Tag: iSolve

Robots Take Over Illustrations- Humans in Awe!

Written by Bill Atlee on . Posted in Thought Leadership.

Picture This…

Your broker is flipping through multiple illustrations with their client- you emailed them a dozen scenarios to keep them prepared. Right in the middle of their discussion, out of the blue, the client reveals they have high blood pressure. They also think the premiums are too high, the face amount is wrong, and the payment lengths need shortening. Unfortunately, in that instant, your broker has no access to carrier software or WiFi.

The broker stays cool, breaking out their smartphone, and within 30 seconds they’ve got side-by-side comparisons of the new numbers for their client. With the tap of a button, the compliant illustration pops up on their screen. They flip their phone on its side, and the client e-Signs with their finger. An automated email copy is sent to them instantly for their records. Another tap on “Apply”, and the illustration data pre-populates to the application.

Boom. Your broker just made a sale. They didn’t panic. They have iSolve®.

With iSolve, they can:

  • Instantly respond with 40 million pre-run quotes
  • Eliminate complicated carrier illustration software
  • Reduce wait times to zero for illustration requests
  • Enable easy, side-by-side carrier comparisons
  • Have access for both Brokers and back office staff
  • Have a mobile friendly, WiFi independent experience
  • Provide multi carrier compliant illustrations on-demand
  • Allow clients to e-Sign illustrations in seconds
  • Pre-populate illustrations in iGO® e-App

Crystal Balls: Are They Ever Right?

Few people buy without some insight into the associated price, and agents know that selling insurance is no exception. Clients often demand to be shown various premiums and coverage options before signing an insurance application.
The challenge is most agents rarely know a client’s true premium tolerance or their medical background at that early stage of the selling process. Client unknowns can create significant variance in the cost of coverage and are typically not discovered until the underwriting stage is complete, thus requiring additional re-proposals.

Further complicating the selling process is the fact that illustrations are simply projections into financial futures, and the outcomes are rarely perfect. Agents attempt to show their clients this imperfect ‘crystal ball’ through varying illustrative outcomes.

Like Hitting a Wiffleball in the Wind

Client curveballs can be tricky. In order to handle all the unexpected ‘what if?’ scenarios, producers pre-run countless illustrations in advance of a client meeting hoping to avoid potential objections that could prevent a sale. This exhaustive quoting process is a producer’s only hope to get a hit with their potential client.

Same Dog, Same Tricks

Unlike the above situation, in the independent brokerage channel, brokers have no access to carrier illustration software. Their reliance is on their distributor’s back office staff to run illustration scenarios for them, providing the PDF outputs by email. This creates a back-and-forth ritual that takes hours, if not days, leaving everyone frustrated. So, can the industry be taught a new trick?

Tom Sawyer, the Producer, Passes the Paint Brush

Each carrier within the brokerage channel has their own custom illustration software, and these platforms are super complex and confusing. It’s not practical to try and teach individual brokers how to run their own illustrations on them.

Because of this, quoting aggregation tools like Winflex, Lifetrends, and Ensight were developed, with the intention of making quoting easier. But they were designed only for back office staff, and producers didn’t have access to them. The result? Agents are receiving daily emails from their distributors, requiring them to wade through pages upon pages of PDF attachments. Even worse, a third of these agents re-contact their distributors to request further tweaks to the proposals.

It’s an inefficient process: someone needs to put a fresh coat of paint on this fence for the producers.

iSolve: The Game Changer

iSolve does what no other software can: creates a digital, end-to-end experience that enables agents to quote and apply faster by avoiding the complications associated with traditional illustrations. iSolve is quite simply the fastest illustration tool they’ll ever use. Why? Because robots have been taught how to run illustrations, which avoids clumsy PDFs and provides instant responses with 40 million pre-run illustrations. Watch the webcast today or schedule a demo to learn more!

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Robots Take Over Illustrations- Humans In Awe!

