Foresters Financial is on a mission to provide a “flawless customer experience” for its policyholders and its distribution force. It’s a strategic objective held by many but achieved by few – especially large legacy firms like Foresters, a 150-year-old fraternal life insurance organization based in Toronto.
Foresters serves almost three million members and certificate holders in Canada, the US, and the UK. In October 2020, the firm strengthened its already significant presence by adding Canada Protection Plan as an amalgamated Foresters business. At the time, Foresters said the mega-merger would accelerate the growth of its life insurance business in North America, with an emphasis on innovation, new product development and independent distribution.
The benefits Foresters seeks to gain from the merger align strongly with the insurer’s strategy for providing a “flawless customer experience” throughout the COVID-19 crisis. The firm is focused on four key areas, according to Foresters chief distribution officer Matt Berman, which are: technology, product innovation, engagement through quality of life benefits, and taking full advantage of Foresters’ fraternal focus and rewarding behaviours.
“To say this year has been a challenge is an understatement,” said Berman. “Between the pandemic, climate change and social unrest, it’s safe to say all of us either know somebody or have been directly impacted by this year’s challenges. When we rewind the tape on 2020 years from now, the two topics that will have dominated financial services, and certainly our sector, are COVID-19 and hyper low interest rates.
“A recent Oliver Wyman survey of life insurance executives indicated a hierarchy of concern surrounding low interest rates, liquidity risk, hedging, and credit risk, but the predominant concern is the risk associated with finding yield support product benefits. This, coupled with social distancing protocols, has certainly put some strain on sales for many companies across our industry. While the pandemic has absolutely underscored the need for life insurance companies, not all carriers have been able to meet today’s challenges and rapidly changing customer needs. Some have even had to drop rates, decommission products, or, as we’ve recently seen, layoff staff to subsidize some of the product features or guarantees.”
While some companies have seen the impact of COVID as an overwhelming challenge, Berman stressed that Foresters sees it as a “catalyst driving the future” and creating opportunity to deliver a “flawless customer experience.”
“Critical at Foresters is our mission,” he stressed. “As a fraternal, we have a clear mission that is our guiding compass. We ask ourselves in every decision we make: Does this decision further our mission to enrich the wellbeing of our members and their communities? The crystal-clear direction helps us cut to the chase. And this way, we define what the flawless customer experience is all about. At a time like this, it’s critical to ask yourself: What is your strategic direction? It doesn’t have to be purpose-driven, but something needs to be at the heart of your decision-making, or you may be prone to overreaction, or even paralysis.”
Long before the pandemic started, Foresters embarked on a mission to make it easier for independent agents to do business with them. COVID “accelerated this priority in real-time,” Berman commented. Social distancing protocols that limited face-to-face resources and changed how agents did business literally overnight forced many insurers, Foresters included, to offer data-driven processes that would enable agents to market, sell, deliver and capture applications electronically.
“As a result, we were able to provide decisions relatively instantaneously,” said Berman. “This not only accelerated the ability for agents to do business in this environment, but it also alleviated acquisition costs and pressure by reducing the number of hands needed to touch the application end to end. We believe the front-end changes we and others have made to operate successfully in the face of a pandemic are only the beginning. There’s no doubt tech will continue to totally transform the customer experience and our landscape today.”
The COVID crisis also played into Foresters’ focus on simplified, non-medically underwritten products, especially for those people who have found it difficult to secure attractive life insurance solutions in the past. In providing products with a focus on wellness and with valuable and relevant living benefits, Foresters claims to be helping agents to create deep client relationships that foster brand loyalty.
“We ask the question - [Does this decision further our mission to enrich the wellbeing of our members and their communities?] - in every decision we make, and this keeps us on course, just as it did 150-years-ago,” Berman said. “In the end, creating a flawless customer experience is not an isolated initiative. In our case, we aspire to connect all the dots, from technology, to product development, to our member benefits that engage our clients in what matters to them and us. And finally, we intend to increase the abilities of our members to earn rewards through activities consistent with our shared mission. So, if you’re focused on creating that flawless customer experience, you need to start with a clearly defined vision of who you are and what your mission is.”
