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Case Studies > Independent Planners Group (IPG-US)
Company Background. Independent Planners Group
(IPG), www.ipg-us.com, is a financial services product intermediary
delivering fixed and variable annuities, life insurance, long
term care, disability income and structured settlement products
to financial planners and life insurance professionals. IPG
clients include more than 500 independent insurance agencies
thoughout the United States.
Business Challenges. IPG struggled to keep up with
the rapidly changing interest rates on products like guaranteed
annuities, for the more than 20 companies they represent.
These interest rates sometimes change more than once a day.
Not only was it difficult for one person to keep track of
interest rate changes and update spreadsheets, it was even
harder for the numerous Sales Support Specialists to get the
updates or know when new interest rate changes were available.
It was a difficult challenge keeping client agencies updated
with the most accurate information.
IPG had similar challenges keeping frequently changing product
forms up-