Blog – Page 6 – InsurTech Express

What Is The Latest Technical Jargon For Life Insurtech Point-Of-Sale And Underwriting Solutions?

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Published in BrokerWorld Magazine November 2020

Have you started reading a book and then come across a word that you do not know the meaning of like, for example, “patulous?” It can be frustrating to look it up and, in some cases, you still may not grasp the full meaning. Software vendors today are marketing their solutions using words like “API,” “No Code,” “Low Code,” and “AI.” You are not exactly sure what they mean especially for life insurance technology. My objective is to help you not only understand the definition of these terms, but also understand how they are being applied to the life insurance point-of-sale tools and underwriting solutions used today by carriers, agencies and agents.

API
An acronym you often hear these days in the technology world is “API.” This stands for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Have you ever used PayPal to pay for something you are purchasing online directly within an eCommerce store like BestBuy.com? After you add your item to the virtual shopping cart and go to check-out, you see a payment option button for PayPal. When the user clicks the “Pay with PayPal” button, the application sends an “order” request to the PayPal API, specifying the amount owed and other important details. Then, a pop-up authenticates the user and confirms their purchase. Finally, if the PayPal process is successful, the API sends confirmation of payment back to the application thereby finalizing the payment of the purchased item. In the life insurance world, there are many examples of an API being utilized. If you are a BGA using an agency management system (AMS) to process new business life cases, you may see functionality that allows you to schedule an exam or order other requirements from a paramed vendor like ExamOne. The agency management system is using an API from the paramed vendor to facilitate the requirement order. It is seamless to the user, while the API is doing the work behind the scenes to execute the requirement order.

“Low Code” and “No Code”
Two other popular terms you see today are “Low Code” and “No Code.” I am going to give you the most common business definition as it is being marketed for insurtech applications. Let’s start with “No Code”: A good example in life insurance technology is a “No Code” life insurance eApp platform. When a carrier adds its products to an eApp platform, there are three critical items that need to be setup:

Life insurance product rules;
Questions asked to complete the life insurance application; and,
Mapping the data to all the State-specific forms.

When eApp was first developed decades ago, setting up the three items above required a software developer to program code, then extensive quality assurance testing had to be done, and finally you had to wait for a major release before the carrier’s products were in production ready for agents to submit life business on the eApp platform. This typically was a long process to set up. As the years went by, less programming (hard-coded) was required because of the configuration tools that were developed to help make changes to the software application. Now fast forward to 2020. A No-Code eApp platform means that setting up the life insurance product rules, the questions, and the forms, is completely self-service and does not even need to be administered by a technical person. So, when you see software advertised as “No Code” it usually means you can set it up and configure it on your own.

Low Code is a visual approach to software development. Low Code abstracts and automates every step of the application lifecycle to enable rapid delivery of a variety of software solutions. It breaks the traditional silos of business and IT to promote continuous collaboration. When a software vendor is enhancing their system with new functionality instead of programming raw code, they use a graphic interface drawing workflow and moving objects around. If you are buying software from a vendor who is advertising Low Code, then it simply means speed and ease in releasing enhancements, fixes, and new functionality. In life Insurtech today you will see Low Code for eApp, eDelivery, and Underwriting Workbenches for carriers just to name a few types of Low-Code platforms that are available.

AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is sprayed everywhere in vendor solutions and processes. There are an enormous amount of ways that AI is being used in our everyday lives. The obvious example is Alexa from Amazon or Siri from Apple. You can ask Siri to play a specific song, or turn on the lights in your house, or schedule a calendar appointment. But it can do more sophisticated tasks like knowing where you are with your GPS and telling you that you will be late for your appointment because your location is too far away for example. Artificial intelligence is based on the principle that human intelligence can be defined in a way that a machine can easily mimic and execute tasks, from the simplest to those that are even more complex. The goals of artificial intelligence include learning, reasoning, and perception. AI programs require training—meaning the more data you feed it, the more intelligent it becomes. When we see AI being mentioned in the life insurance new business process or in insurtech applications, what do they really mean? A great example is eNoah’s eXtract Plus solution. It uses AI to take a 200 page Attending Physician Statement (APS) and make it a searchable document (extracting vitals, medications and key information) for a life underwriter. eXtract Plus can also render medical records and lab documents with hyperlinks and cover pages. This information can be utilized to create APS summaries or validate that APS summaries are complete and accurate.