Written by iPipeline on . Posted in Webcasts & Videos.

Quote | Illustrate | e-Sign | Apply

Presenter: Bill Atlee, Founder & Chief Innovation Officer, iPipeline

Schedule a Demo

Imagine if robots could handle 80% of the countless illustrations requests that come from brokers daily. Well, it’s not some cyber fantasy. iPipeline’s iSolve® robots pre-run 40 million illustrations a month to help you avoid illustration nightmares. Brokers can manipulate these solves without ever learning carrier software, have an illustration seamlessly e-Signed, or sweep it into iGO® e-App for completion. 

Let’s face it: illustrations as they exist today only output PDFs. That output stinks. It handcuffs your brokers. Why? If the illustration numbers don’t jive with their client, they call you back for more re-proposals. Even if the numbers are solid, they can’t execute the sale without printing and wet signing an illustration (Does anyone even own printers anymore?).

Isn’t it time that illustrations experience an innovative breakthrough? Join Bill Atlee, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, as he walks you through our newly enhanced version of iSolve and how to:

  • Instantly retrieve multi-carrier comparisons (GUL, CAUL, IUL)
  • Reduce running illustrations by 80%
  • Rarely access Winflex, Ensight, LifeTrends or carrier software
  • Shift 71% of illustration quoting to your brokers
  • Collapse 18.9 days off of wet signing an illustration
  • Pre-populate iGO e-App, e-Sign and submit

National Life Group Simplifies Research and Quoting Process for Life Insurance Agents with iPipeline’s iSolve

Written by iPipeline on . Posted in Press & News.

National Life Group Removes the Complexity from Illustrating and Solving Client Needs for Permanent Insurance in the COVID-19 Environment

Exton, PA (October 27, 2020) – iPipeline® – a leading provider of low code cloud-based software solutions for the life insurance and financial services industry – today announced National Life Group, a leading provider of life insurance and diversified financial products, will implement iSolve®, an advanced research and quoting product, to automate the selling of permanent insurance for their life insurance agencies in the US.

Designed to simplify and streamline the process of identifying and quoting life insurance options for customers, iSolve enables agents to conduct one simple and secure search, which returns multiple life insurance options in the form of financial illustrations. While 15 national insurance companies are using iSolve to accelerate sales activity, National Life Group is the first US carrier to enable clients and agents to electronically sign a compliant illustration in real-time on their phone or tablet, eliminating the need for additional meetings in today’s contactless selling environment.

“Given the obstacles to selling in the COVID-19 pandemic, agents are quick to adopt advanced technologies that simplify and accelerate the selling of permanent insurance products. When customers are considering choosing an insurance policy, they want to explore multiple options. Running financial illustrations for each product is time-consuming and a complex undertaking,” said Bill Atlee, Chief Strategy Officer, iPipeline. “iSolve has taken the rocket science out of the entire process. iSolve maintains current database housing values for almost every possible illustration solve scenario, which includes premiums, target premiums, cash surrender values, distribution amounts, internal rates of return and guarantee years, placing millions of data combinations at the agent’s fingertips. This delivers a significant advantage and enables customers to make highly informed buying decisions in a short time. We are pleased to be able to make R&D investments in the current COVID-19 environment that move the needle in the right direction for our carriers and their agents.”

“iPipeline’s approach to providing carriers with one unified experience via their SSG Digital® platform is aligned with our vision to provide digital experiences that make it easier to do business. Rather than burdening a case designer with multiple requests under time restraints, the agents will have the ability to seamlessly and rapidly run quotes, what-if analyses, create illustrations, and then apply using iGO® e-App–all in one platform—improving the customer experience,” said Nimesh Mehta, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, National Life Group. “Agents will be able to make instant changes to the face amount, health class, pay period, and other variables to create an optimal solution for their clients, because iPipeline uses cloud elasticity to create hundreds of scenarios and does not rely on static PDFs like other illustration software products. iSolve’s ease of use, speed, flexibility, and ability to allow agents and clients to electronically sign compliant illustrations in real-time on a phone and tablet will make it an invaluable solution for National Life Group and our distribution partners especially during the pandemic.”

