Online Underwriting Service Opens to Advisers

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A former financial planner has released an automated underwriting service which provides advisers access to pre-assessments from 12 underwriting teams within 72 hours.

PMC Underwriting, Director, Ryan Austen
PMC Underwriting, Director, Ryan Austen

PMC Underwriting, Director, Ryan Austen said the online service had been in development for about nine months before going live two weeks ago and was not dependent on an adviser running any particular form of advice-related software.

Austen, who was an adviser for seven years, stated that response times from underwriters were often within hours of receiving information from an adviser but, dependent on the workload of the underwriting team, could extend out to 72 hours.

He added that the quality of responses from underwriting teams would depend on the level of information provided by an adviser about a client, with users able to maintain established relationships with underwriters through the service.

“Most of the 12 insurers who have signed on to the service will respond to each adviser request, including those who can’t provide cover or will add exclusions. This is important as it ensures advisers have meet compliance and best interest requirements to seek the most suitable products for clients,” Austen said.

“…we wanted to prevent advisers having policies falling over because of underwriting issues.”

“The service creates a digital trail and a report for the adviser which can be added to a client file or moved into planning software,” he added, stating the service could be integrated directly into Xplan.

Costs for using the service are $39 per month per user or $390 per year per user with no limits on the number of submissions that can be made to underwriting teams, with prices for licensees who wish to adopt the service currently being set.

“We developed this service after looking at the underwriting process and how the Life Insurance Framework will change the advice process from up-front fees to hybrid fees and we wanted to prevent advisers having policies falling over because of underwriting issues,” Austen said.



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12 COMMENTS

  1. Good to see someone trying things but we have been doing this for years, you just send the same templated email out and Bcc the 12 insurers. Same result and doesn’t cost $39/month

    • Thanks Boris, i am glad you have taken the time to set up templates and conduct pre-assessments in this manner. At the end of the day if we see more clients getting covered with less exclusions we are happy. We wanted to create a tool that advisers could jump straight on and use and we feel that from the outcomes we have seen so far the cost is more than covered.
      Add in the licensees ability to integrate into their own xplan site if required we feel its a very easy way to systemise the process helping to meet Best interest duties.

      Ryan

    • I guess it depends how you value your time Boris. Absolutely fantastic initiative that’s light on effort and cost. Why spend an hour or two on the phone with different underwriters negotiating when PMC will do the leg work for you. I value an hour of my time at over $39. So times that by say 4 clients a month and you’ve saved $120 at the bare minimum. Each to their own, but if you can’t see value here then you must have more than 24 hours in the day and you can place less value on your time!
      Great Stuff PMC and good luck with it!

      • It’s not that Boris can’t see the value in this Joe, it’s that he does what many other risk advisers do, including our office. We use a template, complete the relevant details and Bcc the insurers – all in all it takes only a minute or two to prepare and hit send. The responses are saved, from which a decision is made as to which insurer to go with. Having our own process doesn’t mean we have “more than 24 hours in the day”, it’s actually quite efficient. But as you say, each to his own so well done Ryan for coming up with something to help advisers.

  2. Great initiative – especially from a compliance point of
    view, as it provides an overall compliance audit.

  3. Great innovation. I see many Boutique Dealer Groups accessing this tool for their advisers to streamline the pre-assessment process.

  4. Great time saving tool. I will definitely be signing up as my time is valuable and if this can gain me new clients – happy days!!

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