Reproposal Results Outdo Expectations
Automated Reproposals Up, “Steveware” Down

Newsline readers and Conference attendees may recall the term “Steveware,”
coined by Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance’s Gerry Danielson, FLMI, CLU, ChFC, to describe the carrier’s original life reproposal system. “Steveware” involved staff actuary Steve Caress manually re-illustrating the carrier’s in-force universal life policies, via spreadsheet, upon agent request.

The need for “Steveware” has dropped significantly since November, when the carrier rolled out a UL new business and reproposal illustration system from COSS. The system allows agents to run their own reproposals. Since system rollout, Caress has only had to do 16 reproposals. His caseload has been lightened beyond his expectations, he told COSS Project Manager and Senior Actuarial Developer Stewart Shay, ASA, FLMI.

The goal had been that Caress would perform only 10% of new reproposal requests, while the COSS system would allow agents to perform 90% of reproposals on their own. In designing the system’s specifications, Caress and Shay used a commonsense approach: begin with the most common types of reproposal requests, and make these capabilities a must for the automated system. They worked through various “what-if” scenarios, prioritizing them, until they reached the 90% goal.

Three and a half months after rollout, Caress was happy to note “results that were even better than our 90% goal.” Meanwhile, the volume of reproposals has roughly doubled or tripled—a sure sign that the field has accepted the new illustration capability and prefer it to the old approach. The immediate benefit is twofold: increased service to policyholders, and less work for agents and home office personnel. Longer term, the system can also improve policy persistency, increase cross-selling opportunities, help in agent retention, and ultimately improve the bottom line.

Here’s how it works: agents request a reproposal directly from their desktop workstations. The request is electronically passed to the home office’s life administration system via an intranet connection using an http post. All policy information is returned to the workstation following ACORD standards, with an information transfer of less than three seconds. Minimal data entry is required. Start to finish, an agent can obtain a reproposal in just three clicks!

“I used to spend 15 –20 hours per month on reproposals,” said Caress. “Sometimes there would not be enough info, and I’d have to contact the agents or try to guess what they wanted to illustrate. Getting a reproposal then could take one to two business days. Now I spend less than two hours per month. Agents can illustrate their own reproposals in 30 seconds.”

So what does Caress do with all his newfound time—a savings of roughly one month out of the year? “You might think I’d improve my golf game or read novels by the pool ... No. My boss has found plenty of other projects to fill my time,” he said.