In efforts to sway millennials and middle market workers into purchasing life insurance, CUNA Mutual Group recently rolled out a new website using Agile technology for a more simplified policy buying experience.
TruStage Simplified-Issue Term Life, launched in late June, is CUNA Mutual’s attempt to make the experience of buying an insurance policy online identical to what customers encounter with retail, says Susan Sachatello, SVP of TruStage, which is a consumer brand for the carrier. CUNA Mutual's typical customer is credit unions.
“We wanted to make the application process as simple as buying a pair of shoes online,” she said, adding the insurer had to do its homework on how to modify the application process before pushing the site live.
CUNA Mutual’s user experience team researched potential customers, gathering both current policyholders and prospects in its target audience to complete applications. The company tracked eye movements and used heat mapping to determine where subjects struggled most.
“Millennials grew up with e-commerce. They have a tremendous sense of what’s possible and are the group to set expectations against,” Sachatello says.
Consumers are now able to research CUNA Mutual’s full suite of insurance products, purchase plans, and manage them online. The carrier’s original site only allowed customers to receive quotes or estimates.
However, A/B testing is still ongoing, Sachatello says. CUNA Mutual is currently looking into possible alternative proofs of identification than asking applicants for social security numbers.
“It’s been a drop-off point [in the application],” she said.
An estimated $30 million in life policies have been issued to customers online since June, according to the company. All of those underwriting decisions were based on rules written by underwriters.
“I’m very pleased so far that the rules the underwriting team wrote are holding up. We are letting more people through than we thought,” said Sachatello. “It’s a win for the organization because we don’t have so many manual steps involved."
