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Annuities Research

Digging into the Customer Experience: Annuities

Corporate Insight’s Annuity Monitor keeps clients on top of developments in the annuity business. Our value-added annuities research digs deeply to identify and assess specific aspects not only of the customer experience, but also the ways in which leading insurers market their annuity products to independent financial advisors.

Advisor Illustration Systems PDF Print E-mail
Illustration tools, which enable financial professionals to create analytical reports focusing on hypothetical and historical product performance, are the most popular advisor sales resource offered by Annuity Monitor firms. The quantitative analysis and printer-friendly reports provided in these illustrations are particularly effective for backing up an advisor’s sales pitch. In this Annuity Monitor report, we provide detailed reviews of the illustration tools offered by our coverage firms on the advisor website.

This Annuity Monitor report focuses on the illustration systems provided to financial professionals on the coverage firms’ advisor websites. Twelve firms that offer hypothetical annuity illustration systems were evaluated on three key criteria:
  • Accessibility of the product illustration system
  • The overall interface design and usability
  • Quality of illustrations provided by the tools
Overall, the majority of Annuity Monitor firms provide financial professionals with easily accessible illustration systems that feature straightforward and easy-to-use designs. No firms covered in this report received failing grades, while two firms received high marks for their well-built illustration systems. Precisely 50% of the firms reviewed in this report obtained a grade in the B range.
 
Navigation and the quality of the illustration ledgers were the largest determining factors in our assessments, as 67% of firms utilize illustration systems powered by the third-party vendor ForeSight and all offer similar design features. Advisor homepage quicklinks are a commonly utilized method to increase accessibility of the illustration tools, and are utilized by over 60% of firms. The quality of ledgers varies from firm to firm, but each report offers a cover page that displays basic client and advisor information. Three quarters of the Annuity Monitor coverage firms provide detailed charts or graphs within the ledgers to illustrate key hypothetical performance information.
 
Additional key findings include:
  • Eleven firms offer illustration overview pages that provide a basic description of the tools’ usability features.
  • No firms provide instructional demos for their advisor illustration systems.
  • All firms include disclosure information within their annuity ledgers.
  • Half of the firms include a glossary of key terms to help define annuity-related definitions.
 
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