Notes |
Discussion |
Many sites are difficult or frustrating for your customers
to use. You would not tolerate a non intuitive, poorly designed site if
you ever had to use it yourself. Even if you do look at it in the office,
you see it on the internal web, spared things like passwords, sign ups,
and images that slow loading. Your internal LAN speed is many times faster
than the cable or DSL anyone has at home. To judge what it is like for
the customer, try using your web site from home. |
Some managers are not all that comfortable with computers
and the internet. You can say the same about a lot of your policyholders
and agents. That can be a big advantage when it comes to accessing the
friendliness of your site. The best judge of the effectiveness of a web
site is someone who is not good at it. If you are pretty good on the internet,
find one of your managers that isn't, and watch him work your site. Invest
15 minutes and you will be requesting a lot of changes.
If your site is "intuitive", a person that is not very familiar
with web sites, doesn't know much, and frustrates easily, can go to it
and can immediately see what to do. The only way know whether you accomplished
that is to watch someone work your site and see what they have trouble
with. |
How long should it take to get a new web site "finished"
and available on the internet? About one week. Then why does it seem to
take everyone 3 months? The question is one of approach. The major reasons
are probably a combination of trying to be all things to all people with
one site, trying to do too much before publishing, and excessive planning.
For example, policyholders won't notice if your site only has 5 or 6 pages,
as long as it gives contact information, and some items like history and
the directors and officers. The idea is to show you still exist. Leave
off that ridiculous comment "under construction" and few will
know the difference. Then you build from there with policy information
and so on, stuff that takes time getting from your mainframe, and FAQs,
which take time to do well. An effective web site is never "finished". |
Beware of excessive planning and the meetings that go
with it. Anything you read will tell you that the most important element
in creating a great web site is careful planning, and this will save you
a lot of work down the road. That is because most of what you read was
written by web designers. And right, careful planning will save them a
lot of work as the site grows.
But what about saving you time? You only have the time and patience to
look at a few pages at a time, make comments, and move on. The best way
to envision what the site is going to look like is to see in on your monitor.
And you, like your policyholder (or agent or employee) really don't care
about the graphic of the happy family that bought your insurance, or the
background color, unless it flashes at you. What you do care about is
that it is instantly clear where you click to see whatever is on the site.
Try to avoid meetings. Tell the webmaster to get the rudiments on the
internet, and everyone involved can comment. A thousand life companies
have web sites, and 90% of every site is the same. It is a little late
in the game to be reinventing the wheel. The other big time waster is
the pursuit of perfection. The old habit is to avoid publishing until
18 people have signed off. That is a good idea for new mainframe systems
that handle crucial data, and can really mess up. But is it so important
for a web site where a change can be made in a few minutes, probably before
any outsider tumbles to it? |
The excessive time and effort that goes into the creation
of the usual site is why few companies have more than one.You would not
give a speech or make any other form of presentation without considering
who your audience is, and what it is you want to tell them. If you were
going to talk to a group of your policyholders today, and a group of agents
tomorrow, you would not consider making the same speech both days. If
you have just one web site, it is like having only one speech. |
A company has five basic web site audiences, employees,
agents, policyholders, stockholders and the general public. Employee needs
are served by the intranet site, which is available only internally, or
by password over the internet. Agents need access to pages that are of
no interest to the other constituencies, and should also be served by
a separate site, available over the internet with appropriate security.
Your policyholders, stockholders, and the general public can all start
on your basic home page, as that is the only place they will know to go,
but the home page menu should branch them immediately to the sets of pages
addressed to their distinct interests. For example, the policyholder didn't
go there to see your stock price, and your stockholder didn't go there
seeking policy information. |
For your several web sites, you will want to use the same
company identifier, with a different suffix (the right hand part of the
domain name). The suffix indicates to top
level domain, of which dot com, dot org, and dot net are the most
familiar. There are newly available ones are like dot info and dot bus,
but only a dot com will do for your main public site, so that governed
the name you already have, and why it is probably not your proper company
name. You should already have reserved the main suffix variations of your
name, e.g. mammothlife.org and mammothlife.net, just to keep the porn
sites (and agents and so on) off of it. Since it only costs $20 a year
a name, you might pick up dot info and dot bus, as that may be better
for your other audiences. |
If you really hate your domain name, you can do better.
Mammothlife.com may be gone, but mammothlifeonline or mammothlifeins may
be available. Don't worry about the old name. The old URL can continue
to take you to the same site. Don't lose sight of the magic the web server
can accomplish. Any number of domain names can go to the same site. Any
number of sites can use the same page, and so on.
