Underwriting success

5 November 2009

Matt Rann The Expert

There are a number of key success factors which are essential to the CV of any office which aspires to be a successful player in the protection market of the 21st century.

Perhaps not surprisingly, IFAs now rate quality of service in the same league as competitive rates and flexible products. The key ingredient in any customer service proposition is the quality of the service and technical knowledge offered by the provider’s underwriting team.

In line with the importance that IFAs place on service, enlightened insurers are listening to the changing needs of their distributor partners who operate in an ever more demanding marketplace. The need for communication with the underwriters to manage adviser’s clients’ expectations has never been so great.

The need to provide proactive tailored solutions is equally important. Without a doubt, insurers can differentiate themselves on the basis of the service their underwriters can provide to the IFA.

The modern underwriter is a very different creature to his or her historical counterpart. The key skills and services which are required in any successful underwriting team can be captured as follows:

Today’s underwriter must have highly tuned communication skills with an ability to switch from highly technical discussions with their chief medical officer, accountant or tax manager while being able to explain the same issues in a way which can be understood by all.

Above all, underwriters must be available to talk to their customers. Good protection providers offer underwriting helplines. Importantly, these should provide immediate access to experienced underwriters.

Underwriters must strive towards finding a balance between the prime role of maintaining the risk assumptions of the office and the flexibility and commerciality that are key to providing an excellent service.

Underwriters must look to think “outside the box”, with underwriting manuals used as a guide and not as a set of ratings which must be followed to the letter. A can-do approach is the order of the day resulting in exploration of all possible avenues to offer terms and proactively offering solutions wherever possible.

Underwriters must also strive towards minimising delays through more effective and user-friendly methods of gathering the information needed to assess any risk that is presented to them. A host of initiatives are in place to reduce the time involved in this process. These include the use of point of sale questionnaires, paramedic screenings, mobile doctors and medicals by the client’s own GP.

An alternative solution offered by a small number of offices is that of immediate acceptance. This facility allows cases with no adverse disclosures to be put on risk, and commission paid while the underwriting process is taking place.

In addition to working towards solving the issues caused by medical assessment are the delays caused by financial underwriting. As well as negotiating high reassurance limits which negate the need for a hand-off, some insurers will now gather and accept cases from information taken from the internet. In addition, financial underwriting in the prospective client’s office is available. This is part-icularly useful when a comp-any requires key people to be covered and the policy is required very quickly or the business deal is of a highly confidential nature. Again, immediate cover has a part to play.

Underwriters have a big part to play in assisting the intermediary with their business.

The traditional services offered by the underwriting function are changing. The modern underwriter, now more than ever, has the ability to add value to the business of their distributors.

Matt Rann is group head of underwriting and claims at Aegon

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