The good news on structured settlement annuity issuers continues to pour in. This just in from the MetLife, the country's largest insurer and one of the biggest issuers of structured settlement annuities.
"MetLife continued to deliver strong results during the second quarter as it achieved top line growth and increased operating earnings by 41% over the prior year period” Structured settlements were up 9% according to MetLife's press release.
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This author believes that the shorter the structured settlement sales cycle the more happy your customer will be.
One thing that I have observed that needlessly extends the sales cycle is delivery of structured annuity contracts to settlement agents, brokers or consultants after contract issue. After what for some companies is a multi month process even after all documents are in, some companies will only send the documents to one broker.
This practice occurs even if there are multiple brokers on the case. The "jilted broker" has to wait until the "mailed to broker" has the time or places a priority on getting the documents to the"jilted broker". I have personally experienced a situation where the "mailed to broker" sat on the annuity contract for a month and then, when I finally received them, they contained an error. This required my contacting the annuity carrier and another needlessly significant delay.
My solution to the problem was to include specific instructions in the split agreement/co-brokerage agreements (submitted to the annuity carrier) which detail the number of originals and copies of the closing documents (annuity contract and fully executed qualified assignment) to be delivered to each broker and the consent of both brokers to this arrangement. For certain carriers this has worked well; for others not. The process needs to be standardized.
It seems to me that it's in all parties' best interest to get the annuity contract in the hands of the their client as quickly as possible from the "all documents are in" date. In my opinion policy issue cycles need to be shortened and annuity issuers need to abide by agreements to split the policy delivery. Favorable branding and goodwill outweigh a minor administrative savings.
Several companies are apparently exploring the possibility of electronic delivery of the annuity contracts as a solution. This would be welcome as long as the standard "wrapping" is easily available for supply to agents. A few years ago I questioned one of the carriers for effectively "saran wrapping" their contacts, even those in which millions of dollars were placed. It took a while but generally, the structured annuity packaging today is pretty good. I'm not saying we need a blue Tiffany type bag, but we do not need to move back in THAT direction. There is a reason why you can go into McDonalds anywhere in the US, where there is consistent packaging even though a store may be owned by a different franchisee.
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With all the modern technology available one wonders why the majority of the companies issuing structured settlement contracts have not made use of an alert system to their appointed brokers.
When a case is submitted to the annuity issuer it often falls into a black hole after a faxed premium confirmation is received. Sometimes a broker will call and if they do not encounter voice mail the insurer representative may not have the information at their finger tips. Other companies require a sign in to a website, which is convenient if you are only dealing with one company, but not if with many.
A push rather than pull communication effort is sorely needed to increase the level of efficiency and shorten "the sales cycle" for all parties.
The first company I started with in the insurance business, Northwestern Mutual Life, has provided a form of electronic daily AND weekly status reports to its agents since at least as early as 1983. If the technology has been available for over 26 years (and possibly being used in other divisions of the companies) so why isn't it being more widely used?
I propose that each life insurer have an application in which the case status is pushed to their agents at regular intervals via email. This carries a minimal ongoing cost component. When I brought this up to a life insurer recently the response was that unnamed structured settlement "agents" or "brokers" didn't want to get a lot of emails. Do these people think that the system is efficient now?
Think about it...a solution which:
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