For the first time, we see alignment on a trend in technology with the insurance industry and other segments in the United States. Mobile usage between 2017–2018 globally has spiked significantly. It was reported midway through 2018 that over 77 percent of Americans own a Smartphone, which translates to 230 million people in the U.S. There are over 100 million Americans that own a tablet. Let me pour some more statistics in your lap: 79 percent of Smartphone users have made a purchase online and 40 percent of all eCommerce purchases during the 2018 holiday season were made on a Smartphone. Those shoppers that went to a physical store to purchase holiday gifts in 2018, over 80 percent of them used their Smartphones to look up product reviews, shop prices and search for alternative store locations. There is an explosion of growth in the last two years whereby Smartphones are the device of choice for social media, banking, eCommerce, and an infinite number of activities using mobile apps. This is not just Millennials and the younger generations, but Baby Boomers as well. People saw a gap in the market and decided to take advantage of it as soon as they could. App developers, in particular, like to utilize the idea of including an in app advertisement within their game or service to help receive in-app credit, as well as increasing noticeability for certain brands. The industry is only seeing a surge because of it. An incredible 10 billion mobile devices are currently active and connected. Those users include insurance agents and financial advisors. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the goalposts for running a successful online business have moved dramatically over the past few years. The need for eCommerce websites to offer customers a quick and seamless service is essential, which is why so many businesses take their time in deciding the right eCommerce software to use. A lot of people prefer FastSpring, and you can see a comparison between that and one of its competitors by clicking on the link. Because there is such a need for these successful eCommerce websites, they need to be run effectively and so the demand for reliable servers such as hostiserver is growing exponentially. Above all, it is no secret that businesses need powerful and reliable servers to keep up with demand. Because of the high volume of traffic and the number of requests the site could get at one time, powerful dedicated servers are often required. But what does this all of this mean for the mobile industry as a whole?
We are seeing an increasing demand from producers to conduct business using their Smartphones. In the last few years, we thought more agents would move from a laptop to a tablet. Some experts were wrong in their predictions regarding tablets, because tablet usage by agents had some growth but then flattened. The demand to use Smartphones for production purposes such as sales tools, quoting, eApp, marketing, case status and even field underwriting is What’s Hot Now! Screens on Smartphones continue to get bigger, and performance is faster for each new phone model along with enhanced features and functionality. The results of the 2018 Life Brokerage Technology Committee Survey (LBTC), for example, clearly shows that agents want more insurance business solutions that work on their Smartphones. Rick Hadsall, chief technology officer at Colorado Bankers Life Insurance Company, stated that a mobile strategy for agents is critical. Rick explains, “Mobility has always been desirable for agents and so it makes sense to push more capability into mobile devices that enable mobility and reduce technical barriers. We want to ensure that all digital products are mobile enhanced and optimized; we want to support both device independence as well as location independence for agents. It makes more sense to use the devices they have already to help them work as opposed to requiring special equipment. For example, to capture a biometric handwritten signature, why not use a Smartphone to capture that instead of a signing pad? Down the line, built-in features of Smartphones and tablets could be leveraged as part of the overall solution to enhance the mobile experience.”
Carriers, BGAs and vendors are seeing this trend as well. Let me share some new innovative solutions that are either in production or coming soon in 2019. IXN Tech is transforming the insurance industry by developing cutting edge agent tools for needs analysis, term quoting, and integration into third party term e-ticket systems. IXN Tech has a platform that works on both IOS and Android devices. They white label their multi-carrier platform for BGAs. IXN has published results from a 2018 survey of 8,500 agents and brokers that states that 91 percent of agents are likely to work with a BGA or IMO that offers its agents a mobile quoting solution, and that 87 percent of agents say it is important to quote and submit E-tickets in less than five minutes on their mobile device. Collaboration in the industry between trading partners and even vendors is starting to sprout, leading to end user solutions for agents on their Smartphones. Ebix and Assurance have begun an initiative to pre-run permanent and term life plans using WinFlex and build the most comprehensive compliant product results library in the industry. One application for this data will be producers running a pre-quote before they request a full plan comparison from their BGA sales desk using WinFlex and EnsightTM. Input fields will be minimal (Age, Gender, Risk Class, State, Solve For > Premium or Face and Riders > LTC or other common riders) so the plan can be run from either a desktop/laptop or mobile device. Results can be emailed, texted or shared through social media applications. The objective is to simplify the user experience and provide compliant immediate results. This is a good match for mobile. There is an opportunity for Ebix to collaborate with IXN Tech about making this available on their mobile platform for BGAs to offer to agents.
