Our thoughts

The benefits of underwriting engines are now well understood (or they ought to be). They help drive down cost and bring a variety of other benefits such as detailed management information that in turn can be applied to distributor management and segmentation, customer targeting and reserving requirements. But classically engines are expensive tools, and small insurers understandably blanch at the need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in purchase of the license and set-up costs, followed by maintenance fees. And there is the need to maintain and develop the engine’s knowledge base to keep it in line with any…

Do you ever hear people say that what the industry needs is a concerted campaign to publicize the value of life and disability insurance generally or heighten awareness of individual products such as disability income or critical illness? They point to the prevalence of under-insurance and how the market is struggling for growth. If consumers were more aware of these products, understood how they worked and realized what good value for money they represent, they would want to find out more and become new customers. It’s an appealing thought, and even if life and disability insurance has been classically ‘sold…