Care Today, Secure Tomorrow: Unlocking Long-Term Benefits
Like so many of today’s first-world populations, North America is aging. Life expectancies overall are increasing while fertility rates continue to drop. As North America grays, conversations about long-term care and living benefits will become all the more necessary. Our latest podcast features Ayanna Burns, Chief Transformation Officer at Continental General and host Christine Burke, Sapiens’ Director of Life Marketing, in a discussion on the evolving needs of the living benefits landscape and Continental General’s own efforts to modernize its long-term care insurance operations.
Christine Burke|Ayanna Burns
Christine Burke: Hello and welcome to the Sapiens Insurance 360 podcast! I’m your host, Christine Burke, Director of Life Marketing here at Sapiens, and I’m so glad that you’re out there listening. This is where we discuss the latest news, trends and issues from across the insurance solutions and technology spectrum. On today’s show, we’re going to talk about the North American population and how it’s aging rapidly. With the over-65 segment growing nearly five times faster than the total population did between 1920 and 2020. And the Census Bureau projects that by 2060, nearly 1 in 4 Americans will be 65 or older. And unfortunately, as we all know, with aging comes health challenges, which makes today’s conversation on long-term care and living benefits even more important.
In this episode of Sapiens Insurance 360, we’re speaking with Ayanna Burns, Chief Transformation Officer at Continental General, about their company’s journey to modernize its long-term care insurance operations and their outlook on the evolving needs of the living benefits landscape. We’ll discuss the challenges facing the insurance industry, the importance of technology and addressing these challenges, and how to improve efficiency and enhance the customer experience.
So, Ayanna, welcome to the podcast!
Ayanna Burns: Thanks for having me! Great to be here today with you, Chris. Thanks!
Christine Burke: Awesome. We are so glad to have you here today. Before we dive into Continental General’s vision for the long-term care insurance landscape, let’s talk about that market in general. Can you provide some background for our listeners?
Ayanna Burns: Yeah, definitely. There’s a major focus on living benefits, particularly long-term care. Some of the disability income, income protection in general, and products, as a whole, right now. Individuals are experiencing the need for themselves as well as their loved ones to make sure that they have care in place.
There’s a big aging population right now. There’s clearly a need. So there’s a lot of focus on people really wanting to be able to stay in their homes longer, not wanting to go into nursing homes, which can put a burden on families and other caregivers. And so there’s, there’s really a big push now as the population continues to age with making sure that there is a means for folks to be able to take care of themselves as, as they age and to not have their families feel abandoned. But also ensuring that those caregivers are, are given, given a break as well as they’re raising their kids as well as sometimes taking care of parents, it can be a bit of a challenge there. So there’s, there’s a big focus now really on those types of products that, that help provide those benefits.
Christine Burke: And also not just the products, but now from your side of things, you’ve got to service those products, right?
Ayanna Burns: Absolutely. Yeah, it has to definitely extend beyond just getting the policy or getting the insurance in place. It’s then making sure that there’s service and there’s follow up. This is, these types of products really have a long tail. It’s better to plan early. And so people are buying these products younger and younger now where they’re becoming available younger and younger, but knowing they may not need to hopefully access, access any of the benefits under the policy for a very long time.
Christine Burke: Great. So tell us, what is Continental General’s vision for the long-term care insurance and how do you see your company contributing to these evolving demands?
Ayanna Burns: So I think it’s very important to create a really good balance of both simplicity as well as innovation, when it comes to product design. So Continental General is really trying to take those two things into consideration. You want it to be innovative, in the sense that you’re focusing on some of those things we talked about with people really wanting to stay at home longer. There’s a focus on really having a healthy lifestyle, being able to stay independent longer. Aging in place, different wellness initiatives and things like that. So we’re looking from the innovative side of the house to really incorporate some of those things into, new product development, but at the same time, keeping products simple enough that clients can still understand them, they understand the benefits, how they are eligible for them and when they’re eligible for them, and just how the product works. So, that’s a really big focus for us here at Continental General.
Christine Burke: Great! And of course, with that aging population and especially now you’ve got to worry about, like you said, the simplicity of the product and making sure that that people can understand it and not be too technical. But to that end, in light of the rapid pace of how technology advances and the changing consumer expectations, what do you think the biggest potential disruptions are for the long-term care insurance space?
