Prudential, Sapient Offer Online Help For P-C Agents And Customers

Prudentials self-service account, available through the companys Web site, www.prudential.com, points out John Heidelberger, vice president, e-commerce for Prudential, serves both customers and agents. The sophisticated, tech savvy customer has the option to service his or her account online. Independent agents save on time and paperwork involved when using a company customer service representative.

The savings, points out Joe Marchese, vice president of financial services at Sapient, is in dollars to support a single service request to a call center, compared to quarters for the self-service online system.

"Self-service gets the most impact for the investment," Mr. Marchese noted.

Driving Prudential to make this choice in online capability was competition, Mr. Heidelberger said.

"From the agents perspective, what we have seen so far, this is a competitive tool," Mr. Heidelberger noted, asserting that this Web tool is on par with the best Internet insurers sites out there today.

"This tool never was designed to replace the agent," he added. "What we want to see is the customer continuing to go to the agent. We plan to continue to build our technology so it does not pull away from the independent agent model. This mechanism is to provide service. We want to target agencies and make life easier for them, and target customers who do not currently use an agent."

What the system offers, explained the executives, is the ability to service auto, home and personal catastrophe policies online. The system allows users to change an address, request duplicate documents, amend their automobile policies, make changes in their deductibles, or check claims information. Some items for the future include bill payment and filing claims online.

Sapient began working on the system with Prudential last year. Instead of building a product that would be forced onto customers and agents, Sapient said it designed the technology around customer and agent feedback. One of the results was designing the site so an agents policy change request would be executed faster than a customers.

The process for customers, Mr. Marchese explained, is that as he or she makes changes, additional informational screens pop up, telling the user what the changes mean and indicating alternative choices available. He added that agents may not need this feature.

Another feature of importance to agents is security, observed Mr. Heidelberger.

There are different levels of data that an agency wants available to some of its agents, and part of the solution, he pointed out, was creating a system where that happens. At the same time, the system needed to be designed so the agencys book was protected from external access, while still allowing all of the agencys producers access to its customers.

The demand for this application by independent agents with Prudential appointments was obvious, with more than 150 agents signing up for systems with no promotion, said Mr. Marchese.

Today, Prudential boasts 200 independent agencies in 23 states selling p-c insurance, and that is expected to grow in the next several years, the company said.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, October 21, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.