Customer experience

WASHINGTON, D.C.--With the start of a new Congress and state legislative sessions, the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America is announcing its legislative agenda for 2005. Top issues for the nation's largest insurance association this year will include the following items:

WAUSAU, Wis.--With the beginning of a new year, the direct sales force of Wausau Insurance has reorganized as a new legal entity as Wausau Signature Agency.

Washington, D.C. --The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) issued today its 2005 Bank Insurance Study titled, "Catalyst for Change: Next Steps in Bridging the Cultural Divide Between Banks and Life Insurers." The report offers specific proposals designed to support the growth of a vibrant bank insurance marketplace.

Insurance companies historically have been hesitant to outsource core business processes, fearful that relying on vendors to perform processing and support services is a risky proposition. That perception may change, now that one of biggest names in insurance IT is delving into BPO processing and support services for life policies and annuities.IBM Corp. announced in November that it is purchasing Liberty Insurance Services Corp. (LIS), the Greenville, S.C.-based processing subsidiary of RBC Insurance. The new IBM subsidiary will assume LIS' life and annuity processing services for more than a dozen life carriers and will provide contact center management, policy administration and claims processing.

A new study by London-based research firm Datamonitor suggests U.S. corporations that aggressively invest in speech-enabled self-service technology have the opportunity to reduce long-term dependency on offshore call center operations.However, one insurance call center executive contacted for this article questions the validity of this notion in its entirety, stating that there isn't necessarily a direct correlation between speech-enabled technology investments and offshore call center scale-backs.

The agent/broker compensation model is poised to change, with a departure from commissions based on profitability and volume incentives.A poll of attendees at The Conference Group's 16th annual executive conference for the property/casualty industry in December revealed insurance executives expect changes in the brokerage and regulatory models to have fundamental and long-lasting effects on the industry.

Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America plans to add bank distribution alliances and increase its multicultural marketing efforts next year, according to the company's new director of sales and distribution. Hayward Sawyer, who joined the company in June and was promoted to the twin posts in December, says Allianz Life is in the process of hiring a manager to expand its bank relationships in the next 12 months."We currently have a couple major relationships, but we want to work with major banks, including regional banks," he says.

Like most large U.S. insurance carriers with aging technology platforms, CNA Financial Corp. was faced with a critical decision: How to modernize a legacy claims system to meet 21st century business requirements. And like other insurers, the Chicago-based commercial carrier is banking on technology that integrates multiple disparate systems, streamlines adjuster workflow, provides more timely management information, and reduces claims and IT costs.

When Sachin Shah began working at MetLife in 1999, the carrier was using a DOS-based system to support online benefits administration. Five years later, Shah and the MetLife Inc.'s IT team have built an award-winning benefits administration portal that has been adopted by more than 17,000 corporate customers, brokers and third-party payers.

Health insurers face a difficult dilemma today: Although customers are demanding higher levels of service that are more convenient to access, they are also increasingly sensitive to rising health care costs.Most health carriers are trying to balance these new demands against operational cuts designed to improve their bottom line-a seemingly impossible task.