I was talking with my friend and fellow blogger John Darer of the Structured Settlement 4 Real blog the other day about how I am appalled at the incredibly poor policy issue and pride in workmanship exhibited by most of the major life insurance markets. We both agreed that the standards of policy issue and the actual product placed in the clients hand, that being the physical paper policy, have declined so badly in the last 10 to 15 years it is literally embarrassing professionally to deliver some of these contracts. John beat me to the punch with his commentary on the topic, but I really do need to weigh in with my two cents on this as it is, by my informal survey, one of the biggest complaints among agents in our business.

First, and this is going to REALLY date me, in my first job out of college I worked at New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, in their home office on Boylston St in Boston, MA. It was the late 70's, jobs were exceptionally scarce for new graduates and I was grateful to have a "career" in the life insurance business working for a blue chip company like NEL. Of course they were eventually bought out by Met Life and are a mere marketing name now, but back then they were renown for being the white shoe, old school, blue blooded Yankee insurance company and they did everything with a great deal of style and flair. I found this out when my "management training" thrust me into the policy issue and underwriting department at the very time they were installing their very first IBM main frame system, designed to cope with the flood of new business they were writing and issuing on a new product. It was utter and complete chaos and while I eventually survived my initiation to the life insurance industry, I was able to watch the transition of issuing physical policies from contracts that were essentially assembled by hand, put in a professional jacket for delivery and then mailed out, to one where early laser printers were employed to mass produce and blast out contracts by the hundreds.

 In this process, which no doubt saved a huge amount of time and money, something was definitely lost and I could see it first hand. You see, at one time New England Life actually employed several women who with fountain pens would actually hand write, in beautiful penman ship, the front page of the contract. These contracts were literally works of art in both the stitching and the presentation, and they were done in that fashion because the company at that time believed strongly that the delivery and presentation of that life insurance contract was a direct reflection on the companies values and attitude toward that customer.

Now, I don't want to go back to the days of penned contracts, but really folks, does anyone stop and stare at their life insurance contract or annuity contract and say, you know that company values me as a customer, and appreciates that I am sending them a great deal of my money? Most of the contracts look very similar to an 8th grade history report, with pages typed, hurriedly stamped, photo copies jammed in and stapled together like something to be tossed out the door and forgotten. I got some contracts from one major life market last week, and I was literally embarrassed to send them on to my client. Pages out of order, printed on something akin to copy paper, stapled in the upper right hand corner and tossed in a binder that is too big to fit in a standard over night envelope. I will avoid naming the company at the moment as I am doing a survey of each market to see what their contracts look like, because John insists they aren't the worst of the bunch, which I find hard to imagine.

I'd like to suggest that the life markets that read my blogs, and I know most of you do read it, stop and consider what you can do that is in your budget that would improve the presentation and delivery of your ultimate product, the contract. No, I don't want a return to the old days, that's too much to hope for I guess, but couldn't we at least have a presentation package that includes policy service numbers, return envelopes, company information, a neat and professional contract all in a jacket that doesn't look like I ran it off at Kinkos just before I mailed it?

Please, throw us a bone here. You are looking cheap, careless and foolish to your customers and it doesn't take much to dress it up and do a better job. It just takes someone who cares enough to do it.