To learn how you can implement iPipeline’s iSolve product to simplify and accelerate how your agents sell permanent insurance products, contact sales@ipipeline.com or call 1-800-758-0824, option 2.

About National Life Group
National Life Group® is a trade name of National Life Insurance Company, Montpelier, Vt., Life Insurance Company of the Southwest, Addison, Texas, and their affiliates. Each company of National Life Group is solely responsible for its own financial condition and contractual obligations. Life Insurance Company of the Southwest is not an authorized insurer in New York and does not conduct insurance business in New York. Equity Services, Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC, is a Broker/Dealer and Registered Investment Adviser affiliate of National Life Insurance Company. All other entities are independent of Equity Services, Inc. Visit https://www.nationallife.com/. TC117587(1020)1

About iPipeline
iPipeline is a leading provider of low code, cloud-based software solutions for the life insurance and financial services industry. Through our SSG Digital, end-to-end platform, we accelerate and simplify sales, compliance, operations, and support. We provide process automation and seamless integration between every participant in our ecosystem including carriers, agents, general agencies, advisors, broker-dealers, RIAs, banks, securities/mutual fund firms, and their consumers on a global basis. Our innovative solutions include pre-sales support, new business and underwriting, policy administration, point-of-sale execution of applications, post-sale support, data analysis, reporting, user-driven configuration, consumer delivery and self-service, and agency and firm management.

iPipeline’s platform is used by approximately 150 carriers, 1,400 distributors and financial institutions, and their agents and licensed advisors in a cloud-based environment. With headquarters in Exton, Pennsylvania, iPipeline has locations in Boston, Bromley (UK), Burlington (Canada), Cheltenham (UK), Dallas, Davidson, Fort Lauderdale, Huntersville, Ontario (CA), Philadelphia, Pleasanton, and Salt Lake City. Visit www.ipipeline.com.

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For iPipeline:
Lisa Shea
Marketing
lshea@ipipeline.com
484-870-6234

Five Mistakes Agents Make with Permanent Quoting

Written by Bill Atlee on . Posted in Thought Leadership.

Agents need to be able to react to client pricing objections in the field. But let’s face it- lugging a laptop out to a client meeting is clumsy, and distracting when trying to present. Not to mention the fact that illustration software is awkward to use in front of clients. So it gets left behind, and agents make critical mistakes that waste time and lengthen the selling process.


Here are the top 5 mistakes agents make with permanent quoting:

  1. Quoting before knowing
    Pre-running illustrations to avoid running them in front of clients is a fool’s errand. Without knowing the client’s premium tolerance, 90% of scenarios end up in the trash, wasting valuable time.
  2. Hopping on the “health class” mystery tour
    Agents are typically unaware of a client’s “true” medical background or lifestyle at the quoting stage, resulting in an assumed health class and often setting wrong pricing expectations with the client. This misalignment causes higher “not taken” policies.
  3. Whiffing on the client curveball
    Clients throw unexpected objections that require agents to adjust illustration options on the fly. And we already talked about how awkward that software is to use in front of clients, so they avoid it, causing unnecessary delays and multiple client meetings.
  4. Dying by the PDF
    Flipping through lengthy PDFs of calculations and disclosures is a presentation nightmare. Not only is it confusing to a customer, but it’s a difficult experience showing clients death benefit options, payment lengths, premiums and products hunched over a stack of 8 x 11 papers.
  5. Getting stuck in a wet world
    Illustrations are simply projections, that for compliance reasons must be signed to acknowledge the understanding of their disclosures. Why is a “wet” signature still used for collection?
    e-Signing accommodates face-to-face or remote selling, enabling deals to close faster.

