes it possible for the agent to see their commission statements online at the carrier and/or BGA’s website.

The Advantages of Using Standards for Data Messaging
Using industry data standards such as ACORD XMLife delivers a significant strategic advantage. The need for a robust and flexible format is particularly evident as disparate systems and users require the ability to access and utilize data stored in multiple formats. It starts with a standard data model and then constructing standard messaging. The ACORD data model for life insurance has matured over the years, yet continues to grow and change with new life insurance products being introduced into the marketplace and refined messages to transact business today. The impact is enormous. With XMLife, every participant in the value chain—agents, agencies, carriers and service providers—can streamline their paper-intensive processes and standardize the way in which they interact and exchange information. The benefits of using data standard messages are reduced costs, speed to market, and eliminating redundancy in data entry.

The Principal Standard Transaction Messages for Life Insurance
ACORD Transaction Number and a General Description
111—Quote/Illustration Request
103—eSubmit a New Life Insurance Application
121—Service Requirement Order to a Paramed or other Service Provider
128—Licensing and Contracting Submission
1125—Pending Case Status
1122—Service Requirement Order Status
1128—Licensing and Appointment Status, Renewal and Termination
1206—Electronic Commission Statement
1203—Inforce Transaction

Blockchain is a Disrupter of Insurance Data Exchange
Several of the standard message transactions and data exchanges as we know them today will be retooled using Blockchain with Smart Contracts. The transformation will not happen until consortiums are established. The participation is the biggest challenge, not the technology. There are already initiatives underway such as the consortium being created through the efforts of the partnership between LIMRA and RiskBlock, who already have several life carriers onboard. Many of the business cases discussed are: Agent Llicensing and contracts, underwriting, health records, 1035 Exchanges, commission schedules, and death register for claims. The benefits of blockchain include a trusted environment (secure) where two parties can transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third-party. Eliminating fraud, abuse or risk of double-spending because a blockchain contains a verifiable record of every single transaction ever made. Blockchain is known for its infamous Distributed Ledger, which is a peer-to-peer network that records a public history of transactions retaining a secure source of proof that the transaction occurred. Also, a key benefit is speed because the blockchain enables the near real time settlement of recorded transactions, removing friction and reducing risk.

It all comes down to joining the current eCommerce marketplace. The property and casualty world has made it very consumer friendly. You can download the Geico App, for example, on your smartphone and run a quote for auto insurance, complete an application, and then have your policy delivered right on your phone quick and easy. A similar experience exists in the life insurance world for an agent or consumer running a term quote on a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet, then completing an eApp with eSignature. A process is triggered ordering MIB, MVR and RX services with the information dumped into an underwriting engine that tabulates a score. If the score is favorable, then a policy is auto-issued, eDelivered and commissions are paid. This is all made possible because data seamlessly travels to and from all these systems using Life Standard Data Messages.