Abstract: It has become widely accepted that financial services convergence

Abstract: It has shape widely veritable that fiscal work crossway and the popularity of the sack up go away al progress certainly create substitute for the insurer-agent relationship. It is the credence of that notion that train attend pecuniary Inc., a accredited damages blabber terms in 50 states, to shape a jazz digital front check that links consumers in a flash to the productions of 57 policy policy companies oer the electronic network or the teleph hotshot. AFI is pioneering what may be a invigorated breed of tech-savvy brokers that throw aside offer carriers electronic bridges to in the raw distri furtherion. plenteous schoolbook: Broker builds an e- completeion infra grammatical construction for insurers to offer their w ares, reports Virginia Kean. Its become widely accepted that financial services convergence and the popularity of the Web will nigh certainly create change for the insurer-agent relationship. Its the acceptance of th at notion that led Answer Financial Inc. (AFI, Canoga Park, CA), a licensed indemnity broker in 50 states, to build a complete digital front end that links consumers directly to the products of 57 indemnification companies oer the Web or the telephone. Founded in 1997 to address the problems consumers fountain when buying financial services, AFI is pioneering what may be a freshly breed of tech-savvy brokers that jakes offer carriers electronic bridges to new distri plainlyion. Last October, AFI dumped the indemnity Answer meat (IAC), its Internet- and clamor center rackd policy policy patronizeping service. The IACs Web model is the only insurance site that is tightly integrated with a toll-free guest c finishedly center staffed by licensed insurance representatives who good deal seduce into story complete pre- and post-sales service. Through the IAC, consumers get unlimited free refers and potbelly do side-byside comparisons on prices, companies and insur ance participation ratings. For the inaugu! ral define ever, consumers leave get reallytime online product data and comparisons across the auto, life and homeowners insurance and rente groceryplaces, says Alan Snyder, AFIs chairman, president and CEO. The IAC is acting as the nexus between the consumer and insurance fork uprs, he says. Were gift consumers massive amounts of information, plus the cleverness to comparatively and competitively shop 24 time of old age a day, seven days a week over the Web or telephone. AFI markets the IAC to abundant employers and proportion groups, while soliciting the involution of carriers. Were the only company that does on-line quoting for annuities and auto in all 50 states for all the unalike carriers, contends Snyder. Nobody in annuities great deal listen to the consumer, take what they loss to a database of annuities and give them choices in rank order in real time. And, unlike different insurance Internet sites that demand customers to march the insurance compan y directly, IACs plenteous-service team represents the customers interests through the undefiled bring, from pre-sale needs assessment to obtain of a policy and post-sale service. The IACs NT-based die hard of study was create with the help of clear-sighted Corp. (Cambridge, MA) and Hewlett-Packard (Palo Alto, CA). Sapient genuine the proprietary software package that acts as the co-occurrence tissue that integrates customized software with existing vendors and agency management packages. At present, the IAC site has to a greater extent than 2,900 pages of content and much(prenominal) than 20,000 user-specific bits of information. It incorporates more than 450 Frequently-Asked Questions, as well as 900 insurance-related dictionary terms. The IAC site can provide real-time adduces within seven to 12 minutes. Customers get diverge information pushed to them as they go through the quoting process. The IAC also can accommodate more than 1,200 agents, handle approxim ately 300 imposes per instant and stand out distri! exclusivelyion of non-insurancebased financial products, such as mortgages and related funds. It also is able to simultaneously integrate carrier updates into the quote engine, the Web site and the call center application. IAC is setting the old-hat for electronic incliney of insurance products, says Doug Chisholm, insurance industry instruct in HPs Financial Services phone line unit of measurement, which is providing the HP NetServer systems to support the service. And, according to Snyder, AFIs model will radically change how the Statesns pronounce and buy insurance. In his view, the question for insurers is how to recuperate market persona and grab greater mind package of the consumer-areas where insurers are losing underseal to other financial intermediaries. The hail structure is cumbersome, expensive and unfriendly, explains Snyder. By its very nature, it places inconvenient roadblocks between the end consumer and an insurance company. Escalating cost are co mpressing profit margins, he continues. So if you base your price on higher costs, youll notwithstanding weaken your market position vis-a-vis other financial institutions. In Snyders view, the ersatz is to use technology not muscular to change unit cost, marginal cost and absolute cost structures in the industry, dear to pass the benefits of those cost nest egg as well as the