John Hancock Launches Unified iPad App

Borne out of an employee competition, the app has different capabilities depending on whether the user is a customer, financial advisor or benefits manager.

John Hancock Financial (Boston) has launched an iPad app that contains functionality for three major stakeholders: customers, benefits managers, and financial advisors.

Featuring product information, videos, forms, calculators and other tools, the comprehensive app was developed out of a company contest. John Hancock had been several business unit-specific apps in development when SVP and CIO Allan Hackney sponsored the competition to spur further app ideas.

"I was thrilled with the engagement of our associates and the great ideas they suggested," Hackney says in a statement.

The competition garnered 175 submissions, with the winning design coming from Shawn Smith and Mark Brady, who worked in the company's Retirement Plan Services division (Brady is still there while Smith has moved to Creative Services.)

"We wanted to create a platform for any user with a financial services need - one that was simple and that would display relevant content," Smith says in a statement.

Nathan Golia is senior editor of Insurance & Technology. He joined the publication in 2010 as associate editor and covers all aspects of the nexus between insurance and information technology, including mobility, distribution, core systems, customer interaction, and risk ... View Full Bio