Point-of-Sale and Underwriting Solutions
iPipeline offers a transformational Resonant^® Point-of-Sale (POS) decision solution that makes the customer experience quick and easy—like buying auto insurance. This enables a carrier and distributor to sell profitable life insurance protection to middle market consumers. Unlike today’s traditional process of quoting teaser rates only to find out the final premium after underwriting, Resonant POS decisioning changes the dynamic so that underwriting is completed at the point of sale. Answers to medical questions are combined with data received from industry leading evidence and predictive model vendors to provide instant decisions with the final premium needed to complete the sale in one sitting. Resonant integrates with iPipeline’s Quote, iGO^® e-Application, and DocFast^® e-Delivery automated solutions to manage and control the entire underwriting and new business process from simplified issue to fully underwritten complex cases and other lines of business.

Management Research Services, Inc. (MRS) has developed new tools on its no-code sales and new business platform that focus on increasing the speed of issuing insurance policies. MRS has enhanced APS retrieval by integrating with electronic health record (EHR) data partners. Working with the insurance carrier, MRS will integrate an EHR to make an automated decision and issue the insurance policy at the point of sale (similar to how a Rx or MIB integration is used). Additionally, MRS is reimaging the case management and underwriter workbench by providing better tools for the insurance carrier to order requirements. This means that instead of reactively ordering requirements that may add days/weeks to the issuance timeline, the insurance carrier can use MRS’s highly configurable rules engine to write rules that will anticipate ordering requirements needed during the point-of-sale process. This will provide busy underwriters with all the information needed to review and issue the policy, resulting in a much faster and more efficient issuance.

The two solution providers mentioned above are leveraging these technologies (APIs, No Code, Low Code, and/or AI) in their platforms that carriers, agencies and agents use every day. You can see this is much more than connecting systems, it is an integrated process. The value of the entire new business flow, from applying for life insurance to passing into the carrier fulfillment process, is seamless, intelligent, and fast because of these underlying technologies. Each new innovative deployment helps agents provide a better experience for their customers and, as a result, place more business.

Agent Tools For Prospecting, eRetail Sales And Applying For Insurance

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Published in InsuranceNewsNet Magazine written by Ken Leibow

Life Insurance professionals need to leverage technology to engage with existing and prospective clients directly or indirectly. Growing sales and placing more business today requires consumer-facing insurance tools, and the integration of agent sales tools with quoting and electronic applications (eApp). There are new technology sales solutions for agents to use and new models like eRetail selling and social media marketing. However, an agent’s sales and marketing technology foundation must begin with subscribing online to a customer relationship management system.

CRM For Agents

The power of a customer relationship management (CRM) tool serves as the backbone to your practice. Your success depends on making your clients better off so that they place a high value on your services. And to do that, you need to understand their finances and needs better than they do. You can gain that understanding with an intelligent technology CRM solution that helps you analyze, serve and communicate with your clients in the most efficient way possible. There are many benefits to a CRM for an insurance agent or advisor, starting with contact management. You can store comprehensive contact information, demographic data and notes about your clients. You can keep track of their financial goals and personal and professional milestones.

The work involved in prospecting and the cost of customer acquisition requires you to maximize every contact. A CRM also helps you manage your calendar and drive your day with extensive task and appointment management features. You can record outcomes to activities, create follow-ups, and receive text or e-mail reminders. Most CRMs offer reports out of the box and custom reporting capabilities. You can mine your client data for marketing and upsell and cross-sell opportunities. Generate clear, attractive reports for your clients to help them understand their finances. CRMs are known for their sales leads and opportunity-tracking capabilities for prospecting. You can create multistage opportunity processes to help you systematically identify, contact and follow up with prospects. Link opportunities with marketing campaigns to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Sales tracking is also an important feature. Most CRMs today have a dashboard as soon as you log in that shows your sales metrics, appointments and follow-ups, with graphics and easy navigation for your day-to-day interactions with your clients. There are mobile app versions of CRMs or browser optimized for your smartphone or tablet for when you are mobile.

