Currently, life offices have several options for sending the tele-interview reports to applicants:
- To post to the applicant for return with a wet signature.
- To send to the applicant with the option to make changes and return it. The cover goes on-risk after a set period of days.
- To do nothing and take the risk.
The UK ABI’s best practice recommends an interview report is sent to the applicant and a wet signature is received in return. However, this does take time, and requires chasing up. If a report is sent, but not returned, then there is a risk that, at claim stage, the applicant can claim they never received the report, or that they posted it with changes, but it was not received by the insurer.
For MorganAsh tele-interviews, the percentage of returned reports that have material changes and hence require changes to the underwriting decision is less than 1%. Most MorganAsh customers try and detect any changes when the reports are returned. However, as this is so low, most are less concerned about this small risk.
The existing processes have a number of downsides:
- There is a cost in printing and posting reports to applicants.
- There is no guarantee that the reports are received by the applicant or by the life office on their return.
- The whole process takes time.
- Handwritten comments on returned reports have to be scanned into systems.
- The handwritten annotations may be illegible and/or ambiguous.
To solve this, MorganAsh has introduced an e-signature service. The service reduces the time it takes to receive an approved tele-interview report, following a tele-interview, from days to hours by making it easy for applicants to review, modify and ‘sign off’ their reports online. Applicants are able to review their tele-interview report securely. The service:
- is quick.
- is customer friendly.
- saves on administration, printing and postage costs.
- is compliant with ABI in that every applicant can be shown to have received and returned their report.
- is very likely to improve conversion rates and improve sales through the increase in speed achieved.
“Companies will no longer face the difficult choice between speed and compliance. This option is compliant, customer friendly and quick,” commented Andrew Gething, managing director of MorganAsh.