Digital distribution

Los Angeles - While most believe insurance is important to protect assets and, in the case of life insurance, their families, Los Angeles-area Latino consumers in general under-utilize insurance, according to a study released today by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) at the University of Southern California.The study, made possible by a grant from Allstate Insurance Co., Northbrook, Ill., used focus groups and a telephone survey to assess Los Angeles-area Latino resident's attitudes toward three types of insurance: auto, property (homeowners and renters) and life. The study also examined how these consumers make decisions about insurance purchases and gather information about insurance. Among the key findings:

Oak Ridge, Tenn. - Diversified Product Inspections Inc., a provider of independent product failure analysis, air contamination and fire investigations for the insurance industry will now send its clients product failure analysis reports electronically via a secure PDF file format.Warren Wankelman, vice president of marketing says, "Effective Monday, August 8, 2005, DPI started transmitting reports, pictures, and invoices electronically, which will replace the reports being sent via U.S. Mail. These reports will be in a secure encrypted Acrobat Reader format with access only with a password. Subrogation managers, claims managers and adjusters will access this new system via the DPI Web site by registering and setting up an account. While adjusters will only be able to access or view their own claims, managers will be able to view all their company's reports that have been completed."

New York-As the next step in its efforts to automate the sales and processing of life insurance policies, The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has launched its pilot program for InsurExpress, New York. Leveraging DTCC's infrastructure and established network of connectivity, InsurExpress integrates key insurance industry service providers to support communications between insurance companies and participating distributors of insurance products, providing necessary functionality for life insurance application processing.Firms participating in the initial pilot testing include Genworth Financial, Richmond, Va., and Piper Jaffray, Minneapolis. In the coming months, DTCC intends to expand the program to include multiple financial advisors in various geographical locations, together with an expanded product set and carrier list.

Customer service can be performed and measured in many ways. In this month's cover story, the nuances of customer relationship management-performance monitoring and analysis-play a big role in insurer's success. Being able to provide high levels of service with each and every customer contact-whether in person, on the phone or online-is sure to drive revenue and retention.How your company manages customer service may be the result of definable metrics, such as demographic studies, formal assumptions about customer behavior, anticipation of future requirements, etc. It may also involve a bit of guesswork. The results of your measurement should prove unequivocally that you know your customer.

We all remember the horror stories about customer relationship management projects gone awry: XYZ Insurance Co. spent $5 million in 2000 on a CRM engagement, and another $2 million on software, only to find out a year into implementation that the big idea wasn't working. XYZ's call center performance measurements-such as average wait time, average call handling time, and abandon rate-were below industry benchmarking standards-if they were measured adequately at all.Now, five years later, these same insurers have sophisticated performance management systems in place that tell them exactly how long it takes for their service representatives to resolve a customer's problem, how long a caller waits in a queue, and how much money the company can save by improving these key performance indicators.

Chicago - Agents are being introduced to an e-mail autoresponder that automatically includes complete health insurance quotes to prospective customers and allows continuous flow of e-mails to prospects over a specified timeframe. Norvax, a Chicago developer of Web-based sales and customer communications tools, has released its LeadMiner tool in three versions - Basic, Pro and Marketer. Each version enables agents to automatically e-mail messages customized with their own information on a regular basis at intervals specified by the agent, automatically send HTML and text e-mails with instant, integrated health insurance quotes, and automatically add updated health insurance quotes to scheduled e-mails sent after the initial contact.

Alexandria, Va.--Five top insurance industry leaders will participate in a CEO panel discussion during the opening session of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America's (Big "I") Convention in New York.CEOs participating as panelists for the discussion are: Frederick H. Eppinger, CEO, Allmerica Financial Corp.; Robert J. Joyce, chairman and CEO, Westfield Group; Charles M. Kavitzky, president and CEO, Fireman's Fund; Axel P. Lehmann, CEO, Zurich North America Commercial; and William J. Mullaney, president, MetLife Auto & Home.

Princeton, N.J. -- American Re-Insurance Co. was named "Best Overall Reinsurer in the U.S." in the 2005 survey of cedant perceptions about reinsurance and reinsurers conducted by Flaspohler Research Group, a Kansas City, Mo.-based business-to-business research. American Re received the same recognition in 2003, the last time this survey was conducted."We are enormously proud of the results of the Flaspohler Survey. Retaining our No. 1 ranking in the "best overall reinsurer" category clearly demonstrates that we continue to be judged as the best reinsurer in this market by our clients - by far the most important arbiters of our performance," said John Phelan, Chairman and CEO of American Re-Insurance Co.

Frisco, Texas -Skywire Software, an insurance and financial services software company based in Frisco, Texas, announced it has completed its acquisition of InsBridge, Richardson, Texas, a rating and underwriting applications software provider.

Speed to market is a hot topic in the insurance industry. According to recent research from Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc., 79% of life insurers and 86% of property/casualty insurers are investing in new technologies for product development.That's promising, but it won't do carriers, their customers, or their agents any good if new products get stalled on the road to the market.

To the Agents Council for Technology (ACT), anything is possible."We want to do everything we can to accelerate agent, carrier, and vendor implementation of money-saving technologies," says Jeffrey Yates, executive director for ACT, which is an operating unit of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA), Alexandria. Va.

A survey of life insurance CFOs conducted by the Tillinghast division of Towers Perrin revealed that significant changes in insurance distribution are likely.In March, the Stamford, Conn.-based services firm asked more than 70 executives about the issues underlying distribution and remuneration concerns.

If the Norwegian luxury cruise ship that was struck by a 70-foot wave in mid-April had been carrying steel instead of people, the carrier insuring the ship's cargo would have been hit with a 25,000-ton claim.That's according to Scott Shapiro, CEO of SteelSalvor LLC, a Narberth, Pa.-based firm that operates an online auction site for steel buyers and sellers.

MassMutual Adds ERISA Advisory TabTo help plan sponsors stay apprised of fiduciary obligations and minimize their fiduciary liability, MassMutual Retirement Services, Springfield, Mass., has added a new ERISA Advisory tab to its Total Retirement Center (TRC) online. The ERISA Advisory tab replaces the Plan Info tab that was previously on the Web site. All plan-level compliance information is still available within ERISA Advisory under the Consulting Services section. In addition, plan sponsors now have access to qualified retirement plan reference material and important testing and reporting information in one location.

A number of auto insurance carriers adding real-time rating capabilities and other agent- and consumer-friendly enhancements have decided to give The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies a run for its money.

While CRM systems can get an organization 90 percent of the way toward reaching its customer relationship management objectives, the systems do not answer the key question of "why," according to CRMDirectory.com, a customer management website.

Alexandria, Va.-During the past year, the Agents Council for Technology (ACT), working closely with ACORD and agency management system user groups, has undertaken a major initiative to make commercial lines download more accurate and effective for independent insurance agencies and brokers.ACT's commercial lines download work group, which drew broad participation from carriers, vendors, agents, and user groups, has released a series of important recommendations toward this end.

Austin - United Teacher Associates Insurance Co. (UTA) is launching an initiative to Web-enable Medicare supplement insurance enrollment as well as routine agent services. The company recently signed with Cleveland-based IdeaStar Inc. to design, develop and host a state-of-the-art Web site for UTA-appointed agents. The site is targeted for launch this Fall. The site represents UTA's first foray into online, electronic signature-based enrollments for senior health and life products. Top producing UTA agents are eager to obtain online processes as they seek to stay competitive with market forces. The vision of UTA's President Billy Hill is to automate agent enrollment, agent servicing and the Medicare supplement insurance education and enrollment process. The new Web site is expected to process several thousand Medicare supplement applications per month in a paperless fashion. Senior life enrollment and other products will be added in the future.In addition, the new capabilities will help attract other agents into UTA's fold. "Site design and architecture, creating an enjoyable yet efficient and accurate agent experience, are critical in the effort to recruit and retain agents," says Mike Wise, vice president of IdeaStar Insurance Technologies. "The seamless integration with Lifepro, UTA's back-end administration system, will complete the workflow and enable high-speed policy issuance."

A national life settlement broker is taking an eBay-like approach to the secondary life insurance market, linking cash-strapped policyholders with institutional investors.In April, Life Settlement Insights drew a handful of institutional investors online to test the open-forward auction format of a new venture called LifeX, an electronic communications network that runs on a proprietary auction platform from HedgeHog Inc. Executives with Cleveland-based Life Settlement Insights claim they've created the life settlement industry's first online exchange and are considering extending the capability to other life settlement brokerages.

When executives for MetLife Retirement & Savings were considering how to make retirement planning easier for customers to understand, Chris McCloy decided to take matters into his own hands.In late 2004, the New York-based insurer had its eye on technology developed by San Francisco-based Macro-media Inc. Using Macromedia's Breeze technology, MetLife could offer plan sponsors and their employees customizable, online multi-media presentations-supported by Flash Player and delivered in a high-impact PowerPoint presentation.