THE LANGUAGE OF INSURANCE

From Afrikaans to Yiddish,
Language Line Services helps agents, clients,
and insurers communicate in 154 languages

By Elisabeth Boone, CPCU

Kang Liao, Ph.D., oversees the development and implementation of training courses for Language Line Services interpreters.

Seguro ... Versicherung ... Assurance ... However you say it, insurance is a vital part of our increasingly global economy. As our world grows smaller, the need to "speak insurance" in many languages is rapidly increasing. More than ever, agents and insurer personnel must have a way to communicate with clients who come to the United States from the farthest corners of the globe--or from our close neighbors, such as Mexico and the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec.

Standing ready to forge that essential connection is Language Line Services of Monterey, California. Established in 1982, Language Line was the brainchild of a young San Jose police officer, Jeff Munks, and a friend from the prestigious Defense Language Institute. One night in January 1981, Officer Munks received a call from the dispatcher, directing him to respond to an urgent but unknown situation at a residence. When the young officer arrived, the resident, a Vietnamese immigrant who spoke no English, was waving his arms agitatedly and screaming. Having no idea what was happening, the officer instructed the man to turn around and put his hands on his head. No response.

Incidents like these take place daily, in every major city in the United States. Police officers respond to calls and walk into situations fraught with danger that's exacerbated because of a language barrier. Fortunately, the San Jose incident turned out well: Officer Munks ultimately discovered that the resident's young son was having trouble breathing and immediately called for an ambulance.

The young officer's experience that evening changed his life. Frustrated by his--and others'--inability to bridge the communication gap when help was urgently needed, Officer Munks collaborated with an instructor of the U.S. Army's Defense Language Institute and in 1982 founded Language Line Services. Originally established as a nonprofit entity, Language Line today is owned by Providence Equity Partners and provides over-the-phone interpretation and document translation services in 154 languages. These languages represent 98% of all customer requests from the more than 6,800 languages and dialects spoken in the world today. Trained interpreters are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year, around the globe.

Building bridges

According to the U.S. Census, a foreign migrant enters the United States every 22 seconds. These newcomers become prospects for a host of insurance products, from personal auto and homeowners to life and health insurance as well as business coverages including workers compensation. Those with little or no facility in English face a formidable obstacle in obtaining the protection they need--as do the agents and insurance carriers who have the necessary products but lack the means to explain and sell them.

Language Line's interpreters build the bridges that close the communication gap and allow agents and insurers to communicate comfortably with limited-English-proficient (LEP) clients and prospects. In fact, the insurance industry is one of Language Line's top three client groups, with insurers, large brokerages, and individual agents making use of its services. Other client groups are financial services, health care, government (including 911 call centers), telecommunications, utilities, manufacturing, entertainment, travel, and transportation. Virtually all Fortune 500 multinational companies are Language Line clients.

Dale Hansman is Public Relations Manager for Language Line Services.

Language Line Services offers a wide array of services to its insurance clients:

* All customer service functions

* Call center support

* Personal auto and homeowners sales and claims

* Workers compensation sales and claims

* Group life and health insurance sales and claims

* Life and health underwriting

* Roadside emergency service

* Fraud investigation

How does Language Line decide whether to offer services in a particular language? "It's based on business need," responds Kang Liao, Ph.D., who is responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of training courses in insurance, medical, court procedure, finance, stress debriefing, and 911 emergency calls for all Language Line Services interpreters. "The demand comes from the client. Once we become aware of a need, we try to recruit interpreters to provide the service. We know the languages most commonly spoken in this country, and we have interpreters for these languages," Liao adds. Today, he notes, there is strong demand for services in such Asian languages as Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Laotian, as well as Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian. Overall, the greatest need is for Spanish interpreters because of the country's rapidly growing Hispanic population. Services also are offered in a number of Native American languages and even in Pidgin English. (For the top 10 languages on Language Line's roster, see the sidebar on page 000.)

On-demand interpreters

"Over-the-phone language interpretation is by far the most widely used service we provide," says Dale Hansman, public relations manager for Language Line Services. "Because the need for interpretation changes on an almost daily basis, we retain between 1,500 and 2,000 interpreters. Those interpreters are spread throughout
11 time zones and work either from home or from one of our six global interpreter centers," he explains.

