Underwriting Nirvana

Here are nine ways to expedite your business.

By Hank George, CLU, FALU

The fate of your new business—of every application for life, disability income, long-term care and critical illness insurance—is in your hands. Whether it gets approved swiftly with as few obstacles as possible or languishes in purgatorial orbit around the underwriter’s cubicle depends on the road you take. I am writing for one reason only: to guide you to the right road, which will help you achieve underwriting nirvana, a joyous place you never thought existed! Here are nine ways to expedite your business:

1. Remember the three Fs. In dealing with any underwriter, be friendly, fair and firm. Tell her what you need, listen to what she says, and if she steps up and does what it takes to move your business to issue, then take a few minutes to send off a complimentary email to her boss or the CEO.

2. The factfinder is key. Now more than ever, you need to do a good factfinding interview. Cover the issues of insurability with your client, pinpoint any problems and then put this in a cover letter. The cover letter is the greatest business-moving resource we have.

3. Use the phone. The telephone interview is emerging as the No. 1 underwriting resource. It involves asking all the risk-related questions and then conducting a very focused “drill-down” of each yes answer. Support the telephone interview 100 percent because it allows underwriters to avoid ordering 50 percent or more of physicians’ reports. This means turning around a case in a few days rather than the industry average of 16.

Fully brief your client on the coming call. Ask him for the best time for the call, get his best phone number and share this promptly with the home office.

4. Prepare every client for every exam. And that includes every time blood or urine is collected. For blood pressure and pulse, admonish your client not to smoke within two hours of the exam. If he drinks caffeinated coffee, let him do so, but no more than his usual morning dose.

There are a couple of so-called liver enzymes that get skittish if you exercise. The same is true for the prostate-specific antigen test. So if they’re going to draw blood, don’t let your client exercise the night before or the morning of the test.

If your client has had an accident, surgery or has come back from visiting a developing country, let things settle down and get back to normal before they start poking him with needles.

5. Expect prompt, accurate case status reports. Whenever you submit a case, you have an expectation of having access to current and accurate case status. If you don’t get this, insist on it in a friendly way, with fair and firm expectations.

6. Expect to know what it takes to get a rating or rider removed. If your client is rated for blood pressure, build, high cholesterol or any other impairment whose status may improve over time, ask for the company’s criteria for reconsidering its original decision. If you don’t get an answer about reconsideration, insist on one. If the answer is vague, get it in writing. Nothing sells another policy like reducing or removing the rating or the rider on the first policy.

7. If they let you collect oral fluid, do it. Why pay a technician to do this simple test a week later when you can do it or, actually, just watch it happen? Acquisition costs are right near the top of the insurance company CEO’s problems-to-solve list. So don’t make leveling or cutting commissions his solution; let underwriting expense savings do the job.

8. If your client gets rated, or worse, is asked to take a CDT test, get a second opinion. There are two tests that are referred to as alcohol markers. One is best known as CDT and the other as HAA. One or both will be ordered if the underwriter has evidence that your client may be abusing alcohol. In my view, these tests aren’t too reliable. CDT really worries me; it is almost worthless in women. It may rise from heavy social drinking, below the abuse threshold, especially under age 60. And it is of little value when the GGT test is elevated on the screening blood profile.

If you have a case rated or declined solely because of the results of one of these tests, especially the one used most often, CDT, I think you are entitled to a second opinion further up the underwriting food chain.

9. The fate of your new business rests with you. That means it’s time to take action.

This is an edited excerpt of a speech given at the 2004 MDRT annual meeting. Printed with permission from MDRT. All rights reserved.

Hank George, CLU, FALU, is an underwriting consultant and president of Hank George Inc. of Greendale, Wis. Contact him at hankgeorge@aol.com.