New life insurance entrant, NEOS Life has announced that it made more than 86 percent of underwriting decisions within three working days, exceeding its own target of 80 percent set at launch in June of this year.
At the time of launching, NEOS Life Managing Director, Brett Yardley said the business had developed its own bespoke application question set to be used with UnderwriteMe’s underwriting rules engine (see: NEOS Life Full Retail Market Launch).
Speaking about the underwriting times, Yardley said that since launch NEOS had delivered 86.6 percent of underwriting decisions in three working days, 85 percent in two days and 64 per cent in one day by using the question set and rules engine together.
“We understand how frustrating it can be for a seemingly straight forward application to be held up in underwriting for weeks on end. Clients want to be covered and advisers need to be paid. Our goal at NEOS is to make an adviser’s job easier and a client’s experience better, every step of the way. Providing rapid underwriting is a crucial part of that,” Yardley said.
“We’ve designed our underwriting questions to be targeted and relevant, so we can quickly get to the right underwriting outcome. And if a decision cannot be made on the spot, our highly experienced underwriting team are available to make common-sense decisions, fast,” he added.
UnderwriteMe Director of Business Development Asia & Australia, Rakesh Kaul, said, “We’re excited to see the outcomes NEOS is achieving from their UnderwriteMe implementation so quickly. With a continued focus on rules improvement and insights from analytics, together, we hope to drive yet more efficiency gains in the future.”
I’d wager the actual customer doesn’t really care whether the application takes 3 days or 3 weeks. Interim cover is provided for free and the premium stays in their pocket until the application is accepted.
Fast tracking underwriting contributes to the erosion of trust in life insurance and puts the needs of the adviser above the needs of the Customer.
Interesting points, John. With respect, I can’t really agree with them. If clients can get cover quickly it allows them to tick the box. As well it moves them on from what, in their minds might have been a painful experience that they weren’t looking forward to, done and dusted.
But how is it that ‘fast tracking…contributes to the erosion of trust in life insurance’? This one has me somewhat stumped.
Thanks paulkate – I guess it could be different depending on the client, but for me as a customer I’d consider the box ticked once the application was sent off and I no longer had to ‘do’ anything. I’m covered in the interim and my adviser is tracking it through with the insurer.
It would be more important to know that my application was underwritten thoroughly, that I was asked absolutely everything the insurer wanted to know and that I could therefore have confidence there’d be no surprises down the track. There is no avoiding underwriting despite what the insurers say! Time taken to underwrite doesn’t disappear, it simply moves to the back end and is done at claim time.
Taking more time upfront when a client is healthy seems to make more sense than delaying the claim payment (or not paying at all) when clients really do need those speedy turnarounds.
Not only does it make sense – it’s just the right thing to do. This is why trust in life insurance has been eroded – tick that box in no time at all and then let them down when it matters most.
Well said.
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