Life Insurance Policy Administration System UL and VUL Case Study

An Urgent Search for a New Policy Administration Solution

The Andesa Services client profiled here is a leading U.S.-based life insurance carrier that is consistently ranked on the Fortune 500 list of the country’s largest corporations.

A Critical Pursuit for a Large Block UL and VUL Policy Administration Solution

In 2012, the carrier’s Advanced Markets division was faced with a major challenge. The company that administered a large block of the carrier’s UL and VUL policies – approximately 40,000 active policies plus 80,000 inactive policies – was planning to leave the life insurance policy administration space. The vast majority of employees with experience supporting the carrier’s needs had already left the administration company, with more leaving every month. The carrier’s support contract was nearly up, and renewal would be prohibitively expensive – if it was possible at all.

Making matters even worse, the server on which the block was physically hosted was no longer supported by the hardware manufacturer.

A significant block of group insurance business was teetering on the razor’s edge. It was imperative that the carrier find a new policy administration option.

Conversion of the UL and VUL Block

After exploring several in-house and TPA options, the carrier chose to partner with Andesa Services for a multi-part project. This would entail conversion of the UL and VUL block to the cloud-based Andesa Policy Administration system, as well as the implementation of Andesa solutions including the Policy Snapshot web-based policy inquiry solution, the DataMart and Flex Report Writer reporting tools and the Internet Transaction Manager self-service policy change engine.

A Quick Adaptation to the Policy Administration System

The carrier opted for Andesa due to the firms’ previous relationship, including a successful conversion project, as well as Andesa’s deep domain knowledge, modern systems, client-centric processes and nimbleness.

The project began in earnest in May 2012. Progress was made quickly due to priority attention from Andesa’s team and project leadership. In less than 12 months, the UL and VUL blocks were ready for conversion to Andesa’s policy administration solution.

Fully Integrated and Modern Reporting Technologies

For the carrier, the conversion from their old environment to the Andesa system is truly night and day. With their old policy administration provider, a key block of policies was hosted on an archaic server that had already been sunset by its manufacturer. Now, their policy data is safe and secure in Andesa’s modern IBM BladeCenter cluster environment, regularly backed up and fully integrated with best-in-class reporting solutions.

With Andesa, the carrier enjoys:

• Priority access to an experienced support staff of more than 100 employees
• Flexible, dedicated client managers
• Streamlined transaction management capabilities
• Semi-automated new business processing through the Internet Transaction Manager application
• Automated integration with carrier hosted internet policy management system
• Regular anti-money laundering, disbursements, market timer, client service gain/loss, MEC and net death claim reporting
• General ledger detailed accounting, trade, billing, correspondence (financial and non-financial confirmation), reinsurance, reserve/valuation, compensation and policy contract pages, and quarterly/annual statements interfaces
• The Policy Snapshot web-based policy inquiry tool, which offers clients simple access to policy information, billing/premiums, policy values (cash value, death benefits, etc.), fund balances (units and dollars), transactions, transactions with funds and case-level data
• Pre-conversion data archive facility with reporting capabilities