Youve got to keep the customer satisfiedhardly a new thought, especially for insurance companies. Traditionally thats only meant establishing a warm and fuzzy personal relationship, but no longer. Increasingly, keeping the customer coming back for more involves providing the technology that makes the customers experiencea good one. In a recent reportcalled Life Insurance Information Technology Expense Survey (LIITES), TCi Consulting & Research found that customer service is the leading driver of application development expense for life insurers.

TCi defines application development expense as any IT expense directly associated with delivering IT products and services to the customer. Customer services share of the expense pie fell from 44.9 percent in 1999 to 41.4 percent in 2000 (the most recent statistics).

Selling policies was second in expenditures for 2000 with 29.4 percent, followed by new business with 12.9 percent, financial management with 7.4 percent, and other business with 8.9 percent.