Supportive staff leads to back-office success

The best-rated firm in the “new business” subcategory was Toronto-based PPI Financial Group Inc. The reason behind the firm’s success can be attributed to its dedicated full-time underwriters, who work alongside agents in the case-development process for underwriting life insurance policies.

“PPI has underwriters on staff who look at cases before they go to the insurance companies,” says a PPI advisor in Alberta. “I don’t know of any other brokerage that has that.”

Jim Burton, PPI’s chairman and CEO, explains how the process works: “We have a team of people who help and support the processing — including helping with the underwriting and the communications side of underwriting — with the underwriters and insurance companies. We [also] have three dedicated underwriters, full-time, who work with the agent in helping with case development.”

On the opposite end of spectrum in the “new business” subcategory was Mississauga, Ont.-based RBC Life Insurance Co. Advisors there were displeased with application processing, saying underwriters are lagging behind.

“Underwriting can make or break a deal, and it’s too long and too slow,” says an RBC Life advisor in Saskatchewan. “I’ve had a bit of trouble with them.”

Another possible culprit behind RBC Life’s troubles in this category is its old processing system, which the firm says it is trying to update.

“We’re really trying to change the whole back office,” says Ernie Murdoch, RBC Life’s senior vice president of career sales. “The things that we will be doing are significant. We’re going to be introducing imaging and workflow, which is really automating the process. We have a very manual process at this time, and we’re on the verge of establishing electronic access to real-time underwriting status. So, our advisors will be in a position in which they can go online and check the status of a case — as opposed to calls going back and forth, which is what’s happening right now.”

When it comes to back office and administrative support for in-force services, the Vaughan, Ont.-based Canadian operations of World Financial Group Inc.was rated above the rest.

WFG is in the midst of developing new applications to improve its back office for in-force services; it plans to launch the new software in early 2010.

WFG president Richard Williams says the firm prides itself on being different than other firms because of its direct relationship with manufacturers in supporting the back office. He asserts that the new technology will strengthen those bonds.

“We work with our partners directly, and they support the back-office requirements. That’s one thing that makes us different than the traditional industry,” Williams says. “We have good relations with our partners that allows us to work directly with them and submit business directly to them.”

Meanwhile, advisors with Waterloo, Ont.-based Sun Life Financial (Canada) Inc. were not as pleased with their firm’s efforts in the category. Many cite lack of support resulting from layoffs as the reason.

“With cutbacks, we’ve lost a lot of staff; and more and more cases are taking longer to process,” says a Sun Life advisor in Ontario. “Clients are going elsewhere [as a result].”

For its part, Sun Life suggests that advisors use the firm’s tech offerings for support. “Advisors can go online to the advisor business centre site for all types of information, such as underwriting policies, compensation structure, etcetera,” says Vicken Kazazian, senior vice president of Sun Life’s career sales force. “The site is a big repository of information.”

Regarding compensation support, Mississauga-based IDC Financial Inc. and Guelph, Ont.-based Co-operators Group Ltd. were tied with the highest score of 8.8.

“It’s never been a problem,” says a Co-operators advisor in Ontario, “and I’d say it’s quite important.”

@page_break@Jim Wingrove, Co-operators’ vice president of agency and sales support, says his firm provides advi-sors with immense back-office support for compensation: “When it comes to business opportunity at the local level and compensation, the district managers are the front line. They’re the conduit between agents and head office. I believe we have and offer a lot of support.”

IDC makes certain advisors are accurately compensated by keeping an eye on all aspects of the business to guarantee its advisors are content.

“We measure everything here,” says Ron Madzia, IDC’s president. “We measure each carrier from submission to commission — we call it ‘stat time’ — to see what their stat time is, so we know which ones are the best and worst, and we have regular meetings with our carriers to discuss various things.”

Unlike advisors with IDC and Co-operators, those with Woodbridge, Ont.-based Hub Financial Inc. were quite disappointed with their firms’ effort in this area, rating it lowest in the subcategory. Their dissatisfaction stemmed mainly from staffing issues.

“The person I was dealing with is no longer with the company,” says a Hub advisor in Ontario.

A colleague in the same province adds: “I’m not thrilled; there isn’t anyone great. No one cares, and they all suffer from the ‘It’s not my job’ syndrome. I’m off-site and I never get to talk to anyone.”

But despite these concerns, Hub’s president, Terri DiFlorio, says the firm offers full support: “We have in-force teams in all major centres, including full compensation and contracting teams. We’re unique with contracting, in that we have Hub Helps, and contracting is one of the biggest issues for advisors because there’s a lot of paperwork … we try to relieve them of their burden.” IE