CASE STUDY: Berkshire and Guardian Life Library... · Berkshire Life Insurance Company of America,...
Transcript of CASE STUDY: Berkshire and Guardian Life Library... · Berkshire Life Insurance Company of America,...
Visit us at BridgelineDigital.com or call 800.603.9936 for more info. Bridgeline Digital and iAPPS ds are registered trademarks of Bridgeline Digital Inc.
Berkshire and Guardian Life Help companies manage employee disability insurance enrollment with customized iAPPS portals
CASE STUDY:
www.enrolldi.com/demo/express
THE CHALLENGE: Berkshire’s challenge was how to
leverage the web as its primary marketing and enrollment
channel, grow the business, and roll out new products such
as “buy ups” that could gain traction in a fiercely competitive
market. This would help it meet the overarching objective of
measurably improving its competitive positioning in the Multi-
Life DI market.
They needed an enrollment system flexible enough to
accommodate different industries and employer demographics,
as well as discrete groups of employees within its target
companies. Specific objectives included:
■ Streamlining the case setup process, using web services to swiftly
create product offers, pricing schedules, contact data and user
profiles.
■ Improving case management and statistical reporting, including data
export and review protocols, microsite assignments and product
lifecycle management.
■ Facilitating web content management and site administration,
including support for microsite registration and authentication,
workflow configuration and dynamic content dissemination
across microsites.
■ Enhancing Berkshire Life’s brand through the delivery of persuasive
educational content and value-added tools such as cost calculators
and consumer tools.
Berkshire Life Insurance Company of America, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Guardian Life Insurance, is one of the leading providers of disability income insurance in America. It specializes in insurance products that are uniquely suited to the needs of highly skilled professionals, executives and business owners. Following its merger with The Guardian Life In-surance Company of America, Berkshire Life took on responsibility for all individual disability insurance (DI) products for the merged companies. A top strategic initiative of the newly merged company was the creation of a new product offering that addressed the multi-life disability insurance market.
Visit us at BridgelineDigital.com or call 800.603.9936 for more info. Bridgeline Digital and iAPPS ds are registered trademarks of Bridgeline Digital Inc.
■ Supporting online enrollment including
electronic billing, eSignatures and
all aspects of the application submission,
review and approval process.
THE SOLUTION: To gain a deep
understanding of Berkshire’s business drivers,
Bridgeline met with key stakeholders, including
several end-users of its products. Bridgeline
solutions architects also met IT stakeholders
to identify baseline requirements and critical
touch points for the enrollment system. Using
clickable prototypes, Bridgeline’s designers
conducted extensive usability testing based
on six distinct employee personas, the results
of which informed the user interface design
and site functionality.
Bridgeline developed Berkshire’s new
enrollment system using its flagship iAPPS
Content Manager. Using service level APIs
built into the iAPPS Framework, the new
system employs web services between the
online applications and Berkshire’s legacy
technology environment, including its back-
office mainframe and imaging systems. This
created a system that was simple to use and
maintain, easy to customize, and capable of
supporting the delivery of flexible, targeted,
and conversion-oriented DI educational
content.
iAPPS Content Manager allows Berkshire’s
business users to quickly create a custom
microsite portal for each new client, built to
address specific needs, such as custom
branding with logos and colors, multiple riders
and coverage amounts, and even varying
interfaces for different types of employees,
such as salaried or hourly workers. New
“cases” are easily created from XML participant
and offer data to allow an unified interface
for each client company’s employees. The
system is full-service, from creating the first
password to providing employee education,
offer information, enrollment materials and
allowing employees to opt for direct billing or
payroll deductions.
Enhancing Berkshire Life’s brand through the delivery of persuasive educational content and value-added tools such as cost calculators and consumer tools.
In the first two months of operation, Berkshire completed a voluntary case with greater than 35% participation, a higher level than previously achieved.
Bridgeline Digital is a developer of
an award-winning Web Engagement
Management platform and related
interactive solutions that help
customers leverage best in class
web-based technologies to achieve
their business objectives.
The iAPPS Product Suite is an
innovative SaaS solution that deeply
unifies web Content Management,
eCommerce, eMarketing, and web
Analytics capabilities into the heart
of websites, online stores, intranets,
extranets or portals – enabling users
to swiftly enhance and optimize the
value of their web assets. iAPPS
Content Manager is a CODiE winner
for the Best Content Management
Solution, globally.
THE RESULTS: In the first two months of operation, Berkshire completed a voluntary case
with greater than 35% participation, a higher level than previously achieved. In addition, Berkshire
accomplished an industry first – the successful sale of a Guaranteed Standard Issue (GSI) DI
product with buy-up through the online enrollment system. Since the system’s debut in 2009,
Berkshire has created dozens of sites that have served thousands of plan participants.
Interactive widgets developed by Bridgeline’s application developers educate employees on
the benefits of Multi-Life DI. Bridgeline also created online calculators to assist employees in
determining how much insurance they would need to replace lost income due to a short- or long-
term disability. The system validates and transmits encrypted employee information that enables
Berkshire/Guardian to generate multiple individual and supplemental offers for each employee,
and even creates secure PDF applications from individuals’ form data, allowing Berkshire to
better serve its client companies and their end users.
Administrators of the system are now able to quickly and easily upload case census data and
create new, individually branded customer enrollment sites without the need for IT intervention.
Berkshire/Guardian continues to add features to their online system and successfully showcases
its demo enrollment site to independent brokers as a sales tool.