I. Introduction

The market for developing business at the worksite is steadily growing. Demand should continue to grow in the near term. A system that supports this market should be flexible in a number of areas:

• Information about the employer and the enroller should be provided.
• A wide range of product support should be available.
• Customized products pertaining to an enrollment should be easy to generate.
• The range of products, benefit limits and underwriting offers should have the ability to vary by employer-defined relationships.
• The enrollment process should be efficient and include differing entry points such as in-house and electronic.
• Underwriting should be automated as much as possible in order to quickly process the enrollment .
• Certificate management processes should be all inclusive and real time.
• Employer level billing should be able to include all employees or segregate employee groups on an employer-defined basis.

The Administrator has a complete solution for each and every one of these areas. View the full list of product features supported by The Administrator's Group/Worksite Processing.

II. Worksite Processing

IIa. Case Level Information

Client specific information such as names, addresses and contact information is carried for the employer, the marketing company, the enrolling company, the writing agent and the servicing agent. Rules can be defined at the case level to differentiate employee groups. Some examples are location, employee class, payroll mode, department, issue state, application state and full/part time.

If an employer has worksites at several different places, each location can be addressed by its corporate name when creating the rules. This flexibility carries over to all differentiating parameters. This level of information is also available at the employee level and case rules are invoked to edit the information for accuracy.

IIb. Wide Range of Products

All Administrator supported products are available for worksite enrollments. These include Life, both Traditional and non-Traditional, Health, and Annuities along with all related riders and benefits. Please reference documentation specifically related to the various products supported.

IIc. Products Customized for an Enrollment

Each of the available products can be customized to relate to the specifics of the worksite sale.

Features that can be customized include premium/cost of insurance rates, commission rates, minimum premium rates, target premium rates and surrender charges. Tools are provided to simplify product maintenance

For example, a universal life product that is targeted for the individual market could be the basis for a customized worksite product. This could be accomplished by utilizing the basic chassis of the individual universal life product such as pay up, maturity dates and loan provisions. The cost of insurance rates and commission rates could then be overridden to conform to the characteristics of the worksite sale.

IId. Vary the Enrollment based upon Case Defined Parameters

One case enrollment could be as simple as a single product offering for all employees. It could be as complex as a set of products that vary by employee class (Office vs. Non-office / Management vs. Labor). In this scenario, Office/Management could have a set of products that are accumulation based while Non-office/Labor could have a set of products that are protection based and they could each share a set of health products.

The most complex enrollment could have a different product set based on relationships such as location, employee class, payroll mode, department, issue state, application state and full/part time. Each separate relationship would have its own customized settings. In the case of locations, the settings could be each of the 50 states or cities within each of the 50 states. By extrapolating this concept out for each relationship, one could quickly see that there is almost an infinite amount of flexibility in the definition of a single enrollment period. In addition to this basic level of flexibility, a one product set can be defined for new entrants and another product set can be defined for existing employees wishing to increase an existing certificate.

Each base product can have a set of eligible riders. A set of eligible benefits can also be defined for each base and rider. Benefits can be selectable or automatically provided. Within a product set,minimum and maximum benefit levels can be defined as well as different loads, fees and employer-employee pay splits. The underwriting offer is defined within each product set. For example, Office/Management can have the offer set to Guaranteed Issue while Non-office/Labor can have an identical product set but have the offer set to either Simplified Issue or some hybrid issue version. If a certain number of participants are required in order for the underwriting offer to be appropriate, the participant threshold can be identified at the case level and participants accumulated.

Lastly, expert underwriting rules can be coded that support the various underwriting offers. The rules can vary by the enrollment product set and whether the applicant is a new entrant or an existing employee.

IIe. The Enrollment Process

The enrollment can be processed in a couple of ways. It can be completed through either a carrier's enroller, a third party enroller or any other external enrollment process. The enrollment process can result in a set of paper applications or a set of electronic transmissions.

The Administrator can accept the incoming data in the form of industry standard ACORD XML messaging transactions or in the form of a fixed format message (mapped from any source). Or the incoming applications can be manually entered at a carrier location using Administrator GUI screens tailored for the quick and efficient entry of group related business. Whichever option is appropriate, the end result is an Administrator record that has been fully edited to comply with custom case and product rules built specific to the enrollment product set for the case and any other generic product rules appropriate to the specific product.

IIf. Expert Underwriting

While still in the new business process, expert underwriting rules control new business processing. The underwriting offer for the product set controls the set of underwriting rules that are invoked. Rule sets can identify whether the participant threshold for the underwriting offer has been achieved and automatically issue the certificate. They can also identify whether the new business record actually qualifies for the underwriting offer based on minimums and maximums coded for the product set. If it does not qualify, additional underwriting rules are accessed including rules for application questions. The application can either pend for requirements, issue at a higher underwriting level or be rejected.

IIg. Certificate Management

The certificate is managed by Administrator business rules. These rules are the same rules by which the Administrator has managed individual policies for years. The processes are all real time. There is no batch component. The GUI application is the same as that used to process individual applications. It is possible that group certificates can be mainstreamed through a generalized policyholders services area. Alternatively, resources can be shared across individual and worksite policyholders services areas.

IIh. Billing and Collection

In the simplest worksite enrollment, there is one bill. Unfortunately, not all worksite business is simple. The employer could have multiple locations and require reconciliation at each location for one case. The Administrator provides the ability to bill one case at multiple frequencies and multiple locations and to produce as many separate bills as is required by the employer. The bill can also combine multiple locations and multiple frequencies into one bill. The billing definition takes place during case setup as product sets are defined for the enrollment.

All billing modes are supported. It is possible for certificates to have payroll deduction modes different from the employer billing mode. For example, the employer might want to be billed monthly to lessen the reconciliation effort but the employees are paid weekly. The monthly employer bill can show the employee portion of the bill as four or five payroll deductions depending on the month.

If the bill is paid as billed, payment reconciliation can occur automatically. Over/short tolerances are provided. If not paid as billed, reconciliation and payment is an online real-time task using a screen that provides the information in the same order as the bill.

IIi. Ancillary Worksite Support

From time to time, conditions arise that impact a significant number of worksite employees. The worksite agent can change. Certificates are required to be activated on a specific day. Employees are no longer employed. They need to be disassociated with the group to potentially bill as an individual policy.

The Administrator provides for this in a mass change facility. On a group basis, a set of certificates can be selected through various selection criteria to present a list of certificates that require change. The change required can then be accomplished on all or a selected portion of those certificates presents.