The New Business Process: 4 Tech Enablers
2. Simplify Products and Process Will Follow
Joanna Creamer (pictured at right)
VP, Life and Annuity Solution Management, CSC; Falls Church, Va.
New business - because of its high operational costs and impact on growth strategies - has always been a key target area for technology. But for many years, technology was applied primarily at the home office, through new business systems, underwriter workbenches, and process management applications.
The insurance industry is now living in a new world. There has been a dramatic shift that has carriers asking “How can we make it easy for distributors to sell our products? What tools and information do they need?”
CSC has just completed an extensive research project, interviewing C-level executives representing fifteen large Tier 1 companies. Every company identified improving service delivery to their primary customer—the distributors—as a key goal. They described projects to enhance agent portal capabilities, self-service, access to information, and provide tools such as iPads and other mobile devices. Many carriers are implementing sales management technology such as Salesforce.com to improve agent productivity.
On the carrier side, companies have simplified their products making them easier to sell and for customers to buy. To improve the buying process, carriers are seeking alternatives to invasive lab requirements, using pharmaceutical data and predictive mortality tools to reduce underwriting and risk. Electronic applications are now table stakes and carriers are seeking to automate every aspect of the new business process.
Many carriers are now looking to use customer and distributor intelligence to deliver products and services targeted to specific demographic markets, making it easier to do business and improving the customer experience. From CSC’s perspective, these new trends will result in an improved selling experience for the distributors, and improved buying and servicing for consumers.
Peggy Bresnick Kendler has been a writer for 30 years. She has worked as an editor, publicist and school district technology coordinator. During the past decade, Bresnick Kendler has worked for UBM TechWeb on special financialservices technology-centered ... View Full Bio
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