Mississauga, Ont.-based financial planning and analysis software company Snap Projections soft-launched the French language version of its website Friday, expanding its services to francophone clients in the country.<\/p>\n
A national public release will follow in mid-November, Pawel Brzeminski, president and CEO of Snap Projections, told Investment Executive<\/em> in an email.<\/p>\n \u201cThere has been more and more demand for [the] French version of Snap Projections over the years coming from independent advisors and amongst our largest clients,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Advisors can use separate language preferences on the website. For example, they can build a financial plan in English and toggle to French for a client meeting.<\/p>\n Snap has budgeted for two new hires related to the French language update, one of which has already started, Brzeminski said. The tech firm is implementing Quebec tax rules and will monitor Quebec\u2019s provincial budgets to implement future changes.<\/p>\n While parent company CI Financial did not request the expansion, Brzeminski said it will be useful for CI Assante advisors serving francophone clients.<\/p>\n About one in five Canadian advisors are in Quebec, he noted. \u201cWe anticipate considerable level of excitement and resulting adoption following the first 12 months after launching,\u201d<\/p>\n Moncton, N.B.-headquartered Blue Cross Life teamed up with Toronto-based online insurance platform PolicyMe to launch new term life and critical illness insurance products, Blue Cross announced Oct. 28.<\/p>\n Potential clients can apply through PolicyMe\u2019s website. Term policies can be up to 30 years with $5 million of life coverage and $1 million of critical illness coverage.<\/p>\n The digital underwriting system calculates the applicant\u2019s risk based on years of existing underwriting data, said Tim Mawhinney, president and CEO of Blue Cross Life, in an interview.<\/p>\n Medical exams will be waived for those who qualify for accelerated underwriting.<\/p>\n The underwriting process doesn\u2019t use artificial intelligence yet as Blue Cross Life wants to ensure they first can safeguard privacy and the decision-making process of clients.<\/p>\n In addition, premiums are on average 10% lower than the competition, as the online sales channel directly serves consumers without the involvement of managing general agents, Mawhinney said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s our long-term play,\u201d he said. \u201cBy going direct to consumer, there aren\u2019t as many costs in the system and those savings [are] pass[ed] on to customers.\u201d<\/p>\n Life agents are still available to answer any questions in the digital application process, Mawhinney said. Instead of prospecting, agents can focus on assessing client needs and providing advice.<\/p>\n PolicyMe\u2019s technology powers Blue Cross Life\u2019s website. As part of the partnership, Blue Cross Life made a $15-million equity investment to help fund PolicyMe\u2019s product development, Mawhinney said, such as researching when to ask applicants for their credit card information.<\/p>\n In the future, a permanent life product will be available through the online underwriting channel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Also, Blue Cross Life partners with PolicyMe for online insurance applications<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185342,"featured_media":480323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2318,2312],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[11001,70933,50437,50436,41379,26650,23048,18390,12472,2,10773,9588,6276,5140,2141,6],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495666"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/185342"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495666"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495706,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495666\/revisions\/495706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495666"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=495666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Blue Cross Life partners with PolicyMe for digital term life<\/h2>\n