Health and Wellness Application: Creating Engagement in the Individual Life Insurance Industry

(2 min read)

The Life Insurance industry has a problem with its policyholders. They don’t know them. They know their address so they can send the premium notice, but they don’t know anything about them. They know what their health was at the tie of application and that they needed life insurance, but they don’t know anything else about them. Why is that? 

The main reason why Life Insurance companies do not know their policyholders is that agents control the relationships and life insurance companies have always viewed themselves as product manufacturers supplying products to agents for them to sell. This has led to the agents being able to move clients at will to whatever carrier they like and the insurance carrier to have limited contact with their policyholders (at the time of application).

Insurance carriers recognize the need for engaging policyholders so that they can lower the risk of an agent moving the policy, increase the ability to sell more than one policy, and guard against a declining agent force by having a direct relationship. The difficulty has been in how to approach creating that engagement without jeopardizing the relationship with the agent and that agent’s relationship with the policyholder. Agents guard those relationships closely as they are the source of their livelihood.

Health and Wellness applications can create engagement with policyholders that meet the needs of both carrier and agent. First, the carrier builds engagement by providing an application that is a benefit reward for health behavior. Second, because policyholders using the application will provide data on their health, insurance coverages, investments and life events – the carrier can make offers on products or provide advice in real-time and in the context of the client’s needs. Third, when the client accepts the offer, an appointment is booked with the agent who can then have a contextual discussion with the client with accurate information which builds trust for the agent.

The Health and Wellness application is perceived by the clients as a value add from both the carrier and the agent which creates affinity for both. The process of information gathering allows for the right offers at the right times with an accurate understanding of the client and their needs for a contextual discussion between agent and client that builds lasting trust.