If possible, use your full company name, not just initials. People once
thought that initials, being shorter, would be easier to enter, but people
remember full names better than 3 or 4 letters, and usually get to you
with a link from a search engine like Google anyway. And the full name
sure looks a lot better on your email address and business cards. So make
it www.MammothProtectionLife.com.
So your email address becomes CharleySmith@MammothProtectionLife.com.
Sure beats csmith@mpl.com.
My suggestion would be to use the dot info suffix for your agent site,
and dot net for remote access to your intranet site, but that is just
a matter of taste. Any extra suffix you have registered will of course
work. Just to clarify, even though your agent site is dot info, the agent
email addresses you provide must be the dot com suffix. The agent doesn't
care, and he is handing those cards to the public. You don't want the
public typing in dot info and getting a demand for a password.
Comment: I keep running into companies that don't offer company branded
email boxes to their agents. What are they thinking?
|
The most obvious use of a web site is to provide information
internally to employees. Given the tangible benefits and the ease of setting
it up, an intranet is usually the first application completed as soon
as a company establishes a network. I will suggest here some of the better
ideas I have seen, but the real benefits come from employee involvement.
They know best what information and facility they need on the screen sitting
in front of them, and the greatest applications will come when each management
area has their own set of pages, and the ability to add material themselves,
without getting in line at the webmaster. |
In the instances I have seen where a company lacked an
intranet there was invariably a serious management problem. Sometimes
top management just doesn't see computers as anything but terminals for
accessing the mainframe, and sometimes IT management, coming from a strictly
mainframe background, is not interested in creating a lot of activity
in an area where they do not feel competent. It may be that the unit supporting
the LAN and PC usage in the company is incompetent, or just doesn't want
to get involved. It may also be that the company culture has isolated
the various units and suppressed communication, a sign that the managers
are protecting their turf. Or, it may be a case of "all of the above".
Whatever the direct cause, the lack of intranet usage is a symptom, a
helpful tip off, of some underlying problems, and it can be as beneficial
to figure out exactly why there is no intranet, and solve that set of
problems, as it will be to actually establish the intranet.
It is usually assumed that an intranet should be handled internally,
on the company servers. The LAN is much faster than the internet, and
doesn't use bandwidth on your internet connection. However, an intranet
can certainly be hosted and maintained outside the ambiance of IT, so
remember that if IT has a big problem with it. |
As I mentioned above, most of the information and reports
on the intranet will be prepared by employees in the various departments,
either to post a regular report, or to provide themselves with information
they use. Once everybody gets excited about creating content, nothing
will kill the enthusiasm like sending the content off to the webmaster
and waiting for weeks for it to appear on the site. One way to get instant
publication is to let the employees create their own web pages. How hard
is that? If you look under File in either Excel or Word, you see not only
Save and Save As, but also Save As Web Page. |
When we first encouraged employees to make their own web
pages, it was a little harder, but not hard. We used Frontpage Express,
which comes with MS Office, free. There are also very handy publishing
programs now, where the employees can add pages directly to a link site,
without even involving the webmaster. But all in all, it is hard to find
an easier way than just saving the document as a web page and emailing
it to the webmaster.
Just to show that anyone can do it, I whipped up an Excel
report and a Word document.
I put the yellow background on the report just to be spiffy. Can't say
much for the content, but you get the idea. A master page for each department
with a link that explains the content makes a great table of contents.
I always let the webmaster worry about the links. Not that it is hard,
but it is good to have some control on what is popping up out there.
Are there more elegant ways to accomplish this? Sure. But if the non-IT
manager can suggest a simple way to accomplish something, it cuts through
all the excuses. Just start doing it your simple way and let IT run after
you with a solution, rather than the usual vice versa. |
The first thing the internal site provides is information.
Web page links can make easily accessible thousands of pages that no one
would ever take the trouble to look at if they were on paper. You can
get to a specific item with several clicks on links that are essentially
a table of contents, arranged in logical order. For an excellent example,
look at the Security Lawyer's
Deskbook. The table of contents takes you to specific sections of
a number of Acts and Regulations, each link with enough description to
find what you want.
As usual, there are tons of good sites about intranet content, security,
and value on the internet. Just put "intranet content" into
Google and get some ideas. Naturally everyone is trying to sell you software
you don't need to accomplish things you don't want, so skip those. |
No one is going to read the employees manual, much less
a procedures manual, in book form, even if they can find one. But transfer
these documents into web pages and the link table of contents gives instant
access.
Intranets are not usually available publicly, but some excellent ones
are, such as Tenison's School
Pages. One picture is worth a thousand words. The cover story in Newsweek
February 26, 1996 was "Here comes the intranet" That was
long ago, when things were not so simple.
Everyone (almost) has an intranet, but few are organized with the links
as in the examples, and few have made the effort to put all of the information
employees regularly need to access on the site.
