Snap polls reflect questions posed by members of the Celent Executive Research Panel, a group of C level executives in the insurance industry. This question came about from a member who wanted to understand whether and how other insurers were handling direct communication to policyholders and prospects in an independent agency model . This deck provides a summary of the responses to a Snap Poll conducted August 26– September 1, 2021.18 Insurers responded to this survey over the course of 6 days.
The question that was posed was:
Background:
In the new business process, the insurer often needs additional underwriting support documents from the prospect. Today, they work through their agents to follow up with the prospect and obtain those documents. This adds a lot of delay – and often a lot of follow up activities. The insurer, who primarily uses independent agents, is considering shifting their practice and going direct to the prospect directly from inside their UW workbench using text, email and cloud-based file upload capabilities to ask prospects for that information.
Questions:
| Do you currently utilize electronic communication to directly communicate with the prospect or policyholder during the Underwriting process or do you drive all communications through the agent? | |
| If you communicate directly with the policy holder: | |
| –What reaction have your agents had to that practice? | |
| What technical capabilities do you have to communicate with customers during Underwriting? | |
| –Memo to the Agent for request missing information | |
| –Text to prospect/customer | |
| –Email to prospect/customer | |
| –USPS Mail to prospect/customer | |
| –Phone call to prospect/customer | |
| –Other | |
| Do you: | |
| –Include the agent on the prospect/customer outreach? | |
| –Include the agent on all responses to the outreach? | |
| –Provide the agent with the information the policyholder provides? | |
| What technology do you use for communicating with prospects/customers during Underwriting? | |
| –Communication tools designed for SMS and email outreach (e.g. Ushur, Twilio, Zipwhip etc.…) | |
| –Cloud storage solutions for document transfer between prospects/customer and Underwriting (e.g. Box, Dropbox etc…) | |
| –Other | |