"If we experience a sudden surge in demand for our services, we call on our contract interpreters," Liao says. "We also may use a contractor when we have a request for interpretation in Uzbek or Yiddish or another language where the demand is infrequent."

The majority of interpreters work from home; each is scheduled for an eight-hour period, Hansman explains. "Thanks to technology, each interpreter can function as a one-person call center," he says.

Technology also virtually guarantees continuous service in the event of a power failure. Language Line's two U.S. call centers, located in California and Illinois, operate as fully redundant telecommunications and database systems. All six call centers are equipped with an uninterruptible power supply that consists of both battery backup and diesel-powered generators.

Gaining access to a Language Line interpreter is as simple as placing a toll-free call and being connected within seconds. A client can arrange for interpretation service at a specified time, Hansman says, but most calls come in on an unscheduled basis. Language Line provides services both to contracted clients like insurance carriers and large brokerages and to occasional users. For some situations, Hansman points out, scheduled interpretation appointments are appropriate.

"Say a meeting is going to take place that will be quite lengthy--two hours or more--for a deposition or other purpose. The client can call ahead and request a French interpreter for a specified date and time," he explains. "With Spanish, there's no problem with unscheduled calls, but for less commonly used languages, it's a good idea to call ahead."

Rigorous training

There's more to interpretation than simply being bilingual, Liao points out. Interpreter candidates first undergo a thorough screening process, and only one in 12 applicants is hired, he notes. "We have a very comprehensive training program that begins with our new hire orientation, which lasts two weeks," he says. "The first week we focus on interpretation. A lot of people have the impression that anyone who is bilingual can do interpreting work, but that's not the case at all. Often they make the most common mistakes. In the first week, new hires learn our interpretation guidelines, principles, and code of ethics, as well as how to manage the call flow and deal with different kinds of industries," Liao says.

"In the second week, we teach them how to use our computer applications, which help the interpreter process the call, from taking information from the client to assigning the call to the appropriate interpreter. Most of our interpreters are qualified to interpret right away, so there is zero connection time. However, if a call is in, say, Somali or Dinka or Farsi, the interpreter who answers the call transfers the call to the appropriate interpreter.

"Our interpreters learn to handle many different kinds of situations. For example, a client may need help dialing an international call. Sometimes the client isn't sure about the language in which interpretation is to be provided. Our interpreters are trained to handle situations like these, and many others," Liao asserts.

For an interpreter's first week on the job, he or she is "shadowed" by a mentor, so the new hire can get help from an experienced interpreter. "Our quality specialists continue to observe new hires over the next three months to assess performance and identify problems," Liao says. "The quality specialists work closely with the trainers and share information about training and coaching methods."

Also over the first three months, new hires receive 911 training and stress management training, he notes. "Because interpreters are usually required to be more proactive on 911 calls, we use different guidelines in this training," he says. "We train new hires to get key information as soon as possible: 'Where are you calling from? Do you need an ambulance? Is the injured person breathing? How badly is the person wounded? Are there any weapons involved?' Police dispatchers need to know this information as early as possible."

Dealing with 911 emergency calls can be extremely stressful, Liao observes. "An incident may involve death, domestic violence, rape, or child abuse. When any of these things happens, we regard it as a critical incident because it may have a very bad effect on the interpreter," he says. "Even though the interpreter is on the phone and not at the site of the incident, an emergency call can cause the interpreter some serious stress. To help our interpreters cope, we provide stress management training. We also have a peer support program where coworkers are professionally trained to provide immediate help to a stressed interpreter. It has been working very well," Liao observes; "so far, none of our interpreters has needed to see a professional counselor."

Handling emergency 911 calls is good preparation for interpreters who field calls from insurance clients, particularly in the case of automobile accidents. People who have been involved in a vehicle crash are shaken, often injured, frightened, or disoriented. Talking with an interpreter in one's own language is sometimes a lifesaver and always reassuring to an accident victim in distress.

"Speaking" insurance

Language Line Services believes that understanding the terminology and procedures of a given industry is equally as important as being a skilled interpreter. After the first three months of training, new interpreters receive industry-specific training in such areas as insurance, finance, medical, and court procedure. "Understanding insurance policy terms isn't easy even for native-born Americans," Liao remarks, "so you can imagine how difficult it is for Chinese, Hispanic, and other immigrants. We want to make sure our interpreters speak the language of insurance as well as the languages in which they provide interpretation."

