How is technology reshaping benefits programs?

Over the last few years, the pensions and benefits markets have followed different paths in the progress towards self-service, however, the two sides have now caught up, says Jean Davy, Insurance Industry Solution Executive for Siebel Systems Canada Ltd., a Toronto-based provider of eBusiness applications to the Financial Services industry.

On the pension side, initial demand came from plan members seeking more investment information. "From there, self-service in the pension industry moved to a transactional basis and it is now moving towards providing value-added services like planning tools, commentary and Web casts which allow members to make well informed investment decisions," says Davy. On the benefits side, the drive to online self-service first came from plan sponsors and has now evolved to providing information and transaction capabilities tailored to individual plan members.

Ross Orrett agrees. “Today, customers expect a one-to-one relationship with their providers,” says Orrett, Senior Vice-President for Markham, Ont.-based InSystems Technologies Inc., which supplies relationship management solutions to the financial services industry. “To meet these expectations, there's been a shift in how systems are designed and delivered from a policy-centric to a policyholder-centric approach,” he says. “For instance, some insurers' Web sites are built on a technical framework that's tailored to each individual client with the look, feel and functionality specific to the business and client."

Customers—whether advisors, plan sponsors, plan administrators, or plan members—can expect even more personalization in the future. “In Canada, there's been a lot of change driven by the consolidation in the financial and insurance industries and subsequently the integration of their systems," says Orrett. “In four to five years, customers will dictate whether they want a portal with multiple links to information or to have the information delivered to their desktop through an intranet.”

The convergence of Web capabilities, the new focus on client relationship management and consolidation in the financial services industry have forced many insurance providers to revisit their customer service platforms to meet both today's needs and those in the future.