BENEFITS BUSINESS

EASING THE PAIN

UnumProvident's disability products are tied
into communications services for agents and insureds

By Len Strazewski

The improved customer call center reduces the service burden on agents and provides faster, more accurate responses to policyholders.

"It's not like life insurance," says William Mayer, president of WM Insurance Planning in Bellevue, Washington, a two-person agency that specializes in disability and income replacement insurance. "With life insurance products, most of the policy details are clear and the rate information is straightforward. You can quote your customer from a ratings manual and be confident that the details of the coverage are consistent across the range of carriers you represent," he says. "Most customers at least understand the basics of life insurance, the nature of a death benefit or a cash value."

Short- and long-term disability and other income replacement products aren't so simple, says Mayer, who represents more than a dozen life and disability insurance companies. "Everything is a variable: Age, height, weight, monthly income and other factors all relate to an individual product premium."

Rarely does an individual customer understand the terms and conditions of disability-related products, such as the need for a waiting period, integration with Social Security disability benefits and the difference between occupational and non-occupational disabilities.

"Definitions can be vague and vary from company to company," he says. "Policy terms vary from company to company. Claims management responsibilities can vary from insurer to insurer."

Group employee benefits products such as insured short- and long-term disability insurance can be even more difficult to manage. Mayer says he tends to avoid large group disability sales because of the complexity of dealing with large employer service needs and the sheer volume of customer service demands.

Most insurance companies aren't making the job any easier, Mayer says. Disability-related insurance products have become increasingly complex, and the marketing and service needs have become increasingly demanding.

The latest generation of disability and income replacement products also features combinations of insurance and health or security-related services and is marketed as voluntary benefits to large employer groups that have already purchased group long- or short-term disability insurance. Many of the new products are designed to fill in income gaps created by limited long-term disability benefits and sick leave policies. Others combine wellness or special health care products with income replacement coverage.

For example, over the past two years, UnumProvident in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has introduced a series of new products that combine traditional income replacement or specialty health insurance with wellness, education or personal security services. Each of the products provides enhanced customer services.

In early 2000, UnumProvident teamed with Ceridian Corporation to offer LifeBalance, an integrated work/life and employee assistance program (EAP). Life Balance is designed to provide employees with short-term counseling and access to support for parenting, education, aging and financial and legal issues. The product was marketed to UnumProvident group long-term disability and term life insurance customers at more than 14,000 companies. Two million employees enrolled in 18 months.

Covered employees can access LifeBalance services with toll-free telephone contact, online or in up to three face-to-face EAP sessions. In the wake of the September 11 tragedy, the counseling service provided under LifeBalance increased 63% above normal, peaking about one week after the World Trade Center and Pentagon crashes, the company says.

Last year, UnumProvident introduced two other new products with unusual combinations of services and somewhat complex marketing challenges. For small employer groups, the insurer introduced WorkPack, a package of voluntary benefits that combines short-term disability coverage, term life insurance and critical illness and cancer indemnity coverage. Employees pay for the coverage through payroll deduction.

UnumProvident estimates that about 500,000 small employers and more than 19 million individual employees would be eligible for the coverage--a daunting marketing task for any agency.

The insurer also introduced SecurAssist, a new optional component to its basic accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) products. The insurer teamed with Assist America, Inc,. in Princeton, New Jersey, one of the largest providers of global medical travel assistance to provide travel and security advisories and country profiles for traveling employees in addition to medical referrals.

However, to support these new products, UnumProvident has increased its communications support for both its agents and individual customers. In July 2001, the company launched a series of improvements in call center support with its enhanced Sales Support Center for producers.

The enhanced call center is designed to support producers with instant access to product and plan information and immediate response for individual coverage quotes, says Thomas J. Thompson, vice president of customer loyalty services.

"In the past, we admit that producers didn't always have an easy time getting information," Thompson says. "We had separate call centers for disability and long-term care products, and turnaround for information could take days. Some regions, California and Florida, in particular, had their own services to account for product differences and regulatory demands in those regions."

However, after the merger of Unum, Provident Insurance Co. and Paul Revere Insurance Co., the combined operations began to integrate its support services. Agent callers are now directly referred to appropriate regions and service representatives with comprehensive product and rate information, Thompson says.

Producers can receive quotes by telephone, regular mail, fax or e-mail, according to Thompson. Last year, the Sales Support Center received more than 380,000 calls, 35,000 fax and e-mail requests, and generated more than 650,000 proposals.

Speed has improved dramatically, Thompson says. Producers regularly receive fax or e-mailed proposals sent while they are still talking by voice to a representative.

Agent Mayer says he has had good experience with the new Sales Support Center. "I like it. My information flow with the company has improved and I get a much better response on quotes and proposals."

Mayer says that despite all of the new technology options, he still prefers to receive quotes the old-fashioned way--by mail. "Fax is faster," he admits, "but I like to make clean, formal presentations to my clients."

The Sales Support Center also provides better support for mullet-life sales and large group enrollment, such as the various voluntary benefits products sold to employer groups, Thompson says. "Our new service enhances the enrollment process by providing telephone access to specialists who are experts on our products. For large employer groups, we can obtain their employee benefits information and respond directly to employee questions about how the new voluntary benefits packages fit into their other benefits and what both categories of benefits can provide."

In addition, agents can work directly with the employer contact and make presentations to groups of employees, but provide the toll-free services to respond to after-hours questions and process enrollment requests.

UnumProvident has also used new telephone switching technology to enhance the customer service and claims call center operations. The new technology allows UnumProvident to unite the various product call centers that had been maintained by Unum, Provident and Paul Revere and provide a single point of access for customers calling with coverage or claims questions.

For example, a policyholder seeking an update on a claim can dial a toll-free telephone number and enter a customer identification number which links directly to a claims database. The database automatically determines what kind of claim the caller has filed. The call is then transferred to a representative trained to handle the specific type of claim.

Thompson says the improved customer call center reduces the service burden on agents and provides faster, more accurate responses to policyholders who need specific information on the range of products available from the UnumProvident companies. *

The author

Len Strazewski has been covering employee benefits issues for more than 20 years and is employee benefits editor of Human Resource Executive magazine. He has an M.A. in Industrial Relations from Loyola University.