Just how significant is a seamless “evidence of insurability” (EOI) submission experience in accelerating policy issuance and premium revenue? In the second quarter of 2022, SS&C’s BRIX platform passed the milestone of 2 million individual EOI applications submitted since 2007. The amount of coverage that was pending EOI and underwriting decisions on those applications was more than $260 billion, representing slightly more than half of the requested coverage in aggregate. Imagine how much in uncollected premiums would have been left on the table had a significant percentage of those applicants abandoned the EOI process because it was too slow or clumsy.
Facing pressure on both premium revenues and investment returns, insurers are looking for ways to bolster profitability through increased efficiency and more effective digital strategies. For employee benefits group life and disability carriers, there is a huge but often overlooked opportunity in offering coverage for employees over and above a guaranteed issue. A carrier will determine a guaranteed issue amount based on group underwriting, and many offer employees the option to apply for additional personal and spousal coverage.
However, that means the employee needs to go through an application process and the carrier must collect EOI—and too often, that is a big stumbling block for both the employee and the insurer.
As we explain in our “Driving Profitability with Evidence of Insurability” whitepaper, inefficiency in EOI collection carries an enormous opportunity cost. Many carriers are still reliant on slow, error-prone paper-based EOI collection processes, or they may have a homegrown, purpose-built application that has not kept up with advances in technology. That creates a significant lag time in underwriting, approval and policy issuance, delaying the start of premium collection by weeks or even months. Or, in the worst case, many applicants simply abandon the process at mid-point—they either forget they started it or decide it’s not worth the hassle. And the carrier loses an enhanced sale.
Insurers need a digital solution for EOI collection that is friction-free, user-friendly and secure, with modern capabilities that consumers have come to expect, like a modern, intuitive mobile interface. SS&C offers just such a solution as part of our BRIX employee benefits enrollment and administration platform. The EOI functionality in BRIX delivers a seamless user experience, with alerts to remind applicants to complete the process and rules-based auto-adjudication for the majority of applications. The solution also ensures that applicants are presented only the forms filed with and approved by the state regulators. By streamlining the process for both the applicant and the carrier, the BRIX EOI solution drives higher submission rates and can dramatically reduce the lag time between application and approval.
Improving efficiency and customer satisfaction in EOI collection can help life insurers tap into a vast opportunity for increased revenue from coverage employees want that is above the guaranteed issue amounts. For a deeper understanding of the drawbacks of conventional EOI collection, and what it takes to overcome them, download our "Driving Profitability with Evidence of Insurability" whitepaper.
