Making producers happy: introducing teleunderwriting can drop cycle time by as much as 300%.

A 2004 LIMRA Research Report, Insights Into Strengthening Producer Relationships, surveyed a cross-section of successful agents and brokers and determined that "service and support" was the second biggest reason they changed carriers.

Probing this further, LIMRA scientist Denise Marvel discovered that "issuing policies promptly" was the greatest concern that producers had with "service and support." Issuing policies promptly speaks to slashing cycle time, the interval from when an application is submitted to when a policy is issued.

Aside from imaging and other technology enhancements, there is only one way this goal will be achieved: through the magic of teleunderwriting. Speaking plainly what is accomplishable here?

At a late April meeting of the Underwriting Vision Group, chief underwriters from a dozen leading life companies revealed that wherever teleunderwriting had been successfully introduced, cycle time dropped 50% to 300%.

This, of course, included exorcising that universal demon, the "incomplete." There are no incomplete applications with teleunderwriting.

How does teleunderwriting take so big a bite out of the nail-biting, blood-pressure-raising eternity that new business remains in underwriting purgatory? By deploying the teleinterview as the primary means of gathering risk information and thereby trimming the ordering of medical reports by 30% to 80%.

One carrier reported ordering medical records on 40% of new applicants prior to launching teleunderwriting. Now, the company said, it was perfectly content with its mortality results despite ordering barely one third as many of these tedious entities.

Not bad. And the implications far transcend cycle time.

The average medical report takes at least 14 to 17 days to receive (and then how many more to digest?) and extracts anywhere from $50 to $75 out-of-pocket. Multiply this outlay by the number of reports your company orders in one year and see what you get.

Want to satisfy your producers' second greatest concern, thereby preserving their loyalty and enhancing their productivity? Get rid of your obsolete workflow model and embrace teleunderwriting. What else about teleunderwriting makes producers happy?

* More trips to Tahiti. It has been credibly estimated that 50% of a producer's time is spent facilitating transactions related to underwriting. Take this monkey off their backs. Let them do their jobs. More time means more sales. More sales mean more income, more perks and more loyalty to the carrier that made it all possible.

* Less hassle. Allow payoffs from protective information corralled via the teleinterview to accommodate prudent cutbacks in requirements producers and customers abhor.

* Client friendly approach. We know clients perceive the gathering and poring over of their personal medical records as an unsavory intrusion into their personal space. Confining this practice to only those scenarios where it is mandatory is a "good faith" effort. How many tens of thousands of medical records would we no longer need if we did high-quality teleinterviews?

* Rare undeliverables. The single biggest factor obstructing delivery of policies is the protracted interval between application and approval. Greatly reduce that interval and watch your "not-taken" rate go into a tailspin. More placements mean more commissions.

* Fewer needle sticks. With oral fluid tests, there is no good reason not to cut back substantially on blood testing (primarily, but by no means exclusively, at younger ages). Our 18- to 39-year-old customers are the most vocal in their disapproval of being phlebotomized to acquire insurance. Teleunderwriting makes oral fluid an acceptable alternative.

* Protecting our distribution system. Alternative distribution has enjoyed significant success. Some of this success has come at the expense of our traditional mode of distribution. One sure way to preserve the viability of what we know works is to reduce business acquisition costs. Conventional underwriting hikes these costs as the cost of its components continue to rise. Teleunderwriting reverses the process.

Like it or not, underwriting is intrinsic to how we do business. To stop underwriting is to make our best products outrageously unappealing to our best customers. Why not make this "necessary evil" more palatable, while enjoying all of the benefits we now know will increase producer loyalty and productivity?

Assuaging angst over producers' second biggest concern allows more time to devote to the rest of their issues. Discard the past. Embrace teleunderwriting.

Hank George, a Best's Review columnist, is the principal in his own consulting and training firm, Hank George Inc. He may be reached at [e-mail].