The year 2009 may not have been a big year for insurance product innovation, but it was a pretty active year for tools.
That is, "tools" designed to help insurance agents, distributors and consumers manage their insurance and financial selection and service activities.
Most of the new tools involved online functions, but others were guides and value-added services. Here is a sampling.
Online. ING North America Insurance Corp., Minneapolis, started offering ING Mobile–a way for agents to get term insurance quotes from ING on their handheld internet-enabled cell phones.
ING also unveiled a system that enables advisors to show clients premium financing scenarios using historical London Interbank Offered Rates (LIBOR). The "premium financing concept illustration is a tool to model various financing options and costs for the client," says the company.
Standard Life and Accident Insurance Company, League City, Texas, looked to online for total application turnaround. The result was an all-online Medicare supplement application submission process that enables agents to submit applications for senior clients directly to underwriting. The insurer then calls the client for voice signature. In 48 hours, the company says, the agent can view the decision online.
Now, according to Standard, "agents no longer have to make house calls to generate a sale, nor do they need to wait to receive applications by mail."
Fee-based advisors got an online tool from Curian Capital L.L.C., a Denver unit of Prudential P.L.C., London. Called the Curian Custom Wealth Platform system, it helps advisors help clients review and analyze all their Curian holdings.
Companies offered new online tools for participants in retirement plans, too. For instance, Standard Retirement Services, a unit of StanCorp Financial Group Inc., Portland, Ore., added a defined benefit calculator to its website. The Pension Estimator tool can help plan participants compare pension income assumptions by comparing scenarios by retirement dates, interest rates, salary increase assumptions and annuitization options, Standard says.
Some carriers brought out online tools for employers, as well. One example is MetLife, New York, which introduced a "benefits benchmarking tool" for employers to use to customize their benefits offerings. It provides up-to-date segmented data on benefits and workplace trends, the insurer says, so users can "compare and contrast data through customized queries along more than 80 dimensions across both employer and employee demographics."