The difference between a business agnostic CRM like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 compared with a CRM already set up for life insurance agents and financial advisors such as Ebix SmartOffice and AgencyBloc is policy and investment tracking. You also want to exchange data easily and automatically with your CRM and other trading partners in the life insurance sales process. There are models where a CRM may be available by your upline general agency, in which they can feed your CRM pending case status on your submitted business. Some CRMs are set up to receive data from carriers and broker-dealers, in which you can get data imported into your CRM on in-force information on placed policies and investments. Another benefit of data exchange with your CRM is to integrate it with life insurance quoting and illustration systems as well as pre-populating your client information with an eApp platform for applying and submitting business. This reduces the amount of data entry and provides tracking information on proposals and submitted business. Vendors such as iPipeline offer these types of integrations like with iPipeline’s LifePipe term insurance comparison quoting tool and its iGO eApp platform.

eRetail Tools For Agents

There is a new trend in the industry where quoting and eApp are offered by agents for consumers to use. These consumer-facing tools are not for a carrier direct-to-consumer sales model, but a way to market insurance products online and in social media while still maintaining the agent ecosystem. It frees up agents to focus on sales and marketing. Prospective customers can buy insurance anytime 24/7, and you get paid your commission. Millennials, for example, who are or are soon to be the biggest insurance-buying target market, prefer self-service purchasing but still want the agent available for expertise as needed.

For example, BackNine insurance agency offers agents consumer-facing tools for an agent’s website called “Quote & Apply,” where the consumer can run a multi-carrier term insurance quote from top carriers such as Protective Life, American General and Banner Life on simplified term insurance. The client then chooses a carrier, completes a simple questionnaire, schedules an exam and e-signs. This works on a laptop or mobile device. The agent’s contact information, or even in some cases a chat feature, is available for assisting the client as needed. Another example is Nimbus Insurance “Click-To-Buy.” Nimbus is an agency that offers some alternative insurance products like term insurance (up to $1 million without an exam), final expense guarantee issue, AD&D and HMA insurance from top carriers. The agent gets a unique URL that they can market in social media such as Facebook and Google. In both agencies, once the agent gets contracted and appointed, the software is free for them to use. As clients submit and pay for business in the self-service quoting and eApp insurance tools, the agent gets paid their commission. You, as an agent, are acting as an eRetailer of insurance.

Hybrid Agent To Customer Self-Service

There is another new model that is being offered by life carriers to independent agents. For example, ApplicInt is a vendor that has a quoting and eApp platform called U*Complete. The agent will run a multi-carrier quote, and then select the carrier and complete a drop ticket. The agent then emails a link to the client. The customer is securely authenticated when they click on the link. The customer then completes the rest of Part A of the life insurance application, and Part B with medical questions is optional. The next step is e-signing the forms. Live chat with a call center is available for assistance. There is a warm transfer to the call center. An exam will be scheduled if needed. The forms and the data are then automatically sent to the carrier. The U*Complete software is offered by the carrier and free for the agent to use.

With COVID-19, remote-selling life insurance is critical. There is an acceleration of consumer-facing sales technology solutions for remotely prospecting and engaging with customers from a sales and marketing perspective to applying for insurance. Using a CRM to track and manage your prospects and clients is where you must begin as an agent. You should then partner with general agencies and carriers that offer tools to help you engage directly or indirectly with consumers for marketing, quoting and applying for insurance.

Management Research Services Continues To Advance And Excel!