Take for example descriptions of coverage of your insurance policies.
Your service personnel are giving these out over the phone every day.
If you put these on web pages, you accomplish several things. You have
everyone saying the same thing, you can see if what they have been saying
is accurate and complete, and you will realize that you can incorporate
these descriptions in the policyholder page where it now just says "whole
life". Actually, if experience is a guide, you will not like the
descriptions you are using, and exposure on the intranet will have provided
a service you didn't expect.
|
| If your employees are filling out anything on paper,
time sheets, payroll changes, benefit designations, or requests or notices
to other departments, these should be transferred to the intranet. Using
email rather than paper is progress, but web forms have several advantages.
They are uniform, request all the information in the form needed, and
always go to the right person. |
If you drop by the personnel department, often the last
refuge of doing everything on paper, you are likely to see stacks of forms
used in connection with employees and employee benefits. Everything from
employment applications to benefit election forms. All of these should
be printable from your network, and better yet, should not be reduced
to paper at all, but completed and stored on line. A competent payroll
system has each employee's pay stub on line (with password) with the traditional
data regarding vacation and sick leave accrued and taken.
Once you get all the personnel forms on your site and transmitted electronically,
it would be good to make sure HR is not printing the forms on paper to
store in the paper employee folder. |
The web page is particularly handy for expense
accounts. It can contain all the calculation and totaling routines
available in a spread sheet, with the added advantage that items are in
known fields so they can be totaled and summarized into the required accounts
for statement purposes and for analysis. It is a simple mater to write
programs that can be relied on to identify unusual or duplicate items. |
Expense accounts are commonly routed for approvals and
payment by email containing the link to the page, but should be stored
permanently as data. Later viewing is accomplished by repopulating the
form from the database. Even though the employee has permanent access
to his account, as does accounting, some vigilance will be required to
prevent printing out the report to paper, particularly at the end of the
process in accounting. You may also hear a conversation such as this:
Question: "But how do we get the signature of the employee and the
approving person on an web based account?" Answer: "Why would
you need that?" Response: "We have always required a signature".
A more relevant question concerns receipts. You can't get away from paper.
Scanning gets you nowhere. But why not just ask the employee to put them
in the interoffice mail directly to accounting? Surely you do not want
the supervisor matching up receipts, and realistically it is a waste of
time for anyone to do it except intermittently, or when something looks
funny. |
The web site can provide useful
links to information needed by employees and agents. Everything from
dictionaries, reverse directories and calculators, to state laws and medical
information useful to underwriting. |
You can still see companies that have zip code books and
piles of telephone directories when the internet provides free and easy
reference. Looking for state
insurance laws? You may not need those red books any more. Note that
the example company put the links on the internet site, not both, since
the employees can access the internet site, and will jump to the URLs
given. |
Suggestion box, the bulletin board or
web log format: The internal web site is the place for company announcements,
employee bulletin boards, and the suggestion box. If you do not already
have one, consider using the freeware Guest book used on this site (under
Contact). You could also use the free web log offered by Blogger, and
whether you keep it on your own server or theirs is optional. |
The suggestion box can be a source of great money saving
ideas, but don't start one without also having a bulletin board, or the
employees will make it one. It is also a good idea to display the terminal
ID of the suggestion maker to keep things civil.
Whether you want to have a Blogger
type web page where employees can indulge in the desire to publish just
about anything, and argue back and forth about stuff, sort of depends
on your attitude toward "free" speech, that is, speech that
may be at your expense. Some prefer the "Thumper" rule, while
some find it valuable to see what folks are thinking.
The format of the bulletin board or web log web site has innumerable
applications within the company. It is an excellent vehicle for maintaining
the required customer complaint file, for announcements and schedules,
for any data set that is retained chronologically. |
Along with all of the basic policy information, such as
coverage, beneficiary, and paid to date, a policyholder should be able
to view his exact policy on your site, and print a duplicate on demand.
This will also enable policy service to handle duplicate policy requests
by printing one directly from the web site.
You will probably find it convenient to keep the policyholder data you
need for the site on your server, refreshing it from the mainframe every
night. Otherwise the fetch transactions can become a significant burden
for the MF. A side benefit is that if the MF goes down, your telephone
service people can still function with the data from the server. |
The easier you make it for the policyholder to update
policy information such as name, address, bank, and email address, the
more likely he is to do it. There should be a button next to each item
of information, which, when clicked, produces an editable text box so
that all the policyholder has to do is change the pertinent part and click
OK. Then it is a good safeguard to automatically send an email with the
old and the new data, to the old email address, as well as the new one.
Most companies who allow web changes are now requesting the last 4 digits
of the social security number as a security measure.