Serving as director of insurance training for Language Line's interpreters is Fabio Heredia. "Insurance-specific terminology is foreign to a lot of people from other countries," he comments. "In many countries, insurance isn't even required. Immigrants come to the United States and realize that they have to buy liability insurance. In many languages, there is no word for 'liability,' or it means something completely different from its meaning in English. Our focus in training interpreters is to ensure not only that they understand insurance terms but also that they are able to explain the terms to prospects and clients," Heredia says. "For example, most native-born American insurance buyers know that the term 'full coverage' doesn't mean that every conceivable loss is covered by a policy. But when you literally translate that term into another language, the prospect immediately assumes that everything is covered, and if he has an accident, he is understandably upset when he realizes he doesn't have total coverage. He's angry because he wasn't given an explanation of the concept of full coverage; all he received was a translation of the term."

At Language Line Services, Heredia explains, interpreters are trained to understand and explain insurance terms clearly to prospects and clients instead of merely translating them. "Our interpreters help prospects understand policy provisions like medical payments, towing and roadside assistance, rental car reimbursement--all things that are covered in the policy but for which full coverage is not provided," he says.

Persons with limited English proficiency may also need explanations of words whose meaning everyone assumes is clear, like "child," Liao adds. "The Immigration and Naturalization Service defines a child as someone under the age of 14," he says. "That's different from everyday, non-legal usage in America, where 'child' means offspring of any age."

Multicultural market

In urban and suburban areas throughout the country, independent agents and brokers are seeing significant growth in immigrant populations: Hispanic, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Bosnian, Indian, Pakistani, and many others. How can Language Line Services help independent agents and brokers meet the needs of an increasingly multicultural market?

"Essentially, we provide the same service to all our insurance clients--agencies as well as companies--which is over-the-phone language interpretation," Hansman says. "It's a three-way conversation involving our client--typically an insurance company or agency--their client, the prospect or insured, and our interpreter. For an agency or insurer with a call center, the call center receives a call from a policyholder who speaks very little English. That person is placed on hold by the call center representative, who refers to our 'Hold Please' tool for the phonetic pronunciation of 'please hold for an interpreter' in the caller's language. Within seconds, an interpreter is on the line, and the call center brings the caller in on the call," Hansman explains.

"Suppose a prospect walks into an independent agency off the street and speaks just enough English to say, 'I need insurance,'" Hansman says. "Once the agent starts trying to explain policy terms, it's clear that he or she needs some help. The agent asks the prospect to wait a second, calls Language Line, and within seconds is connected to an interpreter. The agent briefly explains the situation to the interpreter, then puts him or her on the speakerphone so the agent, prospect, and interpreter can take part in a three-way conversation." Similarly, agents can use Language Line interpreters to facilitate communication about claims, policy changes, coverage questions, and renewals.

Agents' needs for Language Line's interpretation services vary, of course, depending on the frequency with which they encounter prospects and clients who have limited English proficiency. Language Line can help an agent decide whether to enter into a contract for ongoing services or use services on an occasional, as-needed basis. Without a contract, Language Line's charges are higher on a per-minute basis than with a contract, but by starting out without a contract, an agent can try out the interpretation services.

"It takes less than 48 hours to set up an account, and once it's been established, we offer the client monthly electronic billing via e-mail," Hansman says. "Once the client has an account number, he or she can just call our toll-free number to receive on-the-spot interpretation."

For agents and brokers who are wondering how to "speak insurance" in a bewildering array of languages, there's a simple three-word answer: Language Line Services. With qualified, industry-educated interpreters in more than 150 languages, Language Line stands ready to build bridges across language and culture gaps and help independent agents serve an increasingly multicultural market. *

1. Spanish

2. Mandarin (the official language of China)

3. Cantonese (a dialect spoken by many Chinese Americans)

4. Vietnamese

5. Japanese

6. Russian

7. Korean

8. French

9. Portuguese

10. Arabic

For more information:

Language Line Services
Phone: (877) 886-3885
Web site: www.languageline.com