Finally… a solution

We solved these quoting problems plaguing the industry by allowing agents to react instantly to client needs. No running clunky illustrations software, no pre-running multiple illustrations in advance of a meeting. This mobile experience redefines how agents quote and present a traditional illustration to customers, without having to replace your existing software. This innovation will change the way agents sell and will make the entire process more efficient at every level.

Contact Naish Berran at nberran@ipipeline.com to request a demo.

Learn More about iSolve

How Our Robots Ran 30 Million Illustrations in 24 Hours

Written by Bill Atlee on . Posted in Thought Leadership.

Last year, our industry ran 400 million illustrations for permanent life insurance, 95% of which ended up in the trash can. Agents and their back-office staff wasted thousands of man-hours a week generating 10-20-page PDFs that are seen by a client. Why the insanity? It’s not because the insurance commissioner tells us that we have to do it this way. It’s because of the way insurance agents sell.

When agents meet a prospect for the first time, they typically don’t know the details of the prospect’s insurance needs, medical background, or price tolerance. Consequently, they pre-run multiple illustration scenarios to provide prospects with various options.

They do this in advance to avoid the clumsy nature of running carrier illustration software in front of a prospect. This madness will seemingly never go away as long as clients want options, illustrations software remains complex, and agents desire a smoother selling experience.

What if an agent could go out in the field with no paper illustrations, avoid dozens of confusing PDFs, and clunky illustration software, yet still react quickly to client curve balls…

How? iSolve.

iSolve teaches robots how to pre-run millions of illustration scenarios each month and stores these calculations in a massive online database. iSolve then wraps an intuitive user-friendly interface around these pre-run calculations, allowing an agent to use their smartphone, tablet, or laptop to instantly display various product options.

When the agent has met the client’s product and pricing expectations, the agent simply clicks a button and an NAIC-compliant illustration is rendered for all parties to e-Sign. iSolve also integrates directly into iGO e-App, making it simple for the agent to digitally apply for coverage.

As a life insurance agent that founded iPipeline over 20 years ago, I know what it’s like to be in the field with clients, and how much of an obstacle illustrations scenarios are to rapidly moving sales. Alongside my colleagues, we have developed this new illustrations innovation, iSolve, to provide digital access to infinite illustrations for a possible sales scenario. No more “wouldn’t it be nice if…” Just 30 million pre-run illustrations right at your fingertips.

Did I pique your interest? Explore the power of iSolve in my OnDemand webinar.

Explore the Power of iSolve™

Written by iPipeline on . Posted in Webcasts & Videos.

Access Millions of Illustrations with Remarkable Speed and Ease

Bill Atlee, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of iPipeline, discusses how you can accelerate sales and enhance your consumer experience with iSolve. Clients are demanding when exploring insurance options. This leads to major time investments for agents and researchers to create multiple illustrations at insurer sites to cover all policy options.

Designed for exceptional ease of use and speed, iSolve enables agents to conduct one simple and secure search to return multiple life insurance quotes/illustrations–in near real time–to accelerate sales and enhance the buying experience.

Key topics covered in this webcast recording include:

  1. Executing one simple and secure search for multiple options using millions of data combinations
  2. Automating to enhance the consumer buying experience
  3. Satisfying numerous client buying scenarios and pricing needs
  4. Streamlining the entire quoting/illustrations process

iPipeline Launches iSolve to Simplify and Streamline Life Insurance Marketing and Sales

Written by iPipeline on . Posted in Press & News.

EXTON, PA (November 27, 2018) – iPipeline® – a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for the life insurance and financial services industry – today announced the launch of iSolve™, a new research and quoting product for permanent life insurance policy sales. Designed to simplify and streamline the process of identifying and quoting life insurance options for consumers, iSolve enables agents to conduct one simple and secure search, which returns multiple life insurance options in the form of financial illustrations. Early BGA adopters of this new agent marketing and selling product include Brokers International, Levinson and Associates, AdvisorNet Financial, and Empire Insurance Brokerage.

