Winter 2009
What's on our minds
Woody Richen usually shares his thoughts with you in this column. Woody is currently serving as Vice President of Risk for The Standard's Employee Benefits business line due to the unexpected passing in February of a dear colleague, Dave Fitzpatrick.
"Losing Dave was so unexpected and emotionally very hard," said Jim Harbolt, Vice President of The Standard's Insurance Services Group. "Having Woody available to immediately help Dave's team was huge for us. Also, a big part of Woody shifting his time to Employee Benefits was knowing that we'd done much planning to have Dawn McMaster and Charlie Dolezal ready for the day Woody would retire. Dave's passing just accelerated the timetable for asking Dawn and Charlie to lead more."
Dawn and Charlie are now jointly responsible for the IDI business line. This is their first column together.
What it's like
Charlie: "With two heads running the business instead of one, we've learned to lean on each other for different perspectives."
Dawn: "I focus on relationships, strategy, sales and operations. Charlie is the analytical numbers guy. He's also a good teacher of finance."
Charlie: "I think we learn from each other. Even though we use different languages to advocate for the same business line, the end result is a good balance."
The IDI market
Dawn: "Brokers who sell life insurance are likely seeing their sales trending down. The Wall Street Journal1 noted that annualized life-insurance premiums plunged 23 percent during the first half of 2009, which represents the deepest slump in 67 years. The Standard's individual disability insurance sales, on the other hand, remain stable.
"The upside of this challenging economy is that there is a heightened consumer awareness of the importance of disability insurance. This may be the perfect time for life insurance brokers to increase their sales by focusing on IDI for their customers."
Good reason to bring IDI business to The Standard
Charlie: "We focus on building our business responsibly while continuing to keep our long-term commitment to IDI and our customers. The company practices the same disciplined business philosophy that has seen us through the ups and downs of many markets for more than a hundred years.
"Our IDI policyholders can trust we will be there for them when they need us."
Dawn: "We focus on making the broker's job easier by streamlining processes and developing electronic solutions. We work closely with our brokers, encourage their feedback and suggestions, and use that to provide the services they tell us they want.
"I think that's one of the reasons brokers bring us their IDI business. They see how much we value our relationships and how committed we are to continually enhancing broker services.
"In a broker survey2 just released, we received the highest ratings possible for brokers' overall experience with a carrier."
Business Development
Dawn: "One focus is the continued development of competitive IDI as well as growth into new markets. A step we've taken in this regard is to file a request to do business in New York. It's the one remaining state in the country where we currently do not sell IDI."
Charlie: "We also expect substantial growth in the guarantee issue market." (The article, Back To School, provides more details.)
"We are looking forward to an exciting partnership with each other and with our brokers as 2010 dawns on the IDI industry."
1 September 1, 2009
2 JHA Research Report, August 2009