Symetra is one of the largest life insurers in the world with 1.5 million customers and over 100 years of operating history. Recognizing that this impressive track record was no guarantee of future success, however, the company embarked on a bold initiative to become more customer-centric and empower financial freedom for underinsured groups.
Symetra found that nearly 22 million Americans ages 30 to 45 wanted to get life insurance but were dissuaded by the confusing and time-consuming application process. These customers were used to the ease and speed of online retail purchases and expected a similar experience from their life insurance.
Delivering modern customer experiences means deploying a modern tech stack
To reach these customers, Symetra decided to launch a new digital platform, known as SwiftTerm, with the goal to speed up life insurance applications from 45 days to 25 minutes or less.
“With SwiftTerm, we set out to make term life insurance easier to understand and buy with a digital offering based on the customer’s desired experience.” – Mindi Work, Senior Vice President, Chief of Strategy at Symetra
To deliver better and more modern digital experiences, Symetra realized they needed to abandon their legacy systems and processes and modernize their tech stack and organization. The company set out to find the right technology partner to help bring their vision to life.
Achieving dramatic results with a best-in-class partner
After an extensive review of multiple platforms, Symetra decided to partner with Socotra, which was named a Visionary in the 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Life Insurance Policy Administration Systems, North America. Socotra delivered a robust and flexible core platform, enabling Symetra to power its innovative digital insurance product.
“The policy admin system is at the heart of the typical policy life cycle. Socotra was a breath of fresh air where the architecture was cloud-native. And there were no clauses about downtime during off hours. New updates were being pushed almost every week meaning that the platform itself was evolving and getting better.” – Surya Jakhotia, AVP, Emerging Technology Platforms at Symetra
Nine months after kickoff, Symetra launched its SwiftTerm life insurance product, which customers could purchase in 25 minutes or less through an online, self-service portal. The company also developed an agile platform that could serve more people with new products in the future.
“I was overjoyed when that first policy was written. Socotra has been a great partner,” said Work on the success of SwiftTerm, which earned Symetra the 2021 Gartner Eye on Innovation Award for Financial Services.