iPipeline launched at the end of January, 2019, a new innovative solution “iSolve.” It’s a research and quoting product for permanent life insurance policy sales that can run on a Smartphone using a mobile site. The objective is to cut through all the labor involved in the pre-sales process. Annually there are over 400 million UL illustrations run and only 10 million that are actually used to submit business. There is a lot of wasted time and expense with agents calling a BGA and being sent multiple PDFs of multi-page illustrations and having to figure out what to present to a client. iSolve is a multi-carrier solution that runs on a mobile device. An agent is not only trying to solve for a death benefit, but needs to do a premium solve, field underwriting, and a case design with multiple scenarios. iSolve generates an NAIC compliant PDF to send to the client and seamlessly takes the agent into iGO® eApp to submit business. iSolve is a new marketing and selling solution that enables agents to conduct one simple and secure search which returns multiple life insurance options in the form of financial illustrations, thus simplifying and streamlining the process of identifying and quoting life insurance choices for consumers.
There are 5 ways an agent can access Insurance Sales tools on their Smartphone:
- Mobile Website
Example: CBLife.com - Native Mobile App
Example: Life Happens Needs Calculator - AI Voice Assistant
Example: Running a quote talking through Apple Siri or Google Assistant - AI Chat
Example: Field Underwriting chatting with a Bot through Facebook Messenger - Text Message
Example: Senior Market Sales text-based quoting platform
Senior Market Sales, Inc. (SMS) is a full-service insurance marketing organization (IMO) serving more than 55,000 independent insurance agents. With a mission to help agents leverage time, make more money and put their business in a position of distinction, SMS’ strategy has been to go beyond “off-the-shelf” tools, choosing instead to develop innovative proprietary solutions that solve real-world problems for agents. They have implemented a text-based quoting platform that allows agents to quote multiple carriers on their smartphones without downloading an app. You can get Med Supp quotes on your smartphone in two ways: 1. Text to a specific number the zip code, age and gender (M or F) in that order. Within a few seconds, you’ll receive a text response showing the preferred Plan F rates for all of Senior Markets Sales’ supported Med Supp carriers. 2. Visit the SMS mobile-optimized website to run Med Supp and other product quotes. So the agent doesn’t have to remember the Mobile-Website address, they can just tap “Add to Home Screen” to save an icon on their smartphone. Bob Harding, chief technology officer at SMS, is working with company leadership to implement a strategy for mobile solutions. Bob said, “Mobile technology is very important to our company and our agent partners.” In addition to the text-based quoting platform, SMS launched an app called “My Medicare Connect” in 2018. MMC is an app that contains educational material for both agents and consumers to leverage and helps agents connect with their customers in order to provide additional value. “In 2019 and beyond, enhancing our mobile offerings will be a key focus,” Harding said. “We want to help our partners be more efficient in their business and interact more effectively with their customers. Mobile solutions are a critical piece of that solution.”
Media for sales concepts, marketing and education has better agent adoption if available on a Smartphone. The product description on the FSEdNet website says, “The VRL, offered by Financial Services Educational Network, is a virtual resource tool providing financial professionals with the visual means to demonstrate concepts, explain needs and solutions, while providing amazing resource tools to help clients with life’s ever-changing situations. The key is the simplicity of this resource, for both the clients and associates. This unique library provides the clients with personalized, compliant content on hundreds of insurance and financial concepts, whether gathering information or providing solutions.” The FSEdNet App, on-demand video training, is available for IOS and Android Smartphones.
The key takeaway is that agents and financial advisors want to use their Smartphones to service their business, which is aligned with the overall current technology trend across most industry segments in the U.S. We are already seeing new innovative solutions that carriers, distributors and vendors are developing so that an agent does not have to carry around a laptop to conduct business in the field. Bots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications will be woven into the fabric of the next generation insurance solutions for Smartphones. Some of the solutions mentioned above are just a small flavor of what is out there for agents to use today on their Smartphones, not counting the wave of mobile insurance tools that will be coming in the next six to twelve months-taking agents to the next step forward.
Place More Business And Get Paid Commissions Faster Using Life Standard Data Messages
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:
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.