Dream site: Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Co.'s Web site has attracted 16,000 agent users and has saved the company $2 million a year. (Agent Web Site).

If you build it, they will come." Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Co. embraced the advice offered in a movie of a dozen years ago.

But the life insurer didn't carve a baseball field out of an Iowa cornfield. It built a Web site, SalesLink, and its agents have come--collectively visiting the site at a current rate of about 1 million times a month. About 16,000 of its writing agents use the site an average of twice daily to check on the status of new business and commissions or to perform any of several other tasks.

The Baltimore-based insurer's decision to build the site three years ago was contrarian at the time: Even the company's agent advisory council discouraged the development of the site. "They said the majority of agents would not use such a tool," said Harry N. Stout, president of F&G and deputy chief executive officer of parent company Old Mutual U.S. Life Holdings. "They said we should wait two or three years. But we made the decision to go with it. We felt strongly about it, and it has been successful beyond our wildest dreams."

F&G sells fixed and equity-indexed annuities, immediate annuities, tax-sheltered annuities, structured settlements, and term, whole and universal life insurance. It distributes through the independent-agent and broker networks with 165 master general agents and 53,000 writing agents. The company has dramatically increased sales in the past year. According to A.M. Best Co. data, it wrote $461 million in net premiums in the first quarter of 2001 and $1.49 billion for the entire year. This year, it wrote $783 million in the first quarter.

The company's online venture already has paid for itself and then some, Stout said. F&G has invested about $3 million in site development and maintenance so far, and it has realized savings of some $2 million a year in two areas alone: processing requests for marketing material and providing downloads of illustration software, he said. The system automatically handles requests for marketing material and has an order-tracking mechanism.

"We provided information to them faster than they could get it by other means, so they were attracted to the site," Stout said of writing agents. "The quality, timeliness and extensive nature of the information you provide will attract producers to use your tool. Make it of practical use to them, and they will use it."

Information on Demand

The system also is set up to send daily e-mail reports to the 15,000 agents that have signed on for the service. "E-mail allows us to get information into their hands as quickly as possible," said Mark T. Stone, vice president for corporate communications and e-business. "It can help us reduce our number of phone calls, and it provides them with a good overview of business they need to follow up on."

It can be particularly useful in emergency situations. "On Sept. 11, we needed to close our offices, and we were able to communicate that to our agents very quickly and inexpensively," Stout said.

Agents can receive information about new business pending; changes in interest rates, five to seven days in advance; news about the company or its products; and notifications of updates to illustration software, Stone said. The system can provide commission statements, commission-debit activity and status reports to master general agents about agent appointments. It also reports on policies conditionally issued, prior-day business submitted, policies in danger of lapsing, policies that need replacement reports under Section 1035 of the Tax Code and policies that need attending-physician statements.

For Gale Moya, vice president of the Pegasus Insurance Group in Albuquerque, N.M., the F&G Web site has become indispensable. "It's running in our office from first thing in the morning to late at night," she said. "It gives me the ability to communicate directly with the company. It's like having the home office in our own office."

Founded in 1991, Pegasus is an independent marketing organization that works with 850 to 900 agents. It develops marketing techniques, matches them to appropriate products and helps agents link up with insurers. Moya said she was attracted to F&G Life by "some awesome products," including a term life policy offering a rider that returns premiums at the end of the term and a rider that allows the buyer to choose how the death benefit will be paid out in any mix of lump-sum and monthly payments.

Moya uses the SalesLink site to learn current information on interest rates, download forms and check on the status of pending cases. She often e-mails information directly to agents, or she prints out the information to distribute in other ways. Moya also likes to print out fliers and other marketing material that the company has screened for market-conduct compliance and approved for use. She uses them to recruit new agents or direct clients.

"The site has made my life easier in the sense that instead of being on the phone with the home office, I'm on the phone with agents, and I'm more productive," she said. "With everything available online, we've also been able to cut back on rooms we need for storage."

Building the Site

A team of eight people works on the Web site, assisted by outside Web-site development partners. "We do the design and create the specifications, and they do the 'carpentry,"' Stone said. "The last two and one-half to three years, the site has really come into its own in its navigation characteristics, its look and feel and the applications it provides."

The company uses focus groups to learn how producers would like the site to be designed. "We looked at all agent requests related to doing business with us, and we determined we could put 90% of tasks on the Web site and make it a tool available to agents on a 24/7 basis," said Stout. Agents need no special hardware or software, since the site is completely Internet-based.

In real life, however, brokers and agents often choose to enhance their ability to access the site. In fact, Moya said the SalesLink site has induced her firm to upgrade almost all of its equipment. "I actually have two computer systems on my desk now--one that links me to agents and one hooked up with the home office," she said. "We try to buy the latest and newest printers so we can print in full color. And for agents that do not yet use computers, we have bought the latest fax machines." Pegasus is trying to get its agents to invest and upgrade as well, she added.

Stout said the site could be designed to support any kind of product, even complicated ones that F&G does not offer, like long-term-care insurance, variable annuities or variable life insurance. But the company has found that life insurance agents use the site far more than annuity producers do.

"That's due to the nature of the businesses," said Stone. "With life policies, there is underwriting involved, more follow-up and details outstanding. Annuities are more of a simple sale. They have not yet caught up to life producers in use of the site. We're saturated on the life side."

Looking ahead, F&G is focusing on strengthening the infrastructure that stands behind the Web site with the help of its parent corporation, Old Mutual plc. The South African insurer acquired F&G in September 2001 from St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co. Old Mutual's technology team brought to F&G "significant improvement in competency" in the infrastructure area and should boost the site's hosting opportunities, Stout said.

Agent needs, however, will continue to drive site development. "It continues to evolve over time," said Stone. "There's no limit to what you can do."

RELATED ARTICLE: Harry N. Stout and Mark T. Stone will speak about F&G Life's Web site at A.M. Best Co.'s 14th annual insurance and technology conference, "E-Fusion 2002: Unlocking the Value," which will be hold Sept. 29-Oct. 1 in Washington, D.C.