Lincoln Financial Group has selected the FireLight platform to automate and streamline its annuity applications.
FireLight is offered by Colorado Springs-based Insurance Technologies.
With FireLight, advisors can cut out at least half of the time it takes to process an annuity application, Travis Champion, vice president of sales at Insurance Technologies, told Financial Planning. With faster processing, advisors can be compensated more rapidly, too.
Lincolns adoption of FireLight follows more than a decade of using ForeSight, a mobile point-of-sale platform from Insurance Technologies that illustrates all business lines across diverse distribution channels.
We strive to make it easier for our distribution partners to do business with us by enhancing the service experience at every critical interaction, and Insurance Technologies provides the resources to achieve this goal, Nancy Jordan, Lincolns senior vice president, Individual Annuity Operations, said in a statement. Were excited about expanding our long-standing partnership with Insurance Technologies and offering our paper-based distribution partners an end-to-end sales solution that will take them seamlessly from illustration to application, all on a mobile platform.
According to Champion, FireLight can enhance the way advisors do business when recommending annuities to clients. A majority of advisors submit annuity applications manually or use some type of a legacy system, he said. That can involve multiple steps, face-to-face with the client and also within the advisors firm. FireLight can collect signatures electronically and send the application via the web to the carrier.
All types of devices, including smartphones and tablets, can use FireLight to process annuity applications, Champion said. Similarly, FireLight can handle applications for any type of annuity: variable, fixed, indexed, etc. The IRS is expected to approve qualified longevity annuities this year, deferred annuities that will kick in late in life, and Champion said he saw no reason that FireLight would have a problem with this widely-anticipated product.
Annuities have not been a simple product to sell, Champion said. If the application process becomes easier, advisors may be more willing to recommend them to clients.