It is important to offer a "sample" of each procedure, providing
example data, allowing the policyholder to see exactly what happens without
inserting any information. This is particularly important when offering
rate quotes or illustrations. Let the policyholder see what the additional
coverage would cost at their age, sex, and whatever, without requiring
the applicant to go through all the other information fields before deciding
if he is interested or not. |
Your policyholder may look at your web site to get the
information he needs, or he may call your telephone service unit. If he
calls, the telephone service person will look at a screen to provide the
information. However, that screen will not have the same information or
presentation that your web site has. Why?
Ideally your telephone person should be looking at the same web page
that is available to your policyholder. The information accessed is the
same, so why should something be available by telephone that the policyholder
can't get on line? |
If your telephone person can mention to the caller that
the screen she is looking at is available to the caller, you have not
only advertised your web site and your superior service, you are also
likely to have obviated the next call from the 50% or more of your policyholders
that have access to the internet.
When your service people use your regular web page to provide information,
perhaps with short cuts such as skipping passwords, logical things happen.
For example, you probably have a detail description of the policyholders
exact coverage on your public web site, but if you have any description
at all on the screen your telephone person is looking at, you are an exception.
Even if there are standard descriptions available, the computer probably
does not automatically pop up the one specific to the caller.
There are no good reasons for the distinction, except that the service
person is looking at the result of a mainframe transaction that originated
when only terminals were available, and, on the other hand, no one has
thought to make all of the information the policyholder might want available
on the web site. |
The annual report the insurer must provide to the policyholder
on illustrated policies generally does not include an in force
illustration, so the report must offer to provide one on request.
Directing the policyholder to the illustration on the web site will significantly
reduce requests and mailing expenses. |
The mailing of annual reports required by the life
policy illustration rules , particularly on universal life policies,
always generates a lot of activity and questions. If you keep track of
the questions you will find there are less than a dozen questions that
make up 99% of the traffic. If you have a FAQ on the policyholder web
site, and refer to it in the annual report initially sent, you are likely
to eliminate half of the traffic. Some of the FAQ will relate to the specific
policy, but the variations are few and easy to adjust to the specific
situation on the web page. |
A competent agent site can be created
by collecting and summarizing all of the information being provided by
paper, email and telephone. The sorting and searching facility of the
web site is the key to making the site more convenient for the agent to
use than the paper reports, which hopefully will lead to not mailing the
paper at all to all but the most resistant agents. |
At least 90% of agent telephone calls concern their check
or the status of a case. The program that generates the ACH deposit of
an advance or commission can also update the site with amount and date
deposited. The issue system should be sending emails at critical junctures
in the issue and underwriting process, to both the agent and the applicant.
The agent will eventually ignore the emails, and want a current status
and history on the site, arranged by applicant. If the agent needs to
call anyway, at least the person providing TLC will have the case history
or check status right at hand. |
Agents used to keep track of their policyholders with
company furnished issue cards. Usually two or more copies of each card
was furnished so the cards could be filed in both name and policy number
order. Not many agents could keep up with pulling the lapses, and no new
cards were created when data changed. Paper index cards are not a great
way to keep up with things.
The web site list of policyholders is always current,
takes no space, and the find and sort capacity is invaluable. Best of
all, the name is a link, and a click takes the agent to the full policyholder
information screen, the one provided for the policyholder. |
The complicated part of the agent policyholder list web
site is the system for controlling who gets to see what. In most situations
there are several levels of agents and an agency office which fields most
of the policyholder questions. The first level agent generally sees only
his policyholders, the general agent sees his own plus those of his sub
agents, and the office sees it all. The quandaries come with dissolved
partnerships, terminated agents still in the business, and so on. If the
company looks primarily to the general agent and his office to deal with
the sub agents, it is probably better to allow the general agent to do
the input on viewing authority, rather than to try to create universal
rules.
No matter how good your web "agent card" system is, many agents
have some mystical attachment to the paper card, so you will be running
a dual system for what could be a long time. An approach is to create
a database of the agents that still demand the paper cards, print just
the cards containing those numbers, and keep asking. |
Make web sites for recognition for your agents.
Everyone likes to see their name (and picture!) up in lights. You give
plaques for recognition. Have images of the standard plaque so you can
put a lot of them on the individual's site. Give some bio, a "contact
me" page, a quote, and some company stuff. You can do the whole site
with templates and allow the agent to go to the site and enter or change
his own data. |
You don't have to register a domain name for each agent
site. Even at only $25 a year that can get expensive. Each agent site
is just a sub folder on any convenient company site, linked from both
the company site and the agent site. Don't judge your efforts by how much
business you get that way, but rather what this does for the agent ego.
