Tele-interviewing:
the questions answered
Is tele-interviewing sweeping the world, or is it something confined to just a handful of markets, and then undertaken on a limited scale? We think we have a pretty good fix on the situation but want to know for sure, so we have joined forces with reassurer SCOR Global Life to conduct a world-wide survey.
The survey aims to find answers to the classic questions:
- Where is tele-interviewing used as a means of information gathering?
- Who is using it?
- What are they using it for?
- Why did they introduce it?
- How are they going about it?
- When during the underwriting and claims processes is it being applied?
While tele-interviewing is best known as an enhancement of the new business process (tele-underwriting), aiding risk identification and selection and improving the customer experience, it is now starting to be applied to the claims process for disability income and critical illness policies with the aim of gathering good information for quicker and better decision-making. But in the meantime the tele-underwriting scene has been far from static, with much refinement of the basic concept and adjustment of the process according to the requirements of insurers, distributors and the characteristics of target customer groups.
So our snapshot of tele-interviewing world-wide should prove both fascinating and instructive.
In 2003 SelectX co-authored with Hank George the seminal Tele-underwriting Report which remains the only wide-ranging detailed discussion of the subject. Now, SelectX and SCOR Global Life are working on a new report, wider in scope than the original and featuring an in-depth analysis of tele-interviewing as an important adjunct to risk management today and tomorrow. The findings of the world-wide survey will form part of the report. Look out for it; publication will be in the fourth quarter of 2009.