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Management Research Services (MRS) has been able to stay on a positive path of growth and prosperity in 2020. We offer an unmatched customer service experience that keeps us at the forefront with our clients and the insurance industry. With quick response times and dedicated staff members, we always put our clients and partners first. As a core value of the company, customer service is embedded in the culture at MRS. Elco Mutual Life and Annuity had this to say about the customer service experience MRS provided to them. “In short, MRS has been great. We see tasks quickly going from start to finish with plenty of communication in-between. I would say they do an excellent job of identifying potential issues, offering suggestions, and keeping us updated as we progress. Communication in meetings is clear and concise, and emails are bountiful with information, but not overwhelming. Testing has gone smoothly too. When we identify an issue or decide to adjust, they have made the necessary changes promptly to keep the project on schedule. Overall, the project has been a very positive experience, and we are pleased with their performance.” This type of service cannot be done without the dedication of our employees. When an employee gets hired by MRS, it is not just an apply and start type of hiring experience. MRS puts an emphasis and trust in their employees to be the experts in the field and the interview process guides the applicants to be confident, secure, and ready to go the moment they join the team. Since the pandemic of 2020 started, many businesses and industries have had to adjust. Plans for growth and expansion have had to be halted as the world reacts to life during this unprecedented time. MRS has not had to stop operations or plans for growth and expansion, in fact, MRS has been able to significantly grow from 80 to 120 employees since March.

How has MRS been able thrive in 2020 during the pandemic?

The first and biggest reason was MRS’s ability to allow employees to work from home. Prior to the pandemic 50% of the staff was already working from home and processes were already in place to allow for the organization to transfer to a virtual/home office environment quickly. The next reason was the innovative vision and foresight of the tech team. They were a key player in transforming from an in person to virtual working environment. They were able to get the rest of the MRS employees transferred over to virtual offices in under a week and without interruption to the daily workflow. The tech team acted instantly and MRS adapted quickly. Another key reason that has allowed MRS to thrive is the software technology currently in place within the company. This technology that MRS created allowed to hire rapidly and train new employees quickly. The last reason MRS has thrived during the pandemic is that the company has been able to be flexible and adapt. From client transactions to customer service inquiries, MRS developed solutions that were quick, easy, and efficient. These transformations allowed MRS to keep growing and advancing, and they are now currently over 120 total employees. With expansion comes growth and MRS has been able to do both in 2020.

At MRS, we help clients transform change into a competitive advantage.

MRS provides a high-end technology product to life, health, and annuity insurance industries. In today’s world where “the only thing constant is change,” that original vision has been expanded to include more services and technology capabilities designed to help clients adapt quickly and in a cost-effective way. MRS has invested heavily in our technology platform to create a foundation for the next revolution in life insurance. MRS’s No-Code platform gives you all the tools needed to build a highly secure, complex application that efficiently collects voice and electronic data without writing a single line of code. The result is a vastly reduced time to market with no initial or ongoing maintenance costs making the total cost of ownership substantially lower than status quo solutions. Our platform’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 capabilities and flexibility of our platform allow customers to use the MRS technology platform as their single solution or as a tool to support and enhance current technology solutions they already have in place. Please visit us at www.managementresearchservices.com or contact us by email at sales@mrsreps.com to learn more!

LexisNexis Risk Solutions and ExamOne Combine Leading Prescription and Laboratory Testing Data with Non-medical Data Science to Improve Risk Identification for Life Insurance Underwriting

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ATLANTA — LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, a leading provider of data, analytics and technology for the insurance industry, and ExamOne®, a Quest Diagnostics company and leading laboratory and prescription history data provider for life insurance, announced a strategic relationship to offer insurance carriers a next-generation life mortality model to underwrite new policies. The collaboration allows life insurers to more confidently expand age and policy ranges, utilize data in a more consistent, cost-effective manner, and deliver better experiences to consumers within minutes versus weeks using LexisNexis® Risk Classifier.

Combining the current Risk Classifier model from LexisNexis Risk Solutions – which includes public records, credit attributes and driving behavior data – with ExamOne’s accelerated medical solution historical laboratory testing and prescription information creates an underwriting solution that contains data sources to form a single, predictive mortality score that is unique to the market. This combination of the data will help life insurers evaluate relevant data into one streamlined and integrated model, assisting in the carrier’s overall underwriting decision process.

“Collaborating with LexisNexis Risk Solutions demonstrates our commitment to help life insurers transform their workflows as well as simplify, streamline and accelerate the completion window of application to policy issuance for a better customer experience,” said Joey Grant, president of ExamOne. “We are pleased with the preliminary results illustrating how our extensive data assets, including clinical laboratory history databases and prescription history, can be used in combination with LexisNexis Risk Classifier data to help life insurers offer consumers the protection they need for their families.”