Plus, if he looks at his own site a lot he learns how to use the computer
and may even start using email.
To emphasize the "award plaque" thought, the agent site should
look a lot like the wall of his office, with all the "agent of the
year" and "top gun" awards being images of the actual plaques.
Your web person can easily change the words on the standard image. This
will be popular! |
The internet can be a powerful tool for maintaining regular
contact with your agency force that is absolutely necessary for success
and retention. The Altig agency (see right) distributes a weekly broadcast
that contributes to its outstanding success.
Another key can be web based training programs that reside on the company
servers. Any number of agents can work on the web materials from any location.For
a powerful example of what is possible, see the anti-money
laundering web material developed for LIMRA by Learning Insights and
KPMG. You can see
a demo of these techniques at the Learning Insights web site.
|
Rick Altig, a leading State General Agent for American
Income Life, uses the internet creatively to communicate with his offices,
which produced over $20 million of new life premium in
2004.
 One
of the most successful ideas of 2004 was to create a weekly TV broadcast
over the internet. Very similar to Bernard's weekly audio tape. We were
trying to figure out a way to pull all 31 offices together, from Newfoundland
to Honolulu. We make sure the production has the 5 elements of a successful
meeting: recognition, goal setting, reporting, motivation and education.
We have a projector with a large screen in all 30 offices. It is
pretty exciting. The hard part is doing it every week. For a 20 minute
to 1/2 hour show an outside production company wanted at least $10,000
a week for production- and on top of that the cost of satellite time is
astronomical. So we do it in house. It probably costs around $2000 a week,
which includes the time equivalent of 1.5 employees, prizes, etc. We compress
and download over the internet. The only issue is that downloading in
the offices takes about an hour. Most offices do it first thing in the
morning. We are working on reducing the time involved. |
Generally the forms used in hiring agents
don't get much attention. He may fill in his name, social security number,
and other data, six or more times. Sometimes there are multi part forms
so lots of people can have copies. If we are going to try to teach him
to manage his time later, perhaps showing some respect for it during the
hiring process would help. In addition, most agent contracts are ancient,
unfair, unreadable and overreaching, as as a consequence, unenforceable.
Getting it in reasonable form onto a web page can create a real agreement. |
Web page hiring forms can propagate an answer in one field
to the same field in any number of associated forms. Some pages offer
a master fill in form which then completes the blanks in all other forms.
Somehow more satisfying are the pages that present the forms a page at
a time, with all the information which has been supplied in a previous
page filled in on the current page. This is less boring, as you can see
you are making a lot of progress through the forms.
These computer forms can be printed for any required signature or to
provide the applicant with a copy, but the real advantage in the instantaneous
transmission to the home office and the electronic filing. While ink signatures
may have a ceremonial value in the agency office (hard to get a good photograph
of the signing if it is electronic), the home office needs to get used
to the fact that the electronic signature is just as legally valid on
the contracts and other documents as ink. |
When you have the agent hiring forms
completed all on the web site, be sure to follow through by automatically
populating the licensing and contracting screens used in the home office,
and the forms, paper or otherwise, needed for the insurance department.
Present back to the agent applicant printable screens containing any forms
he should retain, including, of course, his contract with his name and
commission schedule in it. |
With a little thought you can make the agent licensing
process almost instantaneous in the home office. The web page completed
in the field office can generate any other web page, such as the one for
ordering any required inspection, and the ones that feed the home office
systems. When an agency office clicks on submit, your system should be
able to respond with the new agent's number, and confirmations that any
requirements have been met. Start that response page with "Congratulations
Joe! We can promise you a great career ..." along with instructions
of what to do next, like a training schedule. You can also present a printable
temporary license, if you have that available. Take a look at the boarding
passes the airlines now present on your screen for printing. |
Another advantage to having your agent application
forms on the web is that the agent can complete them from home.
With so many applicants now coming from the job search sites such as Monster.com,
you will need to do some screening before the applicant comes to your
office. |
Companies say they are getting a good flow of applicants
from sites like Monster.com.
Go there and specify life insurance sales and you will see that the companies
are not leaving web recruiting to the agency offices. Part of that results
from the fee structure which favors a central posting of a lot of positions.
