Greg Horak Highlighted in Broker World Magazine

When I started working in the life insurance industry twenty-five some odd years ago the technological revolution that started in the late 90’s and took off like a rocket at the turn of the century hadn’t yet started. Email existed and some of the employees at life insurance companies had email accounts…but most didn’t.

The internet existed and some of the life insurance companies had websites…but most didn’t. Google didn’t exist, Amazon didn’t exist, and Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist. And we still worked in an environment where we faxed paper applications to home offices and medical records were paper and not in an electronic format.

Slowly the technology that we all now take for granted took over the world, including the life insurance world. Insurance companies and advisors slowly started using and relying on email. Insurance companies slowly started to design websites that provide advisors and customers essential tools and information about their products and services.

Over the past two decades, we’ve evolved from a time when every document required an original signature…to a time when drop-tickets are submitted, voice-signatures are received, and e-signatures are accepted at delivery.

But the technological leap that’s occurred over the last twenty years hasn’t just impacted the processing of applications. That was the first step and, in my opinion, the least important step.

It was the way many carriers navigated a very steep learning curve that made them comfortable enough to start using the technology that existed (and has yet to exist) to reduce underwriting times and the need and cost of certain underwriting requirements. This new technology is being used to allow insurance companies to waive certain requirements, which makes your job easier and makes applying for life insurance less painful to your clients.

As technology and public records become more ubiquitous throughout society, industries from banks to online book sellers, and from supermarkets to life insurance companies, are using these new tools to cut costs and make better and faster decisions.

This brings us to two of the oldest resources that insurance companies have used to help them obtain accurate and complete information on their proposed insureds…the MIB and MVR.

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