“Life insurers can benefit from unprecedented lift when combining these data sets into one streamlined model,” said Debra Gangelhoff, vice president and general manager, Life Insurance, LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “The industry is seeing heightened pressure to speed up the traditional application process to meet the needs of consumers who increasingly have less tolerance for long underwriting cycle times, all while maintaining a touchless process to comply with social distancing guidelines. Incorporating historical laboratory, prescription history and medical claims data into Risk Classifier provides insurers an alternative to obtaining medical information from traditional paramedical exams and laboratory testing. We are proud to help life insurers innovate and are excited about the analysis we’ve been delivering with ExamOne to continue challenging the status quo by creating a better process.”

Working together, LexisNexis Risk Solutions and ExamOne can help life insurers gain a unique competitive advantage, reduce risk and expenses, and improve carrier workflows. This collaboration can arm life insurers with relevant data, using one streamlined and integrated mortality model. It is important to note that the combined product will meet the applicable legal and regulatory requirements around consumer authorization for the disclosure and use of consumer information.

For more information on LexisNexis Risk Classifier, please click here.

About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data and advanced analytics to provide insights that help businesses and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. We provide data and technology solutions for a wide range of industries including insurance, financial services, healthcare and government. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. For more information, please visit www.risk.lexisnexis.com and www.relx.com.

About ExamOne
ExamOne, A Quest Diagnostics Company, is a leading provider in the risk assessment industry who is committed to empowering decisions with health-based insights. Through in-depth personal history and national specimen collection capabilities, as well as access to instant health-based data, we provide quick and reliable health insights for life insurers. For more information, please visit ExamOne.com.

The Latest In Sales Illustrations, Paramed Exams And Client Engagement

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Published in Broker World Magazine in October 2020

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 requirement 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. 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.

eNoah: An Interview with Coleen Moser

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Hank George Interviews Coleen Moser

Originally published in Hot Notes September, 2020

Several of my friends lost their livelihoods when EMSI suddenly shut down. We offered to assist them in their hunt for new opportunities. That is when we found about eNoah.

We want Hot Notes readers to get a proverbial “bird’s eye view” at what eNoah does, and we asked my friend Coleen if she would do this interview and answer the questions we have.

She said “yes,” and here is what she’s shared.

What is eNoah?

eNoah is a global provider of services for life insurers. These include contract underwriting, medical record retrieval and medical record summarization.

The recent expansion of U.S. onshore operations enables eNoah to provide an accelerated end-to-end process speeding up decision-making by insurers.

What do you consider to be the biggest challenge life insurance carriers and underwriters face today?

The capacity to adapt to evolving market needs.

Producers (agents, brokers) and insurance applicants have become accustomed to the “Amazon experience,” where they can select the product they want at the price they are comfortable with and have it in as little as one day. This expectation complicates the life insurance application-to-issue process. Attending physicians’ statements can take weeks to acquire and review.

Because of this, there is increasing pressure to make faster decisions with less information while cutting costs and continuing to be competitive.

Unfortunately, insurance has been one of the slowest sectors to adopt new technologies. This can be a herculean task, in part because the amount of data in the medical histories, that underwriters must review, keeps increasing.

Accessing records through patient portals and e-health records has exposed gaps in data and inconsistent formatting. Many essential portions of the standard medical record may not be included, increasing the odds of underwriting errors.

Complete medical records can exceed 1,000 pages. They typically include lab slips, medications, ECG tracings, clinic notes, follow up notes, surgical procedure summaries and countless other documents. It is a tedious process for an underwriter to review every page of the APS to find those key bits of information that can make or break a case.

eNoah’s mission is to greatly reduce decision-making intervals by relieving underwriters of most of this burden. This is accomplished via customizable solutions ranging from a traditional medical record summary to utilizing eXtract Plus, which utilizes innovative technology for a system-driven overview of the APS. When insurers deploy this novel resource, there are always going to be those occasions when the underwriter needs a full summary of the APS. When requested, this can be done within 48 hours.