The large flow of applicants from internet postings also encourages the
use of commercial aptitude testing
as a screening device, which can be offered on the company web site. |
Applications and forms for home office jobs
should also be web based. While the time saving may not seem significant,
it is the key to making all personnel records web based, eliminating the
paper file. A plus is the ability of the employee to update records from
their desk, rather than going by the office. |
Most clerical tests are timed, and you have probably seen
your personnel people sitting there with a stop watch. When the test is
web based, of course, the computer does the timing. The computer also
takes the applicant through each of the hiring forms. It was mentioned
above that the forms should propagate answers to eliminate putting anything
in twice. Avoid the temptation to not even show a question on a subsequent
form after it is once answered. Many of the forms will require an electronic
signature, so the applicant needs to see the entire form at that point. |
The presentation and illustration software used
on the agent's notebook can now be web based, rather than created in a
programming language like visual basic or C++. The same web page offered
on the company's web server can be downloaded to the notebook so that
no internet connection is necessary to run it. This is a huge advantage,
not only because it avoids duplicating what you already have on your server,
but also because a web page is easier to create and modify. The agent
just downloads the current version next time he connects. |
Web server
software is included in Windows operating systems, IIS (internet information
server) for the latest releases, PWS (personal web server) for the earlier,
such as Windows95. Having a web server on your personal computer means
that you can use web pages with your browser just as if you were connected
over the internet to the home office web server. The same server side
scripting works on your PC. If the company has created illustration web
pages for a new product for its own server, that same web page works on
the agent's notebook, independently of the company server.
To get a web server, a current browser, and the web pages installed on
each agent's PC initially requires, as a practical mater, distribution
of a CD that operates on full automatic install, not asking the agent
to supply anything. Some agents freeze up rather easily around computers
and report "it doesn't work". Recommended procedure is to have
everyone in the agency department do the installation, and automate anything
that freezes them. To the extent possible you want telephone installation
support to come from the agency guys, not from IT personnel ("never
the twain shall meet"), so make sure they are comfortable with the
installation first. The main instruction needed, if the installation disk
is well designed, is "click OK". |
For the agent that does not have a PC available at the
point of sale, the Life
Insurance Illustrations Model Regulation makes the use of preprinted
forms possible. The required Life Illustration Acknowledgment form offers
the following alternative:
I have been presented with an illustration for a life insurance policy,
but have applied for coverage
other than as illustrated. An illustration conforming to the policy as
issued will be provided no later
than at the time of policy delivery. |
There are obviously too many variables, even with just
age and amount, to carry a printed form that fits every sales situation.
However, your web site can carry a limited set, for example perhaps ages
at 5 year intervals and amounts of $100, $250, and $500 thousand which
the agent can print and carry. As long as the agent uses an illustration
that is less favorable to the client than the one that is going to come
with the policy, and check the "other than as illustrated" paragraph,
it would seem that he has complied with the spirit of the regulation,
as well as the letter.
The agent can, of course, make his own set of preprinted illustrations
from your regular illustration page by putting in his own variables and
printing. An agent that works in a narrow range of ages and amounts will
probably do that in order to have illustrations that are closer to the
one that will come with the policy, and will therefore show better. |
Talk up your web site services at every
chance. Does every email you send have a standard paragraph promoting
the services? |
Ideally your telephone service personnel will mention
your web site, and if the web site can handle the question and the caller
has access, will conduct a short training session right there on how to
get the information on the site. Might save the next call. Most callers
prove to be repeat callers. |
A very useful function is the EDIT- Find (on This
Page) for finding the things you need in large documents. How
often have you labored through the Articles or ByLaws of the company,
or worse, the bank agreements? All important company documents that people
need to reference occasionally should be linked from a master contents
page. Board minutes would sure be handy, even if you had to have a password
for that area. |
It doesn't take a lot of use to pay for putting a document
on a web site. Scanners are so good now that little of any clean up is
necessary. Most of these documents exist in someone's computer in text
anyway, and can be pasted into the html.
Instant availability alone would make this profitable, even without the
FIND facility. And for the paper people, making a new copy each time it
is needed is still cheaper than finding paper in a file. |
Forms on paper should be replaced by
forms on the internet or intranet. Blank forms can be printed on demand
from any location and completed on paper (and scanned for transmission
and retention), but where possible the form should be completed on the
computer screen. Data already available should be inserted automatically,
and sets of forms with the same information should propagate from one
entry. |
Printing a form on demand from a web page eliminates
storage, shipping and waste, and the document is always the latest revision.
With each form the question becomes "what is it about this that requires
it to be done in quantity in the print shop". Multi part forms made
sense before copiers and computers but why now? The insurance
application is probably the dividing line. Agents like to grab a handful
and the spacing is difficult, but you should have an app form on the internet
for when the agent runs out. A suggestion: for you on line app you will
find the design easier in Adobe
Acrobat than with your regular web tools. That goes for a lot of forms;
they look better in PDF and the fill in element, propagation and so on,
is easier to work with.
The next question is "what is it about this that requires it be
on paper". It is usually the "signature" that keeps something
from being completed on line. Forget about the E-Sign law for a moment
(most lawyers are ignoring it). Why does this need a signature at all?
