MLC Life Insurance has gone live with its new digital underwriting platform which will provide advice clients with an indicative underwriting decision in a matter of minutes.
The insurer announced the development of the new platform in July 2017 after it formed a partnership to use Pacific Life Re’s underwriting rules engine, UnderwriteMe, which had been launched into the Australian market in late 2016 (see: MLC Life Underwriting Deal to Offer Instant Pricing).
MLC Life Chief Underwriter, Debbie Kennedy said the rapid turnaround in quotes was the result of the use of database of industry standard questions that assess the health and lifestyle status of advice clients seeking cover.
Kennedy said the new platform would triple the number of clients who would receive a straight through acceptance and would move the underwriting process away from a one size fits all’ approach.
“We expect 25 per cent more customers will no longer require manual underwriting as a result of the new platform”
“We can now tailor questions based on customer age and lifestyle and not just the product for which they are applying. This will reduce the number of requests for further evidence, and allow our underwriters to focus on more complex cases,” Kennedy said.
“We expect 25 per cent more customers will no longer require manual underwriting as a result of the new platform,” she said, adding that advisers had told the insurers they now longer had the time to call different underwriting departments.
“This will provide a significant and notable improvement on the customer journey and in the past reducing the number of questions meant we were able to get people on risk in days. Under this new platform we expect they can be on risk immediately,” Kennedy said.
The new platform will be initially used with advised retail clients with MLC Life planning on launching it into the group life insurance space later this year.
UnderwriteMe is now in use by two major life insurers with CommInsure also announcing its own partnership and launch of a new digital quote and application process based on the rules engine (see: CommInsure Partners With UnderWriteMe on New Application Process).