How do eNoah’s eXtract Plus and APS Summarizations speed up the risk assessment process and take pressure off underwriters?

Underwriting requires exquisite attention to detail honed by years of experience and a broad knowledge base. eNoah’s focus is creating powerful tools to help underwriters make accurate decisions more rapidly and less tediously.

These tools were built for underwriters by underwriters that created resources and software leveraging the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence. ML and AI can —with great accuracy — read through and filter a client’s entire medical history spanning several hundred pages in just minutes, and provide deep insights to the underwriter to quickly make informed decisions.

eXtract Plus gives underwriters quick, easy access to the critical decision-making data on the most complex cases. It is a versatile platform that can be used in many scenarios, depending on what the underwriter is trying to achieve.

For example, an underwriter needing to check for certain conditions before making a decision can now run a search and very quickly see what’s happening in terms of medications, labs, procedures, how many years someone has been on a treatment, frequency of drugs taken, and dosages. And this is done with great accuracy that is realized by mitigating or eliminating human errors.

eXtract Plus was designed to be intuitive and easy to use. Access can be provided via a secure login, and training for most underwriters can take place in less than an hour via a video tutorial, with the eNoah team readily available to ease that transition.

eNoah data are stored in the U.S. on a secure server with HIPAA-compliant and ISO-Certified protocols that protect data.

How much underwriting time can be saved using eNoah’s products and services?

A traditional APS review can range anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours, depending on the length of the APS. Internal studies suggest 20-50% of underwriter time is saved by eXtract Plus.

eXtract Plus is more than a simple search engine. The software also provides underwriters with content directly from the medical records itself.

For example, let’s say I want to know what medications a client has taken over their lifetime, or how a medication relates to lab values for certain treatments. You can see all pertinent data needed in these contexts to make a decision in a matter of minutes. And it can be customized easily to best suit the needs of each company.

– – – – –

Thank you, Coleen.

All of this technology is fascinating even for an old technophobe.

I confess that I’m coming to appreciate how its capacity to rid us of tedium empowers underwriting professionals to make the best possible decisions on every case they see.

To read more about Hot Notes September 2020 click here.

WINK UNVEILS EXTRAORDINARY SALES DATA PORTAL

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Wink, Inc. Puts the Power of 23 Years of Insurance Sales in their Users’ Hands

Des Moines, Iowa. September 18, 2020– Wink, Inc., the company behind the insurance industry’s #1 resource for annuity and life insurance sales data, since 1997, has given the Platinum subscribers of Wink’s Sales & Market Report an upgrade. Today the firm announced the addition of an enhanced web portal and dynamic sales data query for the use of their subscribers.

“Our flagship sales report continues to grow and change, and we’re developing technology to make it even more impressive,” proclaimed Sheryl J. Moore, president and CEO of Wink, Inc. She continued, “We are now providing the ability to access our reports with greater ease, as well as the opportunity to slice and dice our life insurance and annuity data- in any way you can imagine!”

This new Wink’s Sales & Market Report portal provides an easily-accessible query for locating specific Adobe PDF or Microsoft Excel editions of sales reports; whether searching for sales at industry, company, or product level- for both life insurance and annuity data. Supplemental reports can be quickly identified in a like manner.

The enhanced Sales Data Query delivers HTML or Microsoft Excel results, based upon every query option mentioned above. In addition, subscribers can search using additional options which include: sales by distribution channel, sales based upon company ratings, sales of products with specific product features, or even sales of products with select rider features.

Moore commented, “Essentially our Sales Data Query gives subscribers the ability to combine product features from our AnnuitySpecs and LifeSpecs Tools, with our Product Level, Company Level, and Industry Level sales data. So, if you ever wondered how much sales there were in the second quarter, of variable annuities with bonuses, offered by A-rated companies- we’ll give you that result in just a couple of clicks!” She continued, “Plus, our Platinum subscribers now have 23 years of data included as a part of their subscription.”

