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MetLife Investors: Powered by Insurance Technologies ForeSight™
Company Overview...
MetLife Investors, a subsidiary of MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET) is dedicated to meeting the financial goals and objectives of the investing public. The MetLife companies serve approximately 10 million individual households in the U.S. and companies and institutions with 33 million employees and members. MetLife also has international insurance operations in 13 countries.
MetLife Investors (MLI) offers a suite of variable annuity products and will strive to become a full-scale financial services provider by expanding its product line to include variable life insurance, mutual funds and retirement plans. MLI uses the Insurance Technologies ForeSight™ illustration system to sell over $1 billion a year in assets, through 30,000+ registered representatives.
Situation Analysis...
As the complexity of variable annuities grows in the marketplace, a need for products that both agents and consumers can understand is rapidly increasing.
MetLife Investors (MLI) required innovative technology to deliver high-level functionality via the web. Other tools could not easily model their complex annuity products. Technology helps to drive new distribution channels to open doors for new selling relationships. MLI's challenge was to increase distribution partners while bringing new technical tools to assist in the sales process.
MLI also had a need to integrate these tools with their iContact CRM (customer relationship management) system. This interaction allows the two applications to share information about product availability and representative activity, seamlessly simplifying the user experience and allowing representatives to focus on new sales. MLI required software that offered:
- Deep Integration capabilities
- Annuity Specialization
- and Support for a Complex Distribution Hierarchy
How Insurance Technologies ForeSight™ Solved the Problem...
MLI selected the web version of Insurance Technologies ForeSight™ Enterprise, Insurance Technologies' premier point-of-sale management system, to illustrate its unbundled variable annuity products and fixed products. Insurance Technologies ForeSight™ Enterprise will support the rich features of MLI's latest products, including dollar-cost averaging, living benefits, death benefits and bonus features, highlighting the power of this functionality in various market conditions.
MLI also needed the Insurance Technologies ForeSight™ system to be integrated with its current CRM system, iContact, allowing them to create a seamless environment for internal users and external agents. MLI's CRM system contains complex distribution information, including broker specific product options and preferences.
Integrating Insurance Technologies ForeSight™ and iContact has given the internal sales staff a significant advantage in helping agents sell their products. Internal sales now have the ability to view the history of previous activities of illustrations through CRM capabilities.
Time-sensitive rate updates are also sent directly from the administration system into Insurance Technologies ForeSight™, giving users the most current rate information for accuracy and consistency.
With the full web capability of Insurance Technologies ForeSight™, internal and external users can enter the system directly from their CRM record without additional sign on information. They are able to quickly model the insurance product in a way that best meets their client's needs. As new variable annuity products and features become available through MLI, agents and firms can access products through one source via the web.
Results/Benefit/Proof...
- Since the implementation of Insurance Technologies ForeSight™, this technology has played a significant role in increasing MLI's overall sales volume
- Insurance Technologies ForeSight™ easily integrates with iContact, MLI's customer relationship management system, allowing a seamless environment for internal users and external agents
- Annuity specialization shows the power of features under various marketing conditions
- Systems integration allows product features and availability to be driven directly from the CRM system
- CRM integration capabilities give internal sales staff the ability to view history of previous activity of illustrations
- Nightly interaction with administration systems allow time-critical rate updates
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