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New Web Education Technologies
Improving premiums, reducing losses and lowering expenses are major opportunities (and some would say imperatives) for the health insurance industry, and are on the agenda of all carriers, agencies, agency clusters and industry associations.
For health insurance producer agents and account managers, being able to produce more with less effort is a key focus in these times of CE requirements, new compliance pressures, constant new products, technology changes, and other changes and requirements.
For carriers, the “Combined Ratio” ((Claims losses + Operating Expenses)/Premiums) is a major criteria used by Wall Street to determine a carrier’s market capitalization, which is near and dear to the hearts of public company stockholders (and the basis of many executives’ bonuses).
The challenges are real. “In 2005, insurance companies will face a number of challenges to grow the business, contain costs and mitigate risk.”—Best’s Review, January 2005. Insurance is a human-capital intensive business built on ‘knowledge workers” whose knowledge, skills and values determine results. The “Internet Age” training of knowledge workers is the key to achieving improved insurance business results. The companies whose knowledge workers best execute, and make the fewest mistakes, win the intense competitive race. Doing so must be approached from the “Employee Lifecycle” perspective shown below.
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Some quotes capture the potential:
“Agencies that have invested in people, technology and performance management during the hard market are best positioned to produce growth and profit.”--Best’s Review, November 2004, page 65
“By leveraging insurer-sponsored e-learning tools, insurers and their agents have at their disposal a flexible alternative to classroom instruction. “-InsuranceNetworking, December 2004
"The dual shocks of the recession and Sept. 11 appear to have prompted organizations to find faster, more cost-effective methods to train large numbers of people," says Chris Thompson, Ph.D., and author of an ASTD report titled, Training for the Next Economy. "E-learning can help organizations accomplish these goals and provide more customized and personalized learning experiences for employees."
The Gartner Group, Inc. reported in a recent study examining e-learning in insurance that an "online course taken at home or in non-critical business hours can free up 5% to 10% of total production time, with direct positive impacts on premium growth."
The past use of classrooms training is rapidly being replaced by the “Internet Age,” with many new, and dramatic, capabilities. What follows is a very brief review of these new capabilities.
Online CE Training Is Critical
 The business-hours production time "opportunity costs," and travel costs, of attending classroom training are increasingly being questioned. Online Continuing Education (CE) courses, from many possible sources, are faster and easier to take, and free up business hours for business results. After a course is taken it is quickly auto-filed with the state’s insurance commissioner’s office, and the learner is notified with a certificate in minutes.
Also, numerous vendors supply online personal skills courses with many different options. As seen in Figure 2 below over 2000 such courses are available. These courses help individuals build personal skills while not taking time away from production.
Solutions Are On The Move
The rapid rise in the use of PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants, such as Palm, Windows CE systems, Blackberry, etc.) and wireless-enabled laptops open a whole new capability in knowledge transfer. Checklists can be sent and received in the filed. Refresher checklists can be provided to a producer or to an adjuster. Courses can be forwarded and stored for study during quiet times in the field, and the results tracked. Being “untethered” will be an increasing reality, especially for producers and adjusters.
This article provides an overview of both the importance of applying Internet Age technologies to maximize human capital results in a health insurance organization, and how the many, new, powerful web-based capabilities provided by many vendors can continuously improve “knowledge excellence.” The results are dramatic.
Larry Duckworth is President and CEO of Learn.net, Inc. of Atlanta, GA. Learn.net provides insurance knowledge management solutions to Fortis, Alllstate, Encompass, John Hancock, J. Smith Lanier, PIA, and numerous other insurance organizations, including carriers, agencies, clusters and associations. Larry can be contacted at larry.duckworth@learn.net, or 404-307-0033. A self-assessment checklist is available.
Additional Certifications Capabilities, To Meet New Standards
There is a growing interest, a new industry standard even, for assuring (and documenting) that knowledge was gained via Certification programs, versus the past practices of permitting just showing up to suffice. All aspects of a Certification program can now be automated, as reflected in the below graphic. Not only can products knowledge be improved (with direct impacts on premiums and commissions, and lower losses), but compliances can be improved, and tracked. This includes for policies, procedures, E&O risks, and for legal compliances such as compensation disclosure, Do Not Call, Sarbanes-Oxley, Anti-Money Laundering, etc. “Guaranteed Competency Control” automation can assure that minimum scores must be reached before a certification can be awarded. Re-certification (each year, two years, etc.) can be automated also.
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