Future enhancements of Wink’s Sales & Market Report will provide subscribers with data on every data point reported by Wink, for each participating peer, on a quid pro quo basis. Also, subscribers using both Wink’s Sales & Market Report, in conjunction with the AnnuitySpecs and/or LifeSpecs Tools, will soon have the ability to see sales rankings and market share data in their quest for product information.

The Sales Reports and Sales Data Query are available NOW for subscribers of Wink’s Sales & Market Report.

Those interested in a subscription can contact Wink’s support team at (855) ASK-WINK, or support@winkintel.com.

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For more information, go to www.WinkIntel.com.

Wink, Inc. is the company behind the most comprehensive life insurance and annuity due-diligence tools, AnnuitySpecs and LifeSpecs at www.WinkIntel.com. Wink, Inc. is the distributor of the quarterly Wink’s Sales & Market Report. Serving as the insurance industry’s #1 resource of indexed insurance product sales since 1997, this report provides sales by product, company, crediting method, index, distribution, surrender charge period, and more. Wink’s Sales & Market Report expanded to cover all deferred annuity products in 2015, all deferred variable annuity products in 2019, and all non-variable cash value life insurance products in 2017.

The staff of Wink, Inc. has the combined experience of more than 175 years working with insurance products, more than a decade of which is specific to competitive intelligence. Based in Des Moines, Iowa, the firm offers competitive intelligence and market research in the life insurance and annuity industries; serving financial services professionals, distributors, manufacturers, regulators, and consultants on both a domestic and global basis.

Sheryl J. Moore is president and CEO is the guiding force behind Wink, Inc. Ms. Moore previously worked as a market research analyst for top carriers in the life insurance and annuity industries. Her views on the direction of the market are frequently heard in seminars and quoted by industry trade journals.

September 18, 2020

Des Moines, IA

(855) ASK-WINK

Employee Pooling, LLC announced today the appointment of Steven Lacher to their leadership team as Vice President of Business Development

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Steve Lacher

Nashville, TN, September 11, 2020 – Employee Pooling, LLC announced today the appointment of Steven Lacher to their leadership team as Vice President of Business Development. The appointment follows a steady surge in EP’s Business Development and the need for a trusted industry veteran who is aligned with EP’s vision and mission.

Lacher will be directly in charge of managing EP’s 120+ national account relationships and overseeing national account operations. He will primarily focus on expanding national sales activity alongside other members of the leadership team.

Tom Gray, Founder and CEO of EP, states, “I am thrilled to be working with Steven again. Our relationship spans nearly two-decades and we speak the same language when it comes to providing best-in class-systems and solutions to BGAs and financial institutions. Steven is a problem-solver; that, combined with his vast experience and industry insight lends to his ability to identify company pain points while offering solutions to our customers.”

Steven adds, “I couldn’t be more excited to join Tom Gray and the EP staff. I have the utmost respect for Tom personally, and professionally. Over the years, I’ve witnessed Tom’s hard work and vision come to life with abundant growth and success. Together, we will be leveraging my experience and EP’s systems and solutions to continue growing our support for current and future clients. At this stage in my career, I am truly blessed by this opportunity”.

Lacher brings 30+ years of insurance experience to EP. Steven was a key member of Capitas Financial since 2015, serving as Vice President of National Account Sales. He began his career in the insurance and financial services industry in 1989. Prior to joining Capitas, he was Principal of the Midwest division at Netstreet Brokerage. Lacher also has extensive experience with ING/ReliaStar Life. He obtained a B.A. in Accounting from the Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, MN.

EMPLOYEE POOLING, LLC

Employee Pooling, LLC (EP) delivers 24/7 scalable assistance to life insurance companies, distributors, financial institutions, and software companies in a highly secure environment. Leveraging technology and human capital, EP’s business process management systems and solutions remove obstacles getting in the way of sales and enhancing the customer experience. EP Headquarters is based in Nashville, TN with its processing center in New Delhi, India.

Contact:

Employee Pooling, LLC

Nashville | New Delhi

2000 Glen Echo Road, Suite 111, Nashville, TN 37215

615.610.5585

info@employeepooling.com

www.employeepooling.com

Media Contact:

Michelle Anderson

michelle@ep-insuranceservices.com

615.500.6961

Management Research Services announces “New” Self-Configure Model!