Electronic or otherwise? |
Forms and supplies need to be ordered by computer
from both the field and the home office. Provide key word search and an
image of the item selected on the order screen. Not only is it easier
than the old detailed paper order form, but it is always current and the
order is transmitted instantly. |
One company that didn't even have an comprehensive paper
order form that listed everything available. The agents ordered by phone,
describing "that yellow sheet you use for ....". That is not
very efficient. A computer ordering system is not difficult to create.
Your web person can create it with web page software, or even pick up
complete ordering scripting from one of the many freeware sites. A good
site will have a summary sheet for those that know what they want, and
a link on the name to an image of the form. The list would show only the
items appropriate for the state in which the orderer operates.
Images of forms are the key to accurate ordering. Present them as thumbnails,
expandable to full screen by a click. |
As mentioned in the introduction, web based processing
can provide a user interface as friendly, flexible, and intuitive/instructive
as your imagination can make it. It easily exchanges information with
your other systems, on mainframe or servers. The process becomes independent
of the platform upon which the premium is ultimately credited. But the
unique advantage is that the web page can be used for processing anywhere
in the world, at the office, in a remote office, in the home of the employee
or customer, or directly by the businesses you work with. It requires
only a browser and an internet connection to use. The process result goes
over the internet to the web server of the insurance company, and then
to the master file or other system of the insurer, regardless of platform. |
A good example is list billing, commonly done with employers,
credit unions, mortgage banks, or any other institution that is a common
collection point for premiums on policies owned by people with whom they
have a relationship. This was originally accomplished by mailing to the
institution a single bill containing detail and premium due on each of
the policies in the set. The institution would cross out any for which
no premium was collected, add any new policy collected, recalculate the
total due, and return the bill with payment for the entire revised set
to the insurance company. Consider the dramatic change in efficiency the
insurance clerk receiving the paper bill can click the changes on a web
screen, with pop up boxes for adding data as required, and see the recalculated
total to match with the payment. Go the next step and see that this processing
can be done anywhere, such as by a home worker or a remote office or an
agency office. Go the last step and realize there is no need to create
a paper bill in the first place. The collecting institution can view and
process the bill on its own PC screen much easier than handling paper,
and can click an ACH authorization for the balance due easier than cutting
a paper check. An automatic email from the company notifies the institution
when the next bill in available on the web site. Don't forget to include
the link to the bill in the email. |
The federal E Sign law effective in 2000
makes an electronic signature as effective as an ink signature. The law
specifically includes insurance transactions, and specifically preempts
state law to the contrary. The law also prohibits any particular method
of giving an ESIGN from being adopted by regulators. A number of companies
offer technology as a security blanket, but it appears just as valid to
have the signer type his name in a space that makes it clear he intends
it to be his e signature. |
Even though insurance companies have been slow
to utilize e signatures, it is hard to find any reason it should not
be accepted for insurance applications, reinstatements, and any services
offered to policyholders on the web site. The absence of court cases on
the topic is likely because no one is challenging e signatures, and the
insurance departments are supportive. Time to rethink
ink and instead consider what the risk really is if the policyholder
should later deny he signed. I would not hesitate to allow a cash withdrawal
by an electronic signature as long as I was issuing a paper check, but
would draw the line at using ACH to transmit the funds to the policyholder.
On a life insurance application, if the concern is defending on the health
questions, how can the policyholder deny an e signature for that purpose,
but not for the validity of the policy? |
Offerings of insurance you see on
the internet are for things people are looking for. Health insurance,
burial insurance with no questions asked, and very low cost term insurance.
Unless you have a process for driving people to your site, the only visitors
will be those looking for a good deal. An agent may sell whole life where
it is what the prospect needs, but he shows the prospect both term and
permanent and lets him choose (the internet situation), the prospect will
always take the term. The prospect can't distinguish anything but the
fact that one is cheaper. |
The fundamentals of web selling are not much different
from selling through the mail . A good mail return is 1%, but at least
you know the recipient saw the envelope, even if was thrown away unopened.
Put the same material on the web and you probably get the same response,
1% of of those that read it. But how do people even know it is there?
How do you get someone to look at your site and not shop all the other
sites for the same product? Unless you can figure that out, the only one
making a sale will be the cheapest one, or the one that will take the
worst risk. You can't really be either, according to the
greater fool theory. Applied here, it means that no matter how low
you make the premium, someone else will offer it for less, at least for
a little while, and then another one will come along.
Web marketing is not much of a threat to the agency system. A look at
the fundamentals shows why. The least creative thing an agent does is
complete the application, and that is what the web sites are good at.
