New Carrier Administration System Claims Benefits For Agents

“On the agent side, because its Web-based, all [agents] need is Internet access that gets them into the carrier, if the carrier wants to give them that,” Corcoran observes. “It should give [agents] much more timely information. The quicker they get a case processed, the quicker they get paid for it.”

FINEOS says its new system will also “greatly improve relationships with customers by fully unifying and automating marketing, sales and customer service with all policy administration functions.”

The new system also “complements” the mainframe systems in place at many carriers facilities, the company says, “and is significantly cheaper to maintain and enhance than market alternatives.” No numbers were offered to support that claim, however.

The company also claims its system can deliver new products to market in a shorter timeframe than competitors products, and that it reduces customer acquisition costs. Again, hard numbers were not provided to support those statements.

In terms of system requirements, “we assume carriers are using DB2, MVSsome sort of mainframe system,” says Corcoran. The company notes that the product is built on a “multi-tier, open architecture,” offering “enormous flexibility.”

The cost of FINEOS Investor ranges from $4 million to $10 million for “a full typical implementation, including back office, customer relationship management and workflow functions,” also depending on the size and level of integration needed, Corcoran reports.

Further information is available at www.fineos.com.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Life & Health/Financial Services Edition, April 8, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.