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MRS Self-Configure Platform Press Release

Management Research Services (MRS) is extremely excited to announce our newest form of an e-App platform, our Self-Configure model! Over the course of the last few months, MRS has been consistently working to make a process that allows insurers to optimize their internal resources to support field operations. Now, this process has become a reality due to MRS’ no-code, easily configurable, and cloud-based platform. The insurance companies’ internal teams can oversee the configuration requirements and implementation daily and guide their own field operations and sales teams. This new service model not only saves time but also saves almost 35% of the total unit cost resulting in increased profitability margins for the insurer. MRS is also assisting this transformation with training, guidance, and ongoing supervision. We pride ourselves on our quality service standards that allow our customers to become experts in their field. We believe that we are successful when our clients are successful. You could be next when it comes to digital transformation and development!

GG Oncel, our Head of Customer Strategy and Growth stated “We are very excited about this new chapter as part of our no-code and easily configurable genius platform. This new service option will help insurance companies that prefer to utilize their internal resources as part of the processes and make it their own solution. We are still providing continued supervision via our 100% US-based Customer Success teams giving ‘peace of mind’ to our clients at the same time.”

At MRS, we help clients transform change into a competitive advantage.

Proformex and NAIFA Partner to Protect Consumers of Life Insurance

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CLEVELAND, Ohio – August 18, 2020 – Proformex, creator of a proactive life insurance policy monitoring platform designed to give insurance agents, advisors and fiduciaries better oversight and visibility into the performance of inforce life insurance and annuities, today announced its newly-established partnership with industry giant, NAIFA (National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors).

NAIFA is the leading association for life insurance and financial producers in the financial services sector. They provide ongoing educational materials, advocate for a positive legislative and regulatory environment, and promote ethical conduct and best practices among advisors. Through their partnership, Proformex and NAIFA will support these initiatives with a variety of activities enabling NAIFA members to automate difficult and time-consuming tasks, while meeting RegBi compliance standards which ultimately protect consumers.

“Protecting NAIFA members and their clients is paramount,” said David Morris, CMO of Proformex. “By leveraging our technology that automates the painful, tedious tasks associated with ongoing inforce policy management and providing the most accurate reporting and analytics, advisors can uncover opportunities which better serve their clients ever-evolving goals and needs, while potentially increasing their own growth. Proformex combines as-sold data with illustrations, statements, and other key information to create a single location for all inforce policy data and analytics.”

Brian Steiner, NAIFA’s VP of Business Development and Partnerships, echoed Morris’s sentiments: “We are excited about this opportunity to partner with Proformex and help bring their transformative product to the forefront of our industry. Any time we can leverage a leading tech solution like Proformex that helps our membership work more efficiently and effectively, comply with our industry’s most stringent standards, and grow their business, it’s a win for everyone. It’s especially relevant right now during COVID-19 and our current economic downturn; having a system like Proformex allows our members to mine their book of business for new opportunities.”

NAIFA members can join in on the first educational webinar in the monthly series on August 19, 2020. For more information, visit either organization’s website.

About NAIFA

Founded in 1890, NAIFA is the oldest, largest and most prestigious association representing the interests of financial services professionals from every Congressional district in the United States. Our mission – to advocate for a positive legislative and regulatory environment, enhance business and professional skills, and promote the ethical conduct of its members – is the reason NAIFA has consistently and resoundingly stood up for financial services professionals and called upon members to grow their knowledge while following the highest ethical standards in the industry.

About Proformex

Proformex is the leading inforce management platform offering data aggregation, analytics, and portfolio monitoring for life insurance and annuities. The platform is purpose-built to help advisors, GAs/BGAs, IMOs, financial institutions, settlement companies, and broker-dealers protect their clients’ best interest and ensure regulatory compliance by monitoring individual policy performance, identifying at-risk policies, and uncovering new sales opportunities. Our automated solutions make inforce management more efficient, more profitable, and results in better experiences for policy owners.

Media Contacts

David Morris

(855) 341-1331

dmorris@proformex.com

Suzanne Carawan

703-770-8402

scarawan@Naifa.org

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