News Releases
BMO Life Insurance Company (BMO Life) today announced that it has chosen business-process outsourcing specialist, GeniSys, to provide administrative services, including the underwriting and issuance of new policies, billing, claims and ongoing policy service for both new and existing BMO Life DirectTerm policies.
GeniSys will start administration of DirectTerm policies for BMO Life effective today.
BMO Life develops, distributes and assumes the financial risks involved in marketing life insurance products.
"BMO Life is a virtual company that utilizes outsourcing operations to create competitive advantage," said Gordon Henderson, President and CEO, BMO Life. "Outsourcing administrative services gives BMO Life access to quality administration and improves time to market without the capital investment and development time otherwise required."
"GeniSys has a strong reputation as an experienced third party administrator," said Henderson. "They have both the capacity and the flexibility to cost effectively administer existing and new products for BMO Life."
Van Campbell, President, GeniSys, sees this new business partnership as another example of how networked businesses have become a strong alternative to the traditional business model in the life insurance industry. "We are very pleased to have been selected by BMO Life, and are excited to be working with such a leading edge organization," said Campbell.
"This arrangement displays how a virtual insurer, such as BMO Life, can leverage the best-of-breed services of a BPO with leading technology, people and processes, to keep their costs low, provide exceptional key policyholder service, and be extremely flexible so they can quickly respond to changing market conditions."
Henderson also announced several enhancements to BMO Life's current DirectTerm product including:
- Choice of coverage period will be extended from age 70 to 85;
- Maximum issue age will be raised from age 60 to 65; and
- The minimum amount of coverage available has been reduced to $25,000 to help customers who might have more modest coverage needs.
Henderson said he's been pleased with the early success of BMO Life DirectTerm, pointing to a 100 per cent increase in sales year-over-year in its first two years - Direct Term was launched in 2002 - and stated the announced enhancements will further broaden the appeal and reach of this unique insurance product.
"These enhancements illustrate BMO Life's unique capability to tailor a product to meet the individual needs of our customers," said Henderson. "People like our product because it's the easiest and most rewarding way to buy term life insurance. A customer can choose when and how to purchase the coverage - on-line, by phone or via a paper application, they can apply, be approved and pay in a matter of minutes. In fact, the most repeated question we get from our customers after they complete their application and are approved is, 'Is that all I have to do? I have my insurance coverage immediately?' It's one of our strengths and that will be further enhanced with the selection of GeniSys to fulfill our back-office needs."
About BMO Life DirectTerm
DirectTerm is a unique term life insurance plan that provides ongoing Air Miles reward miles and lets customers choose the amount of insurance they need and the length of time they need insurance coverage. As the cost is guaranteed to remain the same for the entire length of the coverage period, it is easy to budget for. DirectTerm is available through a call centre (1-866-607-6709) staffed by licensed agents and through the Internet (bmolife.com). Customers can call or go on-line to get a free no obligation quote and complete the purchase, all at one time and from a place that is convenient for them.
About GeniSys
GeniSys is an international provider of market leading front and back-end policy administration services for the life and health insurance market. Utilizing experienced insurance professionals, refined business processes and best-of-breed technologies, GeniSys is able to provide substantial cost-savings and increased efficiencies for end-to-end policy administration services. In 2003, GeniSys administered over 1.4 million policies and processed over 250,000 applications. Founded in 2000, GeniSys is a privately held company headquartered in Toronto.
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