Add Underwriter Age with airSlate SignNow

Fax autograph underwriter

we want to make sure that they are handling requirements as quickly as possible when they're coming in so we can turn the business around and get the agents paid [Music] [Applause] welcome to another edition of life insights brought to you by Columbus life insurance company I'm your host Rob Dias and we've got a special episode for you we've asked producers from all over the country to send in some questions that they would like underwriters to answer we have chief underwriter Erin wolf and the manager of underwriting Shannan Keller from Columbus Life with us today thank you for visiting appreciate you being here we're just gonna jump right into it here's the questions that have been sent in to us how our underwriters evaluated in their jobs so we're first and foremost concerned with the underwriters decisions we want to make sure that they're putting good risks on the books for the company and then you know we look at what is the quantity and then how fast are they getting the cases out you know we want to make sure that they are handling requirements as quickly as possible when they're coming in so we can turn the business around and get the agents paid what is an underwriters usual caseload I mean how many are you handling at one time I need a given day an underwriter will get between six to ten new business applications to look at and over the course of time they accumulate a caseload between maybe 180 and 200 cases now since you're a chief underwriter how many do you handle a day so I don't have my own caseload I'm doing referrals from Shannon or referrals from one of the underwriters and I look at maybe two to three cases a day usually I'm probably reviewing maybe twenty or so cases a day with maybe a pending at any given point in time about sixty cases why would underwriting be concerned with a medical condition when a client's doctor might not be that's a difficult one always to explain there is a definite difference between clinical medicine and underwriting medicine you know in underwriting we really have to be concerned with the law of large numbers you know we don't have the opportunity to see a client on a regular basis like their doctor does so we have to look at their medical history and assess them based on what we expect to happen based on that history you know we're looking at somebody at a snapshot in time on this day your cholesterol is 250 well your doctor may tell you go you know watch what you eat exercise a little more we're gonna check it again in three months and hopefully by that time it's come down because you followed those recommendations we don't have the luxury of checking again in three months we're making a decision today and today your cholesterol is 250 so based on thousands of people that have had cholesterol of 250 this is the rate that we can offer got you why can't a gence get a company's full underwriting manual that underwriters work from you know the really simple answer is that we don't own those we use underwriting manuals from two of our reinsurance partners and they are the property of those reinsurers and we're not permitted to re-release that information a lot of what's in the reinsurance manuals are information that a producer may not have on hand you collect an application that gives some general medical history about a client but not the really nitty gritty details about specific laboratory values or the specific things that happen after a surgery that might be important to our underwriting decision producers generally don't have that information there are several companies that are doing accelerated underwriting what about Columbus Life Columbus life is working furiously towards implementing an accelerated underwriting program we hope to have something like that in the second quarter of 2017 accelerated underwriting is a process where on life insurance companies use data instead of medical examinations to underwrite their clients so they look at a particular piece of data or a particular set of data use that information to find the best risks and for those people waive the medical examination when they think the clients otherwise healthy and then I have a set of data that looks like they'll be a good risk for the company so we'll get a piece of information analyze that it doesn't touch the client it doesn't require interaction with the client and if that test result is favorable we'll be able to waive medical examinations for that client and our target will be to waive about 30% of our medical examinations for our clients so that the the best clients the ones that look to be the most healthy will get through without having to go through an examination I think it's obvious that there are benefits to stirrer accelerated underwriting but what are some of the risks you know one of the main risks or one of the easier easily identified risks that we'll have to deal with is nicotine use about a quarter of our tobacco users that we have today we're people who unfortunately didn't give us the right answer on the application about their tobacco history and we discovered through laboratory testing that they were a tobacco user or nicotine user I will miss not only nicotine we will miss other things like diabetes kidney disease liver disease anything that we test for today in our blood profile we're essentially giving up now we'll do this in applicants that are ages 20 to 55 a lot of those conditions that were that we'll miss are things that happen later in life sure so we're certainly giving it up in some cases but we feel like based on other factors and in a younger person's life those are more more important to our initial underwriting decision how do you treat foreign national applicants we welcome you know applications on foreign nationals typically the first two main qualifications that they've gotta pass are they should be residing in the United States for a minimum of twelve months and have