By Ben Mattlin
Friday, April 10, 2009
@ 5:11 pm in Insurance
In early 2005, Guardian Life Insurance Company
of America (annual revenue: $7.65 billion) had no standardized sales and marketing tool for its 3,000 financial advisors nationwide.
The sales force supplied its own material and technology from a variety of independent sources, over which the home office
had little control.
“Guardian decided this was not an acceptable position to be in,” recalls Robert M. Ball,
special consultant to Guardian.
So the New York-based mutual insurance provider sought a new, centrally run, Web-based sales and
marketing platform. The goals: 1) oversee the quality of the marketing content and sales training material, 2) create a recruiting
magnet, 3) facilitate uniform regulatory compliance, and 4) improve productivity.
After considering several vendors, Guardian opted to build its own proprietary system from scratch.
When management presented its vision to eMoney Advisor, a Conshohocken, PA-based supplier of complete software solutions for
financial advisors, it found a receptive partner.
“We listened very closely, and then opened up our software and our code to make a new system
that fit Guardian’s unique sales style and culture,” explains Edmond Walters, founder and CEO of eMoney Advisor.
The initial test version needed to be tweaked to satisfy Guardian. In all, development took about
six months. In September 2005, Guardian launched Phase One of its new platform, The Living Balance Sheet, a Web site that
organizes every piece of each account’s financial picture in one place, and updates the information daily.
“Most people use many different providers for their financial needs, and they struggle to keep
on top of this disorganization. But The Living Balance Sheet puts everything under one electronic roof so people feel they
are on track and have a chance to win the financial game,” says Ball.
Since then, The Living Balance Sheet has been periodically enhanced to provide even more capabilities
more quickly and easily. It can now rebalance clients’ asset-allocation mix, develop wealth-accumulation strategies,
alert clients when it’s time to revisit a particular area of their finances, determine the impact of inflation, taxes
and debts on their net worth, and even track their airline reward programs and store copies of important legal documents in
an electronic vault. Customized reports can be generated with a few simple mouse clicks, and with Phase Six, released in April
2009, all this data can be accessed on wireless handheld devices.
Adoption has been swift. Guardian now has nearly 60,000 clients who use The Living Balance Sheet,
representing some $60 billion in aggregate assets. It’s used as a full-time planning platform by 1,200 Guardian sales
reps, too, and recruitment and retention of sales staff has risen measurably. While the life insurance industry as a whole
struggles, Guardian is posting positive productivity growth. “These are all barometers of the success of The Living
Balance Sheet,” says Ball.
Of course, to keep The Living Balance Sheet running smoothly, and to handle ballooning demand from
the sales force and end-users, there are significant ongoing costs. Guardian’s home office has an internal support team
of IT professionals to maintain the infrastructure and a legal staff to secure patents and copyright protections. The costs
are also borne by the field force, which subscribe to the platform for a flat monthly fee of $300. Additionally, eMoney waived
certain charges, confident of quickly recouping the expenditure.
In all, the installation came in under budget and ahead of schedule. Guardian developed and adopted
the system incrementally, enabling Guardian to layer on additional capabilities quickly. Another benefit of rolling out the
system in phases is that transitions don’t overwhelm staff. For the initial rollout, some training was required to familiarize
personnel with the new capabilities, but subsequent changes were added gradually, with little or no training. “We stagger
new releases so our people can get used to the features a step at a time. That way we’re always building on a solid
foundation,” says Ball.
Though regulatory issues are simplified by the platform’s standardization – a marked
improvement from the old patchwork of outsourced systems – one compliance challenge was merging the insurance-related
products with securities-related investment advice as different rules apply. But in 2008 that hurdle was overcome.
The Living Balance Sheet is a “fully evolved system,” says Ball, but Guardian will keep
augmenting features as new technologies become available. The benefits to Guardian’s business are clear. “With
eMoney and The Living Balance Sheet, we find ourselves in the enviable position of being way out in front of the pack,”
says Ball.
eMoney was built based on Windows 2003, Microsoft .NET Framework, Internet Information Server, SQL
Server 2005, and Microsoft XML Parser, among other technologies.
www.guardianlife.com
www.emoneyadvisor.com
About the Author
Ben Mattlin is a Contributing Editor of Windows in Financial Services Magazine. ... The Source on Microsoft Technologies for Financial
Services
Article printed from Windows in Financial Services: http://www.windowsfs.com
URL to article: http://www.windowsfs.com/insurance/guardian-one-stop-shop-for-balanced-living