Ayanna Burns: I think the disruptions, like I mentioned, are going to be products that really incorporate the healthy lifestyle, allowing people to stay independent and stay in their homes longer. Things that are mutually beneficial for both clients and carriers as well, to keep claims down, which also helps with keeping rate increases down and things like that. That has been some of the push back in the industry in the past. And just showing that we’ve, we as carriers that provide these types of products have, have learned from some of those mishaps in the past with, pricing products and things like that. So, that’s what’s going to be important.
Christine Burke: Okay. And along with just long-term care insurance, there’s also the focus on living benefits, particularly, things like income protection. How do you view the importance of this type of product? And again, the challenges you have to meet the needs of the consumers for these?
Ayanna Burns: Yeah, there’s a bit of a stigma around with some of the older, really traditional standalone long-term care products. Using that really to focus on these living benefits, and concerns with rate increases and just premiums and things like that. So as I mentioned, it’s really important to find balance with providing a product that is simple enough to explain and understand, but still really innovative enough to stand out and provide people benefits. And ensuring that, there’s, it’s beneficial both for the clients and for the carrier. And so that there’s a true partnership there when thinking of product design for these types of products.
Christine Burke: Okay, great. And so with these, with these varied products, what are some of the considerations and challenges you need to face and address? Especially servicing the policyholders again, due to the complexity of some of these products?
Ayanna Burns: So again, I think for new products coming into the market, it really comes in that product design, with making sure the products are simple to understand, really making sure there’s thoughtful, marketing pieces and things like that to provide to clients to explain their products. Other things that we’re working on in-house here at Continental General is working on a client portal that can help provide information to clients about their policy once it’s been issued, [that] they can see the status of things that they have going on there, on their policy or if they have a claim, seeing when their premium is due. Just some things that sound very basic on the, on the face of things, but something that hadn’t been, really, had a lot of focus on it for these types of products. So that’s something that we’re doing here to provide more opportunities for clients to understand their products, their policies, do some self-service, for looking into things on their policies while at the same time, still making sure that we have real people in our customer service departments to answer their questions and that clients can reach out to.
Christine Burke: Okay, so it does sound like Continental General is taking a really proactive approach to the emerging technology, helping you to both drive innovation and also stay ahead of your competition. Can you talk a little bit about everyone’s favorite two letters these days, AI?
Ayanna Burns: Yeah, that’s definitely a big one. AI is, is making its way into every, every industry, as you mentioned. And this is, this is no different here. There are a lot of ways that we can potentially leverage AI. And so we are really putting a focus on learning as much as we can about it, not just from a buzzword perspective, but really how it can apply to our business and how it can help our products from the development side as well as policyholder engagements and, and things like that. You know, one of the things in conjunction with not just AI is also when you look at robotics and opportunities that are out there. When you think of people aging in place, there are now a lot of devices and things like that can help people in their homes or can assist them in their homes, remind them to drink water. And have you gone for a walk today? Have you taken your medicine today? There are these types of devices that are out there, that are things that we’re really looking into in, and considering and seeing how those can play into our product offerings and just our in-force policyholders as well. When we talk about some of the wellness initiatives and helping people to stay independent, there are real technology opportunities there with those types of resources and things. So those are definitely things that we’re looking into. The other side of that, the house there is when it comes to compliance and AI and how exactly you can use it. So it’s a very evolving landscape and some challenges there with when it’s appropriate to use and when it’s not. So those are also things that we’re working through, on our end.
Christine Burke: Awesome. Well, it sounds like Continental General was really, I would say maybe at the forefront of, of what’s going on out there, and offerings to consumers. I want to thank you for your time and your input today. As we know, North America is going to continue to age, the conversations of surrounding long-term care insurance and living benefits and any other elder care provisions are sure to become more frequent and critical. No doubt this will be a topic of conversation for, for your family at some point, family and friends. We really appreciate your insights on the topic and especially Continental General’s products and strategies. So thank you for joining us today, Ayanna!
Ayanna Burns: Thanks so much for having me!
Christine Burke: Sure. And to our listeners, we thank you again for spending a few minutes of your day with us. We’d love to hear from you. So if you have any comments or if you’d like to follow us on social media, please reach out. And if you like what you hear, don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast. We’ve got more coming, so stay tuned to Sapiens Insurance 360 podcast.