a valid social security number after that we need to make sure that they do have permanent legal residency by green card or certain visas that will accept we're really looking for people who have established roots in the United States and plan to stay here and if you can meet those simple requirements we can take a look with many states legalizing marijuana how are your underwriting guidelines changing it's interesting that they really aren't changing today we accept marijuana users as long as they're using infrequently or socially the rating that we charge is just a tobacco user rating for that that habit we treat marijuana quite like an alcohol if you use alcohol socially you'll be insurable if you use alcohol to excess frequently you might be there might be an underwriting outcome that's negative as a result of that use so marijuana is really the same way social users people that use infrequently they're fine they'll get a tobacco user rating if you use every single day we like to make a joke if you wake and bake that would be something that would not be insurable for us so I'm just curious then why would you relate marijuana to alcohol usage instead of say nicotine usage why do you treat it differently I think we do that you know mainly because of the effect that it has on you so you know people drink alcohol you know to get a buzz to get drunk and it's the same thing with the marijuana you know you're you're they're using it to get that high whereas with nicotine you don't get that you know you can smoke a cigarette get behind the wheel of a car and not really worry about there being any impaired judgments are there any risks that you are seeing underwriting is getting more aggressive on we've definitely seen an increase in the use of accelerated underwriting programs in the industry where companies will waive medical examinations for the clients they perceive are the most healthy one interesting trend is that companies have begun to accept patients that are being treated for HIV which is something for years the industry has avoided doing one of the areas that I find that we're able to be most aggressive is diabetics the fact that we actually used to underwriting manuals gives us that advantage to be able to put together the most aggressive risk I would think you talk to any producer and their thought is that most diabetics are going to be substandard and we actually have the ability if it's an older client you know someone who is diagnosed actually probably mid-50s and up they can often be issued standard no substandard rating I would think from my perspective if you're using two different resource you would run into potential conflict but you're saying it's actually better or easier for you it is so we have the availability to use both manuals and we assess the better of the two rates well thank you guys for answering those questions you've answered them well but I've got some other questions for you this is a little segment I like to do called rapid-fire questions it's when I fire questions at you rapidly so I'm gonna ask you a few questions and you answer them with that first thing that comes to your mind all right so you're driving home from work what kind of music is on the radio in your car country what was the last gift that you gave someone is this bad a truck Wow okay I don't know but I'm calling it a gift we bought it together but I didn't want to it was a gift okay so it's just my daughter's birthday so our gift was having nine girls over to our house overnight wow that's a gift too yes all right question for you what's one thing you wish people knew about your job it's not a two-week training course and you know you're often underwriting it really takes I think you know several years of development to to get to a level you know where you are proficient where you are comfortable making decisions I think of everything in life now as an underwriting situation and it's just a habit that comes along with the job it becomes such a part of your life when you hear somebody about somebody's medical condition you think yeah that'd be standard everything becomes a rating in your life what is one of your weird quirks despite maybe what I've done today I am just a fidgeter so everything moving around all over the place is something that behaved well I thank you I call myself the crazy dog lady not just any dogs it's big dogs so big dogs yes I like to go up and give the big dogs a hug and they just look like they need a little love everyone's afraid of them so are you a morning or a night person morning night okay real Christmas tree or fake real fake what's your favorite work day time waster our bosses are gonna see this yeah reading extra medical records reading extra medical records yeah there's a good one how about yourself my phone bro what's a bad habit of yours that you know you need to stop doing nail biting oh yeah same thing finally what's one last piece of advice that you would give a Columbus life agent the biggest thing that I like to promote you know build that relationship with your end writers the more that you can do that you know the more you're going to be able to have open conversations and you know the underwriters are going to trust the information you're giving them so anything the producer tells us about the client is just extra information for us so if they run three times a week and you don't tell us that well we might never not ever learn that so it is imperative that you share information that you know with your clients well Shannon and Aaron thank you for being on the show to all of our viewers thanks for sending in those great questions I think there's no doubt that if you need good business underwritten or you're large dog hugged these are the guys to talk to and those were life insights thanks for being on the show [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] check out these other great life insights brought to you by Columbus life insurance company [Applause] you