Insurers Making Interesting Use of Continuous Underwriting
As noted in one of my previous blog posts, several factors are fueling the growing continuous underwriting trend. There are already a few notable insurers who are doing interesting things in this space around the globe.
My new white paper, “Continuous Underwriting is Underutilized in the Life Insurance Industry,” lays out the business benefits of continuous underwriting for insurers and explains the essentials for success. But before you check that out, here are some interesting continuous underwriting mini-case studies:
Royal London
Royal London – a large mutual life, pensions and investment company in the UK – launched a “Diabetes Life Cover” specifically for people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
The customer journey is underpinned by the Kalibre insurtech platform, which is supported by continuous underwriting and features an innovative risk assessment approach. The platform improves the application acceptance process from a period of weeks to less than an hour, says Royal London.
“There is built in flexibility to reduce premiums by up to 40% to reflect how well the customer is managing their diabetes by simply sharing their annual HbA1c test result. Premiums are guaranteed never to rise higher than the starting premium to give clients certainty that they will be able to maintain their cover,” according to the company’s press release.
This real-time, robo-underwriting process is expected to launch to a wider market and is one to watch in the future.
Prudential Financial
Prudential Financial – a provider of a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds and investment management – ran a smoking cessation pilot (it started on June 12, 2017) that targeted approximately 4,000 term customers with policies in force for over two years across all sales channels in the following U.S. states: Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and Texas.
Customers who have either smoked in the past year, or who returned lab results that indicated the presence of nicotine in their blood, pay “smoker rates.” They are eligible to request a reduction to non-smoker rates, but must call Prudential or a financial professional, plus provide evidence that they have quit. “This effort will leverage existing capabilities and processing to consider how we may expand continuous underwriting concepts to help strengthen existing customer relationships, extend our value proposition, and cultivate customer advocates,” according to Prudential.
AllLife
AllLife is a South Africa-based company that offers life coverage for those living with HIV and diabetes. It gets clients to adhere to a specific treatment plan and then offers “a continuous underwriting approach to provide immediate pricing, issue a policy, and manage risk through its continuous contact with the customer, including periodic tests to verify the treatment’s efficacy.” If this strategy and approach sound familiar, it’s because Royal London (see above) is leveraging AllLife’s technology platform.
Who do you think will be the next insurer to show us an innovative way to benefit from continuous underwriting?
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Sigal Biran Nagar Sigal was VP Marketing at Sapiens during 2020-2021, responsible for driving Sapiens marketing team globally. She is an accomplished global marketing and communications executive. Her background includes senior roles at various international conglomerates including: SanDisk (now Western Digital), Strauss, ECI Telecom (now Ribbon) and more.