Ellipse can now generate group policy accounts in minutes

The online service from the group risk insurer enables clients to upload spreadsheets, including any changes in members or their details, directly into a secure environment.
As soon as the upload is complete, new policy accounts are produced and made available online.
Ellipse encourages quarterly updates of data, ensuring a close alignment of the cover companies have with the premium being charged. The overall time spent on policy accounting is now considerably less.
Eva Schwandner, Chief Operations Officer at Ellipse, said "One of the historic reasons for group risk policies being associated with poor service is the length of time clients have had to wait for their policy accounts to come through - typically weeks and often months after a scheme year has ended.

"Utilising available technology, it is perfectly possible - as we have now shown - for accounts to flow immediately from updated data."
"We believe massive efficiency gains can be derived simply by dealing with the right counterparty at the right time.
"For data refreshing, the client is the party with the information we need so it's logical to request it directly from them.
"Advisers are kept in the loop throughout, but the aim is to free them up from handling low-value administration.
Ellipse has made available a video on its website, it takes viewers through an example of a company updating its data from start to finish.

http://www.covermagazine.co.uk/cover/news/2217983/ellipse-can-now-generate-group-policy-accounts-in-minutes

Ellipse is sponsoring The Drift Kings

Ellipse is sponsoring The Drift Kings, three underprepared but enthusiastic students who are driving a van overland to deepest Mongolia.  (One of our Scheme Underwriters, Jo Garrett, is the – somewhat concerned – mother of one of the three, which is how we first got involved with them.)

Once (if?) it gets there the van will be handed across to a local community to be used as an ambulance, supply-carrier, bus or all of the above (and more!), so it’s all being done with a very good purpose.

You can follow their adventures, donate and find out more about the cause at:
http://mongolia.charityrallies.org/dogooders 

When does cover cease?

Since the removal of the default retirement age (DRA) employers cannot (in most circumstances) force the employee to retire at a fixed age. But as the industry was able to secure an exemption from the DRA for insured group life benefits, employers now have to decide:

“Should I provide group life benefits to members of staff over the state pension age?”

If the answer is “YES”, schemes should be designed so that all members of staff over the SPA receive benefits.  ‘Extended’ cover for some individuals and not others is no longer possible.

For employers who take this line, Ellipse can provide cover ceasing at a fixed age of 75.  There will be no underwriting or actively at work requirements; cover will continue either to age 75 or until the employee retires or leaves the company, whichever comes first.

Thanks to the exemption for group risk, if the employer decides the answer is “NO” we can cover up to age 65 or SPA, whichever comes later.  Cover can then only be extended for specific members if they undergo full underwriting.

If you have existing clients with us, they need to decide if their answer to the question above is “Yes” or “No” when their schemes come up for review – we can of course look at any schemes with members already close to existing cover cease ages before then.  

Along with my other colleagues in the Distribution team, I would be happy to field any queries you might have around the impact of the removal of the DRA on your clients.

Health Insurance magazine's Product of the Month...

...is InteractPlus, our new contract providing integrated income protection and absence management. Their review (read it here) awarded it 8.5 out of 10.

More information about the product, the 'Sick Notes' research we conducted in conjunction with Professor Cary Cooper, and the presentations from our product launch event, click here.

Oft-quoted rule of pension planning: 'Don't delay'

The stagnation of the economy and in particular the struggling plight of SMEs, has led to calls to postpone the introduction of auto-enrolment, most recently in a Government report by Adrian Beecroft.

But the nine million workers who currently contribute nothing towards an occupational pension – and who have no ancillary benefits – cannot afford any delay. Besides, many employers have already made substantial investments to gear up for auto-enrolment.

Auto-enrolment is a huge opportunity to raise the bar for employee benefits by ensuring that the workplace becomes a universal safety net for all employees, regardless of their income. In the longer-term, after the introduction of pensions, I believe employers will make a virtue of the necessity to contribute and offer broader benefits programmes, including life and disability cover.

In turn, auto-enrolment will be the trigger for closer convergence of group risk with pensions and other workplace benefits. Technology will be the key to giving IFAs the platform they need to be able to offer comprehensive benefits to employers in a hassle-free way.

Improved AALs - especially for smaller schemes

We've improved the way we calculate automatic acceptance limits (AALs, also known as ‘free cover limits’) on group life schemes.

The changes minimise the number of members whose benefits require underwriting, with the biggest impact being on small schemes, meaning that the process becomes as hassle-free as possible for them.

The changes to AALs means that Ellipse only underwrites members whose benefits are a long way from the scheme average and will benefit small schemes in particular, reducing the need to underwrite as frequently and making the process easier.

Even where underwriting is required, Ellipse offers its fast, easy, online assessment that allows the whole process to be completed within 20 minutes (as opposed to the usual days, weeks or even months our competitors take) in the majority of cases.

With no minimum premiums, no policy fee, the availability of a Master Trust facility - and now our improved AALs – it adds up to a compelling group life proposition for advisers to take to their SME clients, so if your company hasn't yet signed a Terms of Business Agreement with us yet, please visit http://www.ellipse.co.uk/working-with-us

Communicating direct to the client about their insurance cover

At Ellipse we have purposefully set up our processes and systems so that the right people do the right stuff at the right time and duplication and delays are cut out of the process. That is why important client documents like the policy documents, statements of account and direct debit collection advance notices are delivered automatically and immediately after issuance to the adviser and client in parallel (never to the client only) as a default.

Advisers are asking us to not use this functionality so that they can check all documentation before it is passed on to the client. For obvious reasons, checking is not a high priority on the advisers’ task list and therefore this practice causes delays and service standards that look much worse than they actually are. This reflects badly on both us and the adviser.

It is not unusual for policy documents to be passed on only several months into the contract, when they were originally issued within days of the on risk confirmation. Wouldn’t the client be better off with actually having a policy document at the point of going on risk? Even worse is when direct debit collections from the client’s bank account happen before the client has actually seen the notice that advises of the collection! This then leads to queries from clients as to the basis on which money has been taken out of their account.

Tellingly, very seldom do we actually get a document rejected in this checking process. So what is happening is that all documents are held up from going to the client to cater for the odd one out that might need a change. Process experts call this “designing the process for failure”. Why not allow the documentation to flow through to the client as a standard and then catch the odd one that needs adaptation as an exception? There will never be any communication to the client that you as the adviser will be unaware of, so you will always be fully in the picture about what is happening. Our aim in handling communications direct with the client is solely to save them and their advisers time and hassle – we have no direct sales force lying in wait to poach clients and no intention of inviting business other than through independent advisers.