What's New in Cybertalk?

By Jean Gora
January 2002

CyberTalk is a column that appears monthly in LOMA's Resource, the magazine for insurance and financial services management. To see more contents of the magazine and to see how to subscribe, click on RESOURCE MAGAZINE.

HartfordInvestor.com Offers Competitive Advantage

The Internet continues to increase in importance as a vehicle for communication between insurers and their distributors. No site demonstrates that fact better than The Hartford’s new broker-oriented site, HartfordInvestor.com, which distributes annuities, individual life insurance, mutual funds, and qualified plans.

HartfordInvestor.com is a wonderful tool for distributors to use to access their clients’ account information and perform an assortment of sales-related functions. These functions include preparing tailored asset allocation reports, accessing downloadable forms and targeted multi-media presentations. The user interface is intuitive. The site’s functions are easy to use. In light of the fact that independent agents can choose to place their business with dozens of providers, The Hartford gains an important competitive advantage by offering them an environment as hospitable as this one.

Independent distributors have responded favorably to the site, which went live on September 10, 2001. By October 19, it had 9,105 registered users and 1,584 logins per day. The most popular section of the site presents The Hartford’s Director Suite variable annuity.

Status and Search Capabilities
Brokers can use the client overview section of the site to check reports on the status of individual life insurance applications. Such a report includes the following policy status information: policy number, policy status, date received, broker, The Hartford’s account executive, face amount, plan, date application signed, firm, phone, and premium amount.

The status report also shows the status and date of various activities/reports associated with underwriting the policy. These activities include the physical exam, the blood profile, the urine specimen, and the attending physician’s statement. Brokers can sort and search for existing client profiles and inactivate and reactivate clients who are no longer active.

Investment Strategy Reports
The site’s investment planning toolkit allows brokers to prepare customer-tailored diagnostic and investment strategy reports. The investment strategy report generates an investment plan for the client based on his/her investment objectives. It includes the recommended asset allocation, the historical performance of the recommended asset allocation, a personalized risk analysis, a recommended portfolio, a comparison of the investment goal to estimated available resources, and a discussion of investment philosophy. The broker can prepare the investment strategy report in about five minutes on the basis of the individual’s investment objectives, time horizon, and risk tolerance.

The diagnostic report gives a realistic view of how well the client’s existing portfolio is positioned to achieve his/her investment objectives. It requires the broker to enter the client’s current holdings. It shows current asset allocation, performance of current investments over time, performance of current investments compared to peers, an analysis of investments in correlation to existing holdings, the risk exposure of current investments, and the expenses and tax efficiency of current investments.

Standard & Poor’s reviews all of The Hartford’s asset allocation models annually. No one but the broker sees any client information entered by the broker into the online models.

Sales Tools
The site also includes sales tools that generate illustrations based on initial investment amounts, subsequent investment amounts, and withdrawal amounts. The annuity sales illustrations take into account whether the investment is qualified or non-qualified and whether the applicant wants the option death benefit or earnings protection benefit.

HartfordInvestor.com also provides background information that brokers have to have in order to sell successfully. For example, changes in tax laws can have a dramatic impact on the sale of insurance. The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 lowers individual tax rates between 2001 and 2006. It also increases contribution limits on various types of individual retirement accounts and 401(k) plans. The provisions of the law are complicated, and The Hartford’s site presents its key provisions in a readily understandable format.

Changes in the financial markets and in various industry sectors also affect the appeal of life insurance products and mutual funds. The Hartford has experts on various industries, investment instruments, and markets speak to its distributors through conference calls. HartfordInvestor.com allows brokers to hear replays of these conference via the Internet at their convenience.

Continuing Education and Information
To meet state licensing requirements, distributors have to take continuing education courses. The Hartford helps them do so through RegEd.com, which provides insurance continuing education credits online in more than 40 states. HartfordInvestor.com provides a gateway to these courses.

The Hartford also uses the site to provide brokers with significant background information on the mutual funds it distributes. One such promotion covers The Hartford Capital Appreciation Fund managed by the Wellington Management Company. The site identifies the fund’s portfolio manager and describes his educational experience, noting that 39 global and 12 regional analysts support his activities. It also describes the fund’s investment goal and approach and presents statistics on its portfolio, its industry weightings, its leading holdings, growth of $100,000 invested in 1996, and average total return since inception. The site also includes client letters promoting the fund. With very little work, a broker can download the letters, sign his/her name, and mail them to clients.

Many insurers are attempting to provide their distributors with services such as these. The Hartford provides them with exceptional grace.

See previous issues of CyberTalk in the CyberTalk Archives.