Digital technology is table stakes to achieve lower costs and faster results in new business and underwriting life insurance. Celent takes the data from its recent benchmarking report and revises the review to look at the impact of technology on metrics. Use this report to compare yourself to your peers.

Improving new business processes is a focus for many life insurance companies, small and large, because high costs negate the benefits of improved sales. Investing in the new business and underwriting process has been shown to create benefits in costs, accuracy, cycle time, and customer satisfaction.

“Monitoring key metrics against a peer group is a necessity for any insurer that wants to reduce costs,” states Karen Monks, senior analyst in Celent’s Life Insurance practice and coauthor of this report. “Although there are significant differences among the insurers in this benchmarking group, it is clear that technology that improves the new business and underwriting process is no longer a nice to have; it is table stakes.”

“Process improvement strategies should focus on implementing electronic applications, automating the receipt of third party underwriting evidence, and automating underwriting decisions,” suggests Tom Scales, Head of Celent’s Life & Health Insurance, Americas Practice and co-author of the report. "The order will depend on factors like the insurer's distribution strategy and change management processes in place to maximize the benefit.”