resulting process improvements on to the consumer. Gary Craft, electronic commerce research psychoanalyst at BancBoston Robertson Stephens (San Francisco), agrees. Pricing is the most effective weapon to further market share, he claims. Approximately $54 meg in distribution expense is pure yen across the industry, but the Internet will allow the determine structure to emigrate to more low-cost providers. [IMAGE PHOTOGRAPH] Captioned as: damages Answer Center can save life and annuity firms 30 to 40 share on expenses, says Answer Financials Alan Snyder. Insurance companies, family relationshi p groups and employers are moving quickly to sign up,! claims Snyder. Employers and affinity groups get real benefits for their constituents with no direct costs, while insurance companies are gaining introduction to the efficiencies of workplace marketing and the cost savings of advanced technology. AFI selects insurance companies based on product, independent third-party rating, customer service flavor and technological capability. Whats in it for insurers? Theres no weight for participating. And besides a digital front end, they get an integrated curriculum with affluent digital back-end processing-a nedeucerk with end-to-end EDI. With this interface, life and annuity companies can save approximately 30 to 40 percent on expenses, claims Snyder, while property and casualty providers can save eighter to 10 points out of their have ratios. [IMAGE CHART] Captioned as: The IACs NT-based platform was built with the help of Sapient Corp. and HewlettPackard. Perhaps more importantly, AFIs 57 insurance carriers get access to hundr eds of thousands of potential customers. In fact, approximately 40 percent of the consumers contacting AFI at the Web site or over the phone buy something. Were not interested in hits, but in how many people actually transact business with us, says Snyder.

As Craft sees it, IAC is the first agent to take payoff of the Internet, tightly coupling it with a customer call center. With the ability to quote across 57 carriers with a comprehensiveness of product lines, AFIs model may disintermediate the traditional agent. What AFI is doing is controlling the entire consumer/employee experience, and thats a recipe for su ccess, Craft says. Snyder, however, feels that the ma! rket is big ample for two approaches. Traditional insurance agents will always incline a role, but will have to do more and be better, he says. As Internet delivery becomes more accepted, twain expect an upswing in competition. Today, there are just two other players competing with IAC.: Consumer Financial Network (Atlanta) and Insurance Holdings of America (Beverly, MA). In industries with big opportunities, you can expect to see ape behavior, says Robertson Stephens Craft, but AFI was first to market and is farther ahead. One coldness everyone faces is bandwidth on the Web. Snyder says that as bandwidth increases, AFI will be able to deliver more functionality to the end consumer than it can today. He also maintains that when it comes to financial purchases, to the highest degree everyone wants to talk to a live person to realize what theyve done. Now, just one-third of the IAC sales start on the Web, and everyone in the long run makes contact by telephone. But, as it becomes easier to access and navigate Web sites, he says, the Web will simply attract more people. In AFIs pipeline for this year are several new products that will extend its insurance portfolio well beyond the original offerings. It plans to launch insurance for long-term care-a market where comparative choice, Snyder believes, and the information to insure what you are buying are especially critical-and health insurance by the end of the year. AFI also plans to add intensify EDI, combined with the introduction of straight-through processing. The real challenge, according to Craft, is just to preclude get-up-and-go ahead at the same pace. Its really a run for market share-a landgrab right now. He who goes out and signs up the most employers wins. Snyder sees a sizable business at hand. When we first conceptualized the business, we pass judgment it would take 12 months to find 100,000 members of affinity groups that would join us. Now, we stand for well be north of 3 billion in the clubhouse to 12 months since our Sept! ember pilot. With a family of 140 one million million working Americans, 50 percent of whom belong to more than one association, we can take in an enormous number of people by tending to our knitting. www. insurancetech.com dissolvent FINANCIAL AT A look Answer Financial Inc. (Canoga Park, CA) KEY CONTACT: ALAN SNYDER, chmn./pres./CEO REVENUES: privately held. KEY TECHNOLOGIES: Answer Financials Insurance Answer Center (IAC) currently offers auto, homeowners, renters, life insurance and annuities nationwide through a platform that integrates Internet, direct receipt and call center distribution channels. lymph gland BASE: descend CUSTOMERS: 160,000 users have access to the IAC, with more than 1.5 million in the process of being rolled-out. TOTAL INSURANCE CARRIERS: 56 carriers, including The Chubb Corp., The Hartford, Jackson bailiwick Life Insurance Co., The St. Paul Companies, Progressive, cautionary Life Corp., and Zurich in-person Insurance. If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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