IFAs not disadvantaged by tele-interviewing - Scor

Advisers should not fear tele-interviewing, but providers need to do more to integrate them in its implementation, says Scor.

The reinsurer believes results from its worldwide survey into tele-interviewing will reassure IFAs and ease their concerns about the process's introduction. It said many advisers had concerns over the lack of control over the treatment of their clients, worrying of low service levels.

The study, co-authored with Selectx and presented at Morgan Ash's tele-interview seminar, surveyed insurers around the world about their use and experiences of the technology.

Of those UK and Ireland based insurers who responded to the survey, 93% said they had a positive feedback from customers about the experience, with 50% being very positive, and 43% moderately positive.

Its results also showed that tele-interviewing sped up the application to on-risk time and markedly reduced non-disclosure.

Almost nine in ten (86%) companies using the process said the time between application and issue had been reduced, with 20% saying this was by seven to nine days, and 13% by over ten days.

Just 2% said it had increased, although the report did note that the big-T process took longer to complete than little-T.

The figures for non-disclosure were particularly encouraging too, with 49% saying that non-disclosure had reduced, and only 8% believing that it hadn't, although almost half did not know because it was either too early to say or was not monitored.

When specifically considering life and critical illness applications, less than 5% of cases had non-disclosure issues, while it was mostly fewer than 10% for income protection, with 89% of respondents saying this was an improvement.

Catherine Lyons, underwriting and claims development manager at Scor, believes it's important for advisers to know that their clients are not going to be disadvantaged by using tele-underwriting.