Empower Advisors with Modern Life Insurance Agency Software

Advisors continue to provide a vital service in the insurance business, and in particular, the sale of life and annuity (L&A) products and ongoing customer service. While younger buyers increasingly research products through online channels, online-only sales represent just a third of all sales according to LIMRA.

The life insurance sales process is increasingly hybrid, with consumers often beginning the purchase process online and completing it with help from an agent or advisor. For this reason, advisors and agents need modern digital distribution tools and life insurance agency management software to build strong customer relationships.

What to Look for in Life Insurance Agency Management Software

The most important considerations when companies are evaluating life insurance agency management systems are the advisor experience, the customer experience, access to customer information, and support across the end-to-end buyer’s journey.

At the beginning of the sales process when consumers are looking online or with a mobile app for information about insurance companies and L&A products, advisors with detailed landing pages that are easily accessible as consumers do their research will be most successful in capturing new leads. In addition to including information about the advisor and the products and services offered, these landing pages should include agency or carrier branding for a consistent consumer experience throughout the buyer’s journey.

In addition, the advisor landing page should provide many opportunities for customer engagement that also capture valuable information about where the customer is in the buying journey so advisors can prioritize their time. For example, this page should include a highly configurable needs analysis calculator with reflexive questions, so that prospects aren’t re-entering the same information over and over.

Using reflexive questions also makes it easy to only recommend products that meet the consumers’ needs, and then offer them for quoting. All consumer information entered is available to the advisor and will follow throughout the application process. Even if consumers stop at any point in the buying process, the information provided previously is still available, so there is no need to re-enter information.

Which brings us back to the importance of offering a hybrid, digital- and advisor-supported experience. Robust customer relationship management (CRM) and lead management software for advisors makes it easy to see if a potential customer has dropped out anywhere along the process, so they can reach out and engage them directly to ensure they get the coverage they came for.

Moreover, consumers should be able to engage with an advisor when they need help, on their own terms. Whether that is requesting a meeting directly from the landing page, offering contact information for the call center, or even providing direct contact information for the advisor, converting leads to in-force policies is more efficient and cost effective when advisors and consumers are fully supported and empowered throughout the buying processes.

Examples of Life Insurance Management Software

There are many different types of life insurance software solutions in the life insurance industry. For example, quoting tools are widely available, and often available for free trial, but unless these tools are part of a larger solution, they provide very little value other than lead capture.

Likewise, there are a number of vendors that offer eApplications (eApps), an online tool for gathering the information required to process a new life insurance application. However, many of these offerings are little more than an online pdf, which is highly inefficient. Consumers often have to enter the same information several times because the static forms don’t autofill previously entered information. And in many cases, once submitted online, the actual application is then processed manually.

At Zinnia, we believe the buying experience must be fully digitally enabled, not just online. We also believe that the modern life insurance agency management system is comprehensive, supporting advisors and consumers from start to finish in a cohesive manner. Our clients chose the Zinnia Hybrid Origination platform because it’s proven to improve conversion, placement,, accelerates sales, and strengthens the bottom line.

Zinnia Hybrid Origination addresses the end-to-end buying lifecycle from lead to in force policy and includes all the tools advisors need to more quickly and cost effectively convert leads and increase sales. Key features include:

  • Quote & Needs Analysis: potential insurance buyers can get product recommendations tailored to their specific needs including single, multi-product, or multi-insured quotes. When a quote is selected, it is then converted into the eApp so the client doesn’t need to re-enter information.
  • Advisor Tools: advisors can easily create customized landing pages for lead generation and CRM that enable them to track progress, leverage marketing automation to engage directly with prospects, and identify potential upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
  • EApp: a sophisticated eApp streamlines and accelerates the application process. Clients can start, edit, and complete life insurance applications with advisor support or on their own – including payment options and eSignatures.
  • Data Dashboard: all data collected and third-party data sources are secure and compliant with privacy and governance laws and regulations. State-of-the-art marketing analytics deliver insights into segmentation, conversion, funnel optimizations and more.

And unlike generic quoting tools or isolated eApps, Zinnia Hybrid Origination can be customized to include branding and product content, ensuring that your unique brand, messaging, products, and underwriting requirements are reflected.

Life insurance agents and insurance agencies have choices when it comes to insurance CRM software, lead management, and other core agency management systems, but the most effective solutions will be both comprehensive and hybrid.

Learn more about life insurance agency software

To learn more about Zinnia and our Hybrid Origination platform, please check out these resources: