For your benefit we provide general articles about beneficial group insurance programs. You can find our latest articles below, or you can use the search facility above to search for specific subjects.
Money Transfer Insurance - providing security for the recipients
In order for an insurance program to remain healthy, all parties involved need to benefit. This becomes even more complicated when such a program includes extra parties, as is the case in affinity programs. Here, a sponsoring partner will offer insurance to its customers, offered and administered by other parties. Protecting the success of such a program means aligning the objectives of all involved.
A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his or her home country. The money sent home by migrants to developing countries is around US$400 billion per year, and exceeds international aid. The foreign worker often cannot afford Life Insurance. And as many families worldwide depend on these remittances, they would suffer deeply if something unfortunate would happen to the migrant. A large market presents itself if an affordable form of life insurance can be created for the working migrant.
With Remittance Family ProtectionTM the foreign worker is insured and protects his or her family. The family back home will receive money if the sender dies. An average monthly remittance amount will be transferred to the protected family for twelve months, thus creating a limited, but additional form of stability for the people back home. This life insurance can be offered by the company servicing the money transfers. This company can use the insurance to generate extra income. If, on the other hand, the company needs to create a competitive advantage, it might choose to pay for this insurance as a service to its customers. This will also help to get more information about the recipients, as is often required by law to prevent money laundering.
The number of annual remittances exceeds a billion per year. The average amount being transferred is around US$250, and Bengrip predicts the premium to be about US$1 per transfer. Providing Remittance Family ProtectionTM not only creates a large market opportunity, it provides benefits to all involved. It is a good example of the success of affinity programs.
Click here if you feel Remittance Family ProtectionTM can add to the results of your organization.
Protecting health of Insurance Programs
To remain healthy, Insurance Programs need to be monitored and managed continuously. Only then can the financial ratios be protected, and can service levels be guaranteed. A graphic monitoring system can now be provided on smartphones. This Insurance Program Performance Dashboard TM (IPPD), with real-time data, provides the best view on program developments. Steps can be taken as soon as results tend to move into the wrong direction. It is the latest possibility now offered only by Bengrip.
A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his or her home country. The money sent home by migrants to developing countries is around US$400 billion per year, and exceeds international aid. The foreign worker often cannot afford Life Insurance. And as many families worldwide depend on these remittances, they would suffer deeply if something unfortunate would happen to the migrant. A large market presents itself if an affordable form of life insurance can be created for the working migrant.
Insurance is all about numbers. Being able to monitor these numbers while the program matures means that growth can be steered in the right direction. This helps to prevent a necessary premium raise, for example. But it can also point towards unforeseen obstacles, like lacking service or an incomplete application process. Many examples can show the benefits of a real-time monitoring device. And with today’s technology on smartphones and tablets, insurance programs can be monitored anytime, anywhere.
The Insurance Program Performance Dashboard TM:
- Your business performance always and everywhere at your fingertips.
- Latest results always visible; continuous access to performance graphs irrespective of location.
- Focused attention to specific indicators based on smart set-up of graphs.
- Key indicators always monitored through dedicated graphs for specific user groups.
- Drill down/up functionality to quickly assess the graphs presented.
- Develop your own dashboard based on data experience.
- Easy to implement and adjust dashboards to maintain an efficient usage.
- Very affordable based on a pay per use principle.
Click here for some example cases in which the use of the IPPD was beneficial.
The IPPD is a unique software tool, developed to translate data into meaningful graphs on smartphones and tablets. This software allows a user to create their own graphs and integrate native functionality of the smartphone and tablet like swiping for browsing the graphs. This makes the tool very powerful as it is very simple to navigate. Graphs can be adjusted or developed to specific needs. The software is running on a dedicated server connected to the internet using a VPN tunneling mechanism to transmit the data to the handheld device when using wifi or by GSM connection. This will ensure data protection at all times.
Who benefits most from the IPPD?
- CEO/CFO
- Program managers
- Marketers
- Actuaries
- Service managers
- Shared Service managers
- Call Center Managers
How to set up the system for your organization?
The actual process to have this system up and running is straight forward:
- In a combined effort, expert of your company and Bengrip will evaluate the initial dashboards needed and associated data sources.
- Bengrip will provide a proposal for the implementation and operation of the system.
