Insurance carriers face a daunting challenge – how do they adapt captive distribution channels to deal with the competitive pressures from direct channels? Carriers must make fundamental shifts in the way they support captive channels in order to drive a strategy that supports continual premium growth, accelerates production and ensures that every sales person can sustain and grow a profitable book of business. The new model must eliminate manual processes that are primarily driven by individual skill and rely on the agent or representative to determine the best offers for each policyholder or situation. This means captive channels must be supported by nimble technology that empowers agents to sell better and maximize the value of each policyholder relationship.

1. 5 WAYS CARRIERS CAN
OPTIMIZE DISTRIBUTION
CHANNELS

2. Insurance carriers face a daunting challenge – how do they adapt
captive distribution channels to deal with the competitive pressures
from direct channels? Carriers must make fundamental shifts in
the way they support captive channels in order to drive a strategy
that supports continual premium growth, accelerates production
and ensures that every sales person can sustain and grow a
profitable book of business.
The new model must eliminate manual processes that are primarily
driven by individual skill and rely on the agent or representative to
determine the best offers for each policyholder or situation. This
means captive channels must be supported by nimble technology
that empowers agents to sell better and maximize the value of each
policyholder relationship.
Thomas Harrington
Director – Industry Principal, Insurance
Pegasystems

3. 5 Ways Carriers Can
Optimize Distribution Channels
There are 5 key steps carriers can take to increase the value of their distribution channels
and improve the effectiveness of their captive sales force including:
`` Execute the sales process better
`` Leverage intelligent insight to drive more sales
`` Build profitable, long-term relationships
`` Fulfill the policyholders’ needs in real time
`` Help the channel force learn from success
Productive
Insurance Agent
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4. 1 Execute the Sales
Process Better
The key to improving the effectiveness of the captive channel is to improve performance
one individual at time. It starts by making proven sales processes techniques – the best
practices that are the hallmarks of top performers – available to every sales representative.
Next, marry these best practices with insight on customer needs or propensity to gain a
powerful combination for driving sale success.
Intelligent systems, powered by business process management (BPM) technology, can
help carriers consolidate data from enterprise sources, present the right information at the
right time to the agent and use the information to drive the appropriate next process steps.
Embedded rules and process match the carrier’s capabilities to the policyholder’s needs
and leverage analytics to refine producer interactions based on customer propensity.
Agents Receive New System Interprets Applies Relevant Executes Optimal Manages
Sales Leads Information Customer Insight Process Based Interaction to
on Insight Completion
Review
In-force
30 Year Agent
Coverage
Long-Term Policyholder Add New Driver Assess Covered Drivers
Package
with
Umbrella
2 Year Agent
Auto Policyholder New Homeowner Umbrella Cross Sell
Assess
Jewelry
New Hire
Coverage
New Prospect Just Married Initiate Jewelry Rider
Using enterprise data combined with predictive and adaptive analytics,
you can rapidly determine your customer’s intent to deliver a treatment
appropriate to the individual and the situation.
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5. 2 Intelligent Insight
Drives More Sales
Carriers can help producers mitigate the direct challenge – and sell more – by helping them
work smarter instead of harder. Using dynamic analytics and real-time data, carriers can:
`` Prompt timely action based on customer insight, and provide advice on the sales activities
with processes and offers that have the highest likelihood of driving sales conversions.
`` Design dynamic sales strategies that can be personalized and adapted to each sales
opportunity.
`` Continuously optimize interactions by adding context and relevance to recommendations.
The result is a dynamic sales platform that improves producer effectiveness by helping
execute value added sales activities, customize relevant cross-sell/up-sell/retention offers
and adapt strategies to the characteristics of each opportunity.
NEW SALES CHANNELS
AND 300% INCREASE IN NET PROMOTERS
SOLUTION RESULTS
In Poland, per capita income has tripled in the last 20 years and the shift in demographics When launched, the Pega Portal displayed all products available to that bank, provided a
presented an opportunity for ING Poland and they set out to fill this new market need with standard view of the customer, as related to that bank agent and the capability to execute
new products. policy servicing transactions. Bank agents selling new products are now able to bind these
products at the point of sale because underwriting, pricing algorithms and compliance
ING set out to broaden their distribution network in order to reach the growing and geo- rules are embedded into the application process.
graphically dispersed population. A new technology platform was needed to enable their
aggressive growth goals. ING needed a platform that was easy to configure, suited to The ING team was able to attain 80 percent reuse with the platform, which enabled them to
handle standardization and specialization of rules, and was able to integrate with external rapidly extend the platform, adding an additional banking channel and three new products
and internal systems. ING Poland found their technology platform with Pega. Pega created in less than five months. ING had a small team of three to five developers and business
a sales and distribution framework that integrated with both internal systems and external resources who developed and architected this new sales and distribution framework, which
portals, enabling the roll out of new products through a new bank in less than four months. will be used to add 20+ points of distribution in under one year.
“We did something that would have been impossible with antiquated, stack-based solutions:
with a small team of developers using Pega technology, we were able to deliver a sales portal to
our first banking partner in just three months.”
Pawel Brzeski
CIO, ING Poland
Read more about the case study
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6. 3 Build Profitable,
Long-Term Relationships
Successful agents or financial service representatives have the unique ability to cultivate
and grow long-term relationships, which are the foundation for a profitable book of
business. Producers always need to think about how they can maintain their customers
and determine how to continuously maximize the relationship.
Carriers can leverage Next-Best-Action technology that continuously adapts strategies for
the agent to use with the particular customer, equipping sales personnel to proactively or
reactively add value during every interaction. Because Next-Best-Action dynamically adjusts
actions and offers based on the context of the situation, the customer and the objectives of
the business, producers become more effective at understanding their customer’s needs
and intentions and are better positioned to continue to add value throughout the life cycle
of their relationship.
Using enterprise data combined with predictive and adaptive analytics,
you can rapidly determine your customer’s intent to deliver a treatment
appropriate to the individual and the situation.
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7. 4 Fulfill Customer’s Needs
at the Point of Interaction
As the old maxim goes – time kills all deals. This saying is particular pertinent to the
fulfillment challenges sales personnel face trying to convert a new prospect or execute a
successful cross-sell or up-sell opportunity. The ability to execute the right sales activity,
in real time, increases the likelihood of a successful sales conversion.
Most often, the issue that prevents real-time execution is the gap between the front office
and the back office. Carriers can bridge this gap by integrating the necessary support
tools directly into the producer desktop. By unifying the desktop, the front and back office
become linked in real time, enabling sales personnel to leverage needed tools, like case
management, to expedite work requests across operational silos and systems and drive
work towards speedy resolution.
A unified desktop
Support Sales Interaction provides all the tools
in Real-Time needed to perform sales
activities at the point of
interaction - increasing
the likelihood of success.
Accelerate Resolution and
Agent Opportunity
Fulfillment of Request
Unify the Desktop
Fulfillment Forward to Point of Interaction
Automate Cases & Processes
Accelerate Resolution Across Operations
Dynamically Integrate With Back Office
Built-in Connectivity
Underwriting* Policy Admin * Billing * Claims
Marketing * Sales Force Mgmt * Compliance
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8. 5 Help the Entire Captive
Force Learn From Success
To support next generation of insurance agents and financial representatives, carriers need
to make the collective wisdom of the channel available to all insurance producers. When
this wisdom is combined with real time data and adaptive analytics, sales personnel can far
more easily optimize their book of business potential.
Intelligent tools that enable business users to simulate and test the potential impact of
sales strategies before putting them into production can leverage knowledge about previous
interactions to determine the Next-Best-Action for the policyholder. Combined with the
ability to monitor performance in real-time, carriers can successfully leverage collective
wisdom to optimize production.
Pega’s Visual Business Director allows you to simulate impacts on your It also enables a global view across propositions, providing visual
business and graphically view its impact on SLAs, revenues, volume, insight into the revenues generated by a new offer as well as its
profitability targets or any other desired benchmark. positive or negative effects on other propositions.
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9. How Pega Enables Next
Generation Captive Channel
Designed to suit the specific needs of captive channels, Pega Distribution Management for
Insurance bridges enterprise silos to provide producers with real-time data on policyholder
value, needs and propensity. The Pega solution helps every agent or financial representative
execute like a top performer –regardless of skill or tenure. The captive force can leverage
predictive and adaptive analytics to personalize each sales interaction and dynamically
match the carrier’s capabilities to each policyholder’s unique needs. Pega optimizes each
sales interaction and seamlessly integrates the front and back office to help every agent
fulfill sales activities in real time. With Pega, carriers can attain an agile, intelligent sales
platform that can accelerate sales production and maximize book of business potential for
generations to come.
1 Optimize Sales 2 Mitigate Price 3 Monitor, Control and
Strategies with Pressure By Helping Adapt Strategies Based
Next-Best-Action Every Agent/ on Performance
Representative be a
Trusted Advisor
Measure
Simulate
Learn
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10. About the Author
Tom Harrington is Director - Industry Principal Insurance at
Pegasystems Inc. Tom supports Pega’s global strategy for the
insurance market and has more than 15 years of insurance industry
experience. Prior to joining Pega, Tom led product development,
distribution strategy and technology initiatives at Liberty Mutual, and
was a commercial lines insurance broker at Aon.
Contact him at Thomas.Harrington@pega.com
About Pegasystems
Pegasystems, the leader in business process management and
software for customer centricity, helps organizations enhance
customer loyalty, generate new business, and improve productivity.
Our patented Build for Change® technology speeds the delivery of
critical business solutions by directly capturing business objectives
and eliminating manual programming. Pegasystems enables
clients to quickly adapt to changing business conditions in order to
outperform the competition.
For more information, please visit us at www.pega.com/insurance.
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