Taking Care of Business: MetLife Receives E-Fusion Award For Customer Service and Benefits Management

• Marilyn S Ostermiller
• December 2004
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MetLife is the recipient of the E-Fusion Award in the Customer Service and Benefits Management category for MetLink, its online employee-benefits administration portal.

MetLink gives the insurer's group customers real-time access to benefit plan information and serves as a central reporting location for all plan data from remote or satellite offices. It consolidates and tracks billing and payment information. MetLink also handles claims status inquiries and electronic bill payment. Among the lines of business housed on the MetLink platform are disability, long-term care and life products.

Initially launched in 1997, MetLink has been totally rewritten to add new coverages and to replatform it to modern standards using Java and Web services, Chris Cummings, director of application development, said.

MetLink has been adopted by more than 17,500 corporate customers, who have conducted more than 6 million transactions so far this year, in keeping with MetLife's strategy to make the Internet the preferred customer channel for its institutional products line. "It is great to see greater acceptance of this tool by our customers and, with this award, by the industry," Shari Gottheim, director of Institutional e-Business, said.

The other finalists in this category were:

-- Aon's Affinity Insurance Services online professional liability insurance coverage for nurses. The e-commerce site, www.nso.com supports the direct selling of this coverage. Business activity at the site accounted for about 28% of new business for the program last year, generating 28,000 policies and $2.5 million in premium. So far this year, the site has attracted the purchase of 41,000 policies online, bringing in $3 million in premium, according to John Pogas, vice president, e-Commerce.

-- GE Insurance Solutions (formerly Employers Reinsurance Corp.) Customer Service Center. With the June 2003 launch of this center, GE Insurance Solutions has measurably improved its responsiveness to customers, answering the questions of 70% of callers on their initial call, up from 15% before the center was created. All five commercial-insurance lines are standardized on one technology suite, giving the company an enterprisewide view of customer service levels.

Online Benefits Inc. Client Community. Group insurance brokers can use this tool to create customized client service portals offering free research and timely information to their customers. It is a secure environment that allows broker and client to share sensitive documents and messages and offers a safe alternative to sending HIPAA-sensitive files. Introduced in 2003, it is being used by 297 broker partners and 18,042 of their individual clients, including human resources and benefits professionals or business owners. The cost to brokers to provide this service is $2 per client per month, said Andrew Ceccon, chief marketing officer.

-- Carroll Enterprises Small Business Service Bureau. SBSBHMO.com is designed to allow small businesses in Massachusetts to provide affordable health insurance for their employees, who can select the health plan of their choice online, apply and enroll within minutes rather than taking the eight days typical of many plans. For example, instant quoting in less than 30 seconds delivers multiple coverage options from multiple health plans that are state leaders among health-care providers. SBSB is a nationally recognized membership organization.

-- Zurich Small Business: Customer Services -- Risk Engineering, Virtual Consulting. This online tool helps corporate clients see, by location, what their top 10 exposures are, learn what can be done to address those issues and receive help from such tools as sample policies and procedures, computer-based training, technical information and links to online support. The project harnesses the capabilities of a loss-control specialist and puts them in the hands of every customer. For example, in advance of the recent hurricanes that hit Florida, the company's system sent e-mails to its small-business customers there, telling them what they needed to do to prepare for the storm, said Fred Myatt, who designed the project and presented it at the E-Fusion conference.

By Marilyn Ostermiller, Assistant Vice President, News