- Upon contract signature Bengrip will form a joint project team to execute the project.
- As a rule of thumb implementation should take no more than two months.
The source of the IPPD is a specific software product which can be used in any given situation where numeric data needs to be transformed into graphical data on mobile devices. Therefor Bengrip can assist in implementation projects outside the scope of insurance programs.
Do you want to be on top of your business? Contact us to learn more about the IPPD.
Cloud Computing in Affinity
Cloud Computing is beyond the hype stage. Large insurance companies in particular can benefit from the advantages of “the cloud” while smaller carriers may benefit from a short transition cycle.
The traditional benefits applicable to these carriers like cost benefits, time to market reduction and scalability in capacity are complemented for the affinity business model with marketing and sales capabilities specifically addressing the requirements of the affinity sponsor and the end consumer. In this respect the seamless integration of the marketing and sales process with the fulfillment process provides the following additional benefits:
- Advanced CRM and one to one marketing capabilities using the sponsor in accessing the target group
- A flexible distinction between web and mobile based functionality versus core functionality enabling custom build propositions for sponsors and their members/clients
- More easy social media integration generating a spin off added value to the sponsor
Marketing capabilities provided in a cloud environment assist the affinity sponsor to integrate its activities in its day to day operating model addressing its members and clients. At the same time the architecture will allow for a straight through processing capability to the back-office operation for the insurance proposition offered, but often operated by a third party.
The flexibility in the architecture will allow designers to accommodate the function in the system environment in such a way that this will suit clients’ needs best. For example a premium calculation function can be stored in the web layer instead of the back-end administration system putting significantly different performance and scalability requirements to the IT environment.
A major benefit for the client is to include social media integration based on a cloud architecture. This will provide the capability to create a custom integration while using readily available components.
Bengrip’s IT strategy in its role as the orchestrator of full group insurance programs is based on using the benefits of cloud services in the interest of the sponsor maintaining a continuous low cost, high quality and robust environment. This best of breed approach is key to the success of the group insurance program execution.
Click here for an overview of the latest news for Group Insurance Programs
Aim at 80% of the group
It is a statistical fact that every group consist of better and worse risks. The average risk determines the premium of a policy. If you want to develop a cheaper premium one needs to avoid the worst risks.
Beneficial group insurance programs aim at the ‘better’ 80% of the group. It should provide alternatives for the other 20%, but the initial program and premium should not be affected. This can be done easily using targeting techniques. E.g. an insurance program for business vehicles can exclude specific risk groups.
Avoiding the worst risks not only lowers the necessary premium, and the administrative costs, it will also increase the positive brand awareness associated with the program.
Policy application too complex
A customer often needs to answer many questions when applying for insurance. In some cases, it is a daunting task to even apply for home owners insurance. Many of these questions are redundant and can be avoided. This would help to simplify the process and would increase the number of sales.
Insurance companies want to avoid getting ‘bad risks’ in their books. It is for that reason that they ask many questions to a potential buyer of a policy. This increases the administrative costs and hinders the customer. The Pareto-principle, or 80-20 rule, also applies to this application process. 20% of the questions reflect 80% of the risk, where the other 80% of the questions merely influence a small part of the risk.
When assessing the application process, the insurance company needs to look at their data and show which questions indeed matter and which questions can be avoided. Of the remaining questions, some do not have to be answered by the customer if the application process can be organized in an efficient way. E.g. in many countries a zip code is enough to calculate the regional risks or to get the total address data.
Try to minimize the number of questions a customer needs to answer. This increases the sales ratio.
Administration influences premium
A better insurance premium through better administration
Marketers often forget the effect of product development on the internal organisation. Obviously, this could negatively influence Operational Excellence, but also customer satisfaction. Never develop a product without consulting the administrative department. In a truly professional organisation, each product development project includes both commercial and administrative personnel, and a testing phase.
If the insurance premium needs to be low, product development might start by fully researching all administrative steps. Analyse which steps can be made unnecessary. Also, make sure that a product promotion does not create unnecessary questions. This can tear down the capacity of a Customer Service Department. Analyse which questions can be expected, and answer them before hand.
Make efficiency part of your marketing development. In the end, it will improve the price of the product and thus increase sales.