Advisers believe insurers are becoming increasingly easy to do business with, but advice practice support staff are not quite so impressed, according to a survey by Plan For Life (PFL).
The 2013 PFL Life Company Customer Service Survey asked licensees, advisers and their practice support staff to rate the level of service they received from 11 life companies on a scale of 1-10. The survey found that, in the key areas of underwriting support, quote software, straight-through-processing and BDM support, insurers have generally improved over the last three years.
Advisers were largely happy with the underwriting service provided by the life companies. The ratings given by advisers indicate that access to underwriting staff has improved since 2012, along with the fairness of decisions, and access to underwriting pre-assessments. They also reported an improvement in the ease of use of e-applications and the overall speed with which insurers complete proposals.
In the area of BDM support, advisers said they believed the quality of training provided by BDMs, and their product knowledge and strategic advice skills had all improved over the past three years. However, there was a slight decrease year on year in the accessibility of BDMs/senior contacts to resolve escalated issues.
Advisers were also positive about the level of claims service they received from insurers, saying there was a marked improvement in 2013 (rising nearly 1 point on the scale from 2012).
In contrast, practice support staff reported a mixed result in terms of claims services. While they said there was an increase in the transparency of claims procedures over the past three years, access to case managers, involvement of the adviser and practice staff in the claim and the timeliness of claims payments declined in 2013.
Advice business support staff also rated the level of administration support provided by life insurers slightly lower than in 2011. This included online access to client data and online proposal tracking. However, access to a senior administration contact has improved steadily over the last three years, according to support staff.
Service from Life Companies has improved though there needs to be a radical rethink on where the improvements need to be, going forward.
In the last few years there has been a explosion of direct and Industry Super Insurance offerings and a awareness of rising costs by clients, ( electricity etc ) which is exacerbating the lapse rates with retail life policies.
Every dollar spent by life Companies must be spent wisely as the golden days are gone and will not be back.
The only things that are important are; retention of existing policies / new policies being written / ease of use, meaning quick response and ability to increase and administer policies.
Everything else is secondary to those three things.
Insurers spend millions of dollars on STUFF that has little bearing or structure around the three area’s above.
The end result is more lapses, less profit.
Comments are closed.