Tech

All too often we get caught up in day-to-day activities and forget who it is that we ultimately serve: employees. Without employees signing up for benefits, querying accounts, using services provided and generally trying to take care of themselves and their families, we wouldn't have businesses to run. To bring this point home, I offer the following composite sketches (based on anecdotes from brokers, vendors and employers) - oh to be a fly on the wall ...

Communication is not just important for business … it is essential for the very existence and operation of any business. A benefit adviser must transfer its knowledge to clients as well as receive information – communication consists of a mutual exchange. With the advent of technology, we have cell phones, video conferencing, and emails. However, how we use these avenues is the question we must ask ourselves. …

Ever wonder what makes successful advisers successful? Independence and technology are the leading factors, according to four advisers at TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Elite Summit, but some of the other factors were even more surprising.

A technological revolution is transforming the financial services industry by empowering consumers to connect with each other and institutions, which is creating new opportunities for lower income consumers, asserts a report from The CSC Leading Edge Forum.

In a business environment marked by increased customer demands, insurers have been forced to continuously monitor and revise their distribution strategies. One of those strategies is to provide excellent service to the producer as a way to retain and grow business. According to a new report issued this morning by Celent, from January 2010 to March 2012, more than 50 insurers across the life, annuities, health, or property/casualty industries licensed new systems that contained commission and producer management functionality.

Benefits are typically structured to reward and motivate employees who stay at the company for the long haul. For example, retirement rewards and paid time off usually get sweeter as time goes on. Dangling a long-term benefits carrot makes sense for driving retention right? — Perhaps not when it comes to Gen Y workers. As companies focus on attracting and keeping a pipeline of Gen Y employees, I maintain that, when it comes to benefits,…

With employers seeking to show the value of all their benefits in this ever-increasing competitive job market, Benefitfocus, a benefits technology company, recently debuted an online marketplace for employees to shop for benefits, voluntary products and more.

As health care consulting and cost analysis become more and more complicated, brokers can help clients reduce costs by using data mining - a field that is constantly evolving with new technology and tools.

Financial firms can ‘outsource’ almost any operation, from reporting to trade processing to customer support, to the computing cloud, anywhere in the world.

In kasina’s yet-to-be released 2nd annual study, findings indicate that about 87% of asset managers and insurers use LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, but very few are experiencing increased sales.