An update on the latest digital developments to support your advisor business.
Today, nearly every aspect of daily life is touched by digital technology. Savvy smartphones link us to a limitless source of information, services and social connections. And now, artificial intelligence and the applicable possibilities that it represents has become the latest hot topic of conversation that may have seemed unimaginable only a brief time ago.
Many of the digital innovations and advancements that we’ve become accustomed to are driven by businesses that are always looking for a competitive edge, including those in the financial industry. This has given way to a constant need to design and redesign systems and processes that serve and satisfy evolving customer expectations.
Manulife continuously invests in a range of digital solutions and self-serve tools aimed at making it easier, better and faster to do business with the company. For advisors, the most important digital enhancements are those aimed at efficiency and client satisfaction.
Here’s a description of recent digital updates at Manulife that can help support your business.
Tools update
The transition of products to the Manulife Illustrations tool and Manulife E-Application tool continues in earnest. The previous E-Application tool was recently closed to new business and retired from use. Advisors will now use the Manulife E-Application digital tool to submit new insurance business.
Additionally, Manulife Illustrations will serve as a simple self-service web-based tool for both inforce and new business. It’s an easier, faster option to rapidly build and receive illustrations. In many cases, there’s no longer any need to submit a form and wait for delivery to your Advisor Portal Secure Inbox. An illustration can also be run easily and conveniently during a client meeting. The tool features automatic updates and no longer requires downloading software updates for devices that are designed to work with Manulife Illustrations.
Currently, Manulife UL inforce illustrations are available on the Manulife Illustrations tool. Meanwhile, the effort is ongoing to add more products for self-serve inforce illustrations, including Manulife UL with Vitality Plus™ at a later date. Learn more about Manulife Illustrations’ functionality here.
Manulife E-Application tool
The Manulife E-Application tool provides a quick and easy online application experience for all our products, including Vitality Plus. The tool can service new application needs digitally, similar to Manulife Illustrations.
Advisors will be able to easily submit term conversions online using Manulife E-Application, for term conversions to Manulife Par or Manulife Par with Vitality PlusTM that don’t require underwriting. This will streamline the term conversion process by conveniently combining illustrations and applications into one online tool to make it easier, better and faster to do business with us. It means less paperwork for you, and it helps prevent incomplete applications and processing delays.
Another recent advancement is the addition of the optional Reason Why Letter* template that makes it more convenient to draft and submit the letter as part of the online application package. (*The letter is an industry expectation and Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) requirement.) Learn more about the Manulife E-Application tool here.
Training is available
Check out these resources in the training corner on advisor portal:
Manulife Illustrations
For help running illustrations online, read the Manulife Illustrations online tool job aid, and watch videos about getting started with Manulife Illustrations and creating custom reports.
Visit the learn more page for information.
Digital Desk
The Manulife Insurance Digital Desk is a live, on-demand service offering real-time insurance e-business expertise and support. Digital Desk is the go-to destination for help on how to use the digital tools for a better business experience. This video explains more about the benefits it has to offer.
Customer Secure Site
The Manulife individual insurance customer secure site (sign-in required) enables many individual insurance policy owners to view their policy values and to update their contact, mailing and banking (payment) information directly within the site. As of July, where available, policy owners who have registered through the individual insurance customer secure site can now access their statements and notices online. Registered clients can view, print, and save the digital copies of the same notices and statements that you receive in your advisor portal secure inbox. The digital files will be listed and held on the eDocuments tab for three years from the date they were produced. Promoting this site with your clients could unleash more time for advisors to spend on managing clients’ needs rather than on administrative tasks.
Tele-interviews
The tele-interview has always been an effective way to gather clients’ health histories as part of the insurance application process. Manulife has updated the process and now has a dedicated in-house team to perform tele-interviews (in addition to Dynacare) to speed up the process even more. In fact, most interviews are now conducted by the in-house team, Monday to Saturday (including weekday evenings) in multiple languages, which frees up more time for advisors. The new process is efficient, featuring fewer and shorter questions that are appropriate based on a client’s disclosures.
In related news, the Dynacare Insurance Solutions Scheduler (DIS Scheduler), an online tool to schedule tele-interviews, was launched in September to confirm, cancel, or reschedule appointments with a click, using this automated process. Now, all tele-interview appointments must be booked/managed securely using the DIS Scheduler tool.
Scheduling appointments
- An applicant can book their own appointment, or the Advisor can book on their behalf, after getting their consent.
- If any applicant's cell phone number or email isn’t provided with the order, advisors/agents/MGAs can simply log in to their Dynacare iCARE portal and book the appointment on their client’s behalf.
More information about the tele-interview changes are available here.
Manulife Vitality
The Manulife Vitality Rewards and Status simulator supports sales conversations by showing clients the value they could enjoy with Manulife Vitality. It's an easy and fun way to see the potential rewards they could earn and how simple it is to improve their own Vitality Status™.
The ready-to-use marketing toolkit has everything an advisor would need to introduce the simulator to a client, including an automated email, email templates, social media posts and website content.
Visit the online toolkit page for more.
AIDA
Forty per cent of all incoming life insurance applications are eligible to be processed by our automated underwriting tool (AIDA), meaning decisions are often made within seconds of an application submission or the completion of a tele-interview.
More information for you
- E-Business Solutions page – get up to speed with e-processing and more.
- Insurance Training Corner (sign-in required), e-business resources tab.
- Support systems article – wholesaler success stories from a digital standpoint.
Manulife Investment support
Earlier this year, Manulife Investment Management introduced an exciting online tool that enables anyone to perform side-by-side comparisons of thousands of mutual funds and ETFs. Advisors can use Fund Compare to conveniently evaluate up to five funds at a time from a vast list of firms, and across a range of performance and risk metrics. The data is managed by Morningstar, one of the most powerful data engines available – but presented clearly with the aid of interactive data visualizations. Advisors can run and save unlimited comparisons, and then easily share the insights directly with their clients.
Links to more digital solutions, tools and support for investors and their advisors is available here.
Continuing Education Centre
Thanks to recent enhancements, it’s now easier to find courses and earn credits in the Manulife CE Centre. The newly redesigned site now offers status tabs to monitor your in-progress, not started, and completed courses. Courses can also be “saved for later” under the “My Courses” tab. Find the Manulife CE Centre by selecting the Training and CE Centre tile on the advisor portal left navigation bar.
Other resources
- Our insurance journey – what it means for you
- Self-serve option for inforce Manulife UL illustrations
- Insurance Training Corner (sign-in required)
- E-Business resources (sign-in required)
Available support
For more help on “how” to use the digital tools, including Manulife Illustrations and Manulife E-Application, contact Manulife’s Insurance Digital Desk. You can also contact the desk by calling 1-855-664-2541 or via email at digital_desk@manulife.ca.
Embracing change
We have come to learn that digital technology has unlimited potential. Capabilities that once were only fanciful concepts have changed and will continually change the way we communicate and do business. The time of adopting and embracing helpful new tools to support the advisor/client relationship has clearly arrived. With the advantage of user assistance systems and surveys to log feedback that helps refine and improve these tools, advisors and their clients can continuously work with Manulife towards mutual success, well into the future.
