Whether you play it or not, tennis can be a pretty exciting game when two fiercely matched competitors go at it.
Some rallies go on and on, and just when you think a ball can't be returned, it somehow is.
Yeah, a back-and-forth match in any sport can be pretty exciting, but not when it comes to processing your life insurance application.
What is a drop ticket?
A drop ticket is a really easy way to process life insurance applications. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes and you won't have to get the client's signature at this point.
As the agent or advisor, all you have to do is run the quote. Then, choose the correct policy that you're purchasing for a client and choose “apply.” The next step is to complete some basic information about your client and then submit the "drop ticket" electronically. After that, the process continues in the same way as it does for a paper application.
Ultimately, using the drop ticket application process for life insurance will save you, the producer, a lot of time and money.
Drop ticket: The Ideal life insurance application process
Anyone who's ever submitted a paper life insurance application knows that there is usually a certain amount of communication that must occur between the life insurance producer and the General Agency processing the application.
Sometimes it's just a routine acknowledgment, and other times it might be about missed requirements that the carrier still needs.
In many cases, incomplete applications that are not in good order tend to look like a tennis match that no insurance producer is very thrilled about playing.
Application problems
Inefficiency leads to an extended processing time.
For well over 100 years, or as long as life insurance has been around, the application process has routinely been a paper transaction.
It wouldn't be so bad if it was just one or two pieces of paper.
Here are a few of the biggest problems with the traditional method of completing applications.
- In most cases, life insurance carriers have extensive applications that total 10, 15 or even more pages of paperwork that have to be sorted through by the producer.
- Most life insurance producers don't represent just one company and are unfamiliar with the wide range of applications that exist.
- There's also no consistency among carriers as to what types of forms they require or what types of questions they need answers to. Of course, there are state-mandated forms, but carriers tend to write their own rules as it relates to what those forms look like, which ones are required and what level of questions the producer has to get into with their client.
All of this spells not only a headache for you, but the tennis match delays the application from getting processed, approved and eventually placed.
The drop ticket solution
There are a variety of electronic processes from which to choose to bypass this problem.
One of the most efficient and effective is the drop ticket.
By now, most insurance producers are aware of this electronic application process and that it exists to allow you to be more efficient and avoid the incomplete, not in good order, back-and-forth tennis match.
Here’s how the drop-ticket method works:
- Log into iGo (a central portal) on our website.
- Call your prospect.
- Ask them a handful of general questions.
- Set up a time for a telephone interview and exam.
- eSign the prospect’s application.
- Electronically deliver a PDF version of the policy to your client.
This process is revolutionary, because what can easily be a 3-5 hour process (that included a lot of time driving to your client) is reduced to typically less than 30 minutes. So you significantly increase your net profits because you minimize your expenses (time)!
There are other perks, too, such as being able to have an online history of cases, and being able to begin a drop ticket, stop and return to it later.
The bottom line
Don’t be afraid to embrace drop tickets so that you can keep the tennis games where they belong – on television and on the tennis court.
Are you open to trying new technologies like the drop ticket that can increase your productivity and profits?