“Clients can be very demanding when exploring life insurance policies. They expect to see multiple purchasing options for a variety of scenarios and prices, and this is an exhaustive and complex undertaking,” said Tim Wallace, CEO, iPipeline. “With iSolve, our new research and quoting product, marketers are no longer forced to spend hours creating multiple illustrations to cover all the policy options a client might want to review.”

“iSolve has database housing values for every possible illustration solve scenario, which include premiums, target premiums, cash surrender values, distribution amounts, internal rates of return and guarantee years for all the top insurance companies,” added Wallace. “Millions of data combinations are at the agent’s fingertips, making it simple to compare sales scenarios for various carriers in the industry. It’s all about speed to market in this industry, and we see iSolve as a valuable marketing innovation for anyone selling life insurance.”

“We are excited to invest in a software that is going to streamline many of our internal processes. We have been looking for some time for a product just like iSolve,” said Ryan Witte, Senior Vice President of Sales, Brokers International. “As an early adopter of the solution, we look forward to providing real-time feedback to influence the next round of updates for the product.”

“As a leading IMO providing our 15,000 agents nationwide with the latest in technological innovations, we are always searching for the next ‘game changer’ to help our agents streamline their business, save time, and gain a speed-to-market advantage,” said Bill Levinson, Managing Partner, Levinson and Associates. “iSolve makes the task of researching and quoting multiple carrier perm products a simple, accurate and extremely quick process. This is potentially a real game changer for us, and we are expecting immediate adoption across our agent base.”

“AdvisorNet was looking for a tool to make running illustrations more efficient for both our advisors as well as our internal and external wholesalers. We often create spreadsheets and run countless illustrations which takes an enormous amount of time,” stated Aaron Niedorf, Vice President of Insurance Operations, AdvisorNet Financial. “With this new illustration tool, our staff will save time and our advisors will have the ability to make changes and run different scenarios without requiring assistance. This will cut down on the back and forth for the rerunning of illustrations and creating of manual spreadsheets. We are viewing this as a win-win for everyone.”

“As a life insurance brokerage, we take great pride in providing our brokers with the ultimate products and tools needed to simplify the complexities of the life insurance market,” said David Braver, Principal, Empire Insurance Brokerage (EIB Inc.). “iSolve is an innovative and powerful tool, which will save our brokers a lot of time and enable them to close more cases rapidly and efficiently. We view iPipeline as a solutions provider driving innovation within the life insurance industry, and we are excited to jump-start this new product deployment with our agents.”

iPipeline’s solutions are designed to enable the life insurance and financial services industry to automate and simplify all new business, administration, and in force management tasks to achieve desirable business outcomes. For assistance in reimagining how your organization does business and achieving a competitive advantage, contact sales@ipipeline.com or call 1-800-758-0824, option 2.

About iPipeline

iPipeline is a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for the life insurance and financial services industry. Through our SaaS-based new business acquisition platform, we accelerate and simplify sales, compliance, operations and support. We provide process automation and seamless integration between every participant in the financial services industry including carriers, agents, general agencies, advisors, broker-dealers, RIAs, banks, securities/mutual fund firms, and their consumers. Our innovative solutions enable automated processing for pre-sales, new business and underwriting, policy administration, point-of-sale execution of applications, post-sale support, data analysis, reporting, consumer delivery and self-service, and agency and firm management.

iPipeline provides the process automation and seamless integration needed on a global basis to make a sale by aggregating more than 130 carriers, 1,300 distributors and financial institutions, and their agents and licensed advisors in a cloud-based environment. With headquarters in Exton, Pennsylvania, iPipeline has locations in Bromley (UK), Cheltenham (UK), Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Huntersville, Ontario (CA), Philadelphia, Pleasanton, and Salt Lake City. Visit www.ipipeline.com.