The most important things an agent does are (1) prospecting, finding someone
to make a presentation to, and (2) explaining to the prospect why he needs
the insurance. And that is what the web sites are not good at. |
If internet sales are a matter of getting someone
to the web site, methods to do that may evolve. Perhaps through agents
who possess controlled situations, or associations or credit unions with
sites popular with their members for other reasons. Or perhaps Amazon
will add a life insurance page. My view is that this business will inevitably
go to the established carriers who sell primarily through traditional
channels, and not to any company specializing in web sales. |
Never has there been fewer barriers to entry than exist
with web selling. Any established life company can put up a site or add
to an existing one in a few weeks at essentially no incremental cost.
Any product that works can be copied. An established carrier can afford
to wait for whatever applications will trickle in from the site, while
any new entrant trying to rely on web sales will not get enough fast enough
to sustain a basic operation, and will just burn through its capital.
The established carrier can afford acquisition cost up to what it is paying
agents, but the web specialist loses any price advantage if it pays that
much. Lastly, the established carrier fits the incremental business into
its existing processes, at a cost no newbee can match no matter how advanced
its systems. |
The internet may provide some replacement
opportunities for carriers that don't have much in force, and therefore
not much to lose. It seems likely that we will see a lot of cancer insurance
being replaced by critical illness policies. Normally you would expect
CI to cost twice as much as cancer insurance, but there are still some
severely under priced CI being marketed, a few about the same cost as
a cancer only plan. |
There are probably more scavenging opportunities in the
A&H business than in life insurance. Overpriced level premium life
insurance becomes a good deal in a few years, and what layman can figure
out what he is paying for universal life? But a lot of cancer insurance
has been sold one premium for all ages, or for wide age brackets, and
the same is true of other coverages that are easy to compare. Of course
every time a state decides health insurance has to be available regardless
of health, or at one rate regardless of age, it is Katy,
bar the door for trust group and other quasi group that can establish
situs elsewhere to avoid the irrational rules and offer replacement on
the internet. When the inevitable rate increases come on the existing
policies, the policyholders will search for alternatives, many on the
internet. |
An established carrier may be able to select products
for web site sales for which it has no significant channel
conflict. Any product not being sold by the agency force could be offered,
and loaded with a very small commission for the occasional sale by agents.
This should allow the product to be sold on the web AND by an agent, without
irritating the agents. |
Toro (lawn mowers) resisted selling product through Home
Depot for years out of concern for their small dealer and hardware store
distribution. Recently Toro was able to develop a less expensive version
to sell through Home Depot without problems with existing channels, which
still had the exclusive on the presumptively higher quality mower. The
lower version was made available to the existing channel also, with a
lower profit margin.
Most insurers are selling very little whole life in the higher face values,
most of that production having switched to UL. That would make WL a good
candidate for web offering. With essentially no distribution cost, the
product could be a significantly better value than UL or the regular WL
offered through agents. |
There are literally thousands of sites offering insurance,
or attempting to attract leads, but it seems to me that these sites have
it backwards where underwriting is concerned. The emphasis is on simple
underwriting, no physicals, or guaranteed issue. Even the sites that offer
the cheap term insurance, which must be fully underwritten, try to create
the lead with just a few questions so that an agent can get involved to
do the long app. I have yet to find a site with a long, detailed, arduous
app to be completed on line. Or one that offers a full illustration. Why
not screen out anyone with the slightest health problem, and lower your
price accordingly? You may lose a lot of prospects half way through the
app, but what difference does that make. You have not invested anything
in that prospect. |
The standards for super select premiums appear to be getting
looser. From the sites that specify standards, it appears that LD cholesterol
cut offs are moving up, along with blood pressure and even weight. That
might make sense if you are trying to accommodate your agents, or if you
have a limited number of prospects. Even with mail order you don't want
to cut your return by being too stringent.
But does that make sense on the web? Who cares if only one out of a hundred
searchers can meet your standards. The 99 you cut out didn't cost you
anything, just like the ones that got bored with filling out the long
application. If that helps you make a unique offering, you will get some
business.
A good offering for this purpose might be whole life. It would not be
hard to be the best real offer on the internet. At least you might attract
the attention of the fee only insurance advisors. I have quoted articles
from two of them on this site, Glenn
Daily and Peter Katt. |
The life insurance industry appears to be lagging behind the rest of the
commercial world in the use of web sites. Most industries are pushing
hard to get their customers to transact business over the internet. The
rewards are obvious. Many transactions can be handled computer to computer,
untouched by human hands, at an incremental cost that is essentially zero.
Information specific to the customer can be supplied without the company
even becoming aware of the visit. For most companies the challenge is
getting the consumer to use the web site. For life companies, at least
the many medium and small operations, the challenge seems to be getting
management to envision the possibilities.