BenefitPoint Retains Tillinghast to Co-Develop New E-Commerce Return-On-Investment Model; Model Illustrates Reductions in Distribution Expenses for Employee Benefits Insurers.

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 21, 2000

BenefitPoint, the leading employee benefits infrastructure company for the distribution and management of group insurance and financial products, today introduced a new Carrier Cost Take-Out Model (CCTM) for insurance carriers. The model allows carriers to estimate the cost savings that BenefitPoint's e-commerce solution can bring to the distribution and servicing of group insurance products. BenefitPoint developed the model with Tillinghast - Towers Perrin, leading providers of management consulting to the financial services industry.

In addition to modeling expense reductions, the CCTM provides a snapshot of an insurance carrier's current expense environment within the framework of a typical carrier's ongoing business processes. The CCTM was designed for ease of use by carriers, enabling them to perform simulation studies with their own data, based on varying assumptions.

Valuable, Detailed Data For Carriers

By building on Tillinghast - Towers Perrin expense data and assumptions, the CCTM is able to show carriers:

1. Expense assumptions by carrier function (e.g., actuarial,

underwriting, sales & marketing, etc.) illustrated as a

percentage of premiums for health, life, and disability group

insurance carriers.

2. An abbreviated list of activities performed by the various

functions along with an allocation of expense to each

activity.

3. A methodology for estimating the impact on expenses of various

Web-based technologies.

Participation in the BenefitPoint platform can potentially reduce carrier policy administration, distribution and sales expenses by an average of two percent of direct written premium. Any given carrier's results may vary, and the model allows for customization to address the variation in how carriers do business today. Further analysis also suggests that carriers can expect positive reductions in the areas of policy procurement and renewal and policy maintenance.

"Distribution is the number one issue on insurance executives' minds," according to Tillinghast - Towers Perrin's '2000 Financial Services CEO Survey.' "Web-based solutions like BenefitPoint offer increased distribution efficiency," according to Jenny Emery, Health Sector leader at Tillinghast - Towers Perrin. "It's an obvious step, as businesses evolve away from older, paper-based business patterns. However, technology alone will not improve business performance. Carriers need to embrace the changes that the model identifies and the technology allows."

"We see the CCTM as a most valuable tool for insurance carriers to use when planning the selection and implementation of an eCommerce solution," notes Mark A. Pulido, chairman and CEO of BenefitPoint. "The model clearly illustrates how the BenefitPoint solution can dramatically reduce a carrier's distribution and administration costs."

Enables eCommerce Initiatives

"There is growing pressure on insurers to increase market share, quality of customer service and shareholder return-on-investment," continued Mr. Pulido. "Industry concerns about cost reduction is now propelling significant investments in e-commerce infrastructures for customer acquisition and policy management processes."

BenefitPoint's B2B solution represents an evolved process for distributing employee benefits -- from the presentation of the carrier's value proposition to policy administration and beyond. Since the efficiencies of e-commerce enable carriers to remove much of the paperwork and redundancy from many phases of the policy distribution process, many of the costs associated with policy distribution are reduced.

"Everyone wins," said Mr. Pulido. "The model illustrates the cost savings that are achievable for both the consumer and the carrier. The insurer is able to retain a much larger portion of the first year's premium dollar, and consumers are offered more competitively priced products."

For more information about the CCTM, contact BenefitPoint at 415/ 837-4120 or www.benefitpoint.com

About Tillinghast - Towers Perrin

Tillinghast - Towers Perrin provides management consulting to financial services companies worldwide. In addition, their health sector practice consults to organizations that finance and manage health care risks. The firm's consultants help clients improve business performance through quantitative analysis, insight and execution. Tillinghast - Towers Perrin is part of Towers Perrin, one of the world's largest management consulting firms with over 8,000 employees in more than 20 countries.

About BenefitPoint, Inc.

BenefitPoint, Inc. delivers the leading Internet-based employee benefits infrastructure for the distribution and management of group insurance and financial products. As the central nervous system of the employee benefits industry, BenefitPoint provides a complete set of B2B services enabling benefits professionals to manage the entire group health insurance and benefits lifecycle. Building on the existing industry relationships among carriers, brokers, employers, and employees, the BenefitPoint solution combines the efficiency of the Internet with the established distribution model of the insurance industry to eliminate paper (saving everyone time and money), to make it possible to deliver more products and services (giving everyone more choices), and to make better information available (enabling everyone to make better decisions).

Releasing its first solution in December 1999, BenefitPoint has already received widespread industry adoption from regional and national insurance carriers as well as from more than 120 of the leading U.S.-based brokerage and consulting firms. The company, headquartered in San Francisco, CA, can be reached at 415/277-5600 or at www.benefitpoint.com. BenefitPoint, Inc. is privately held.

Note to Editors: BenefitPoint is a trademark of BenefitPoint, Inc. All other company and product names mentioned here are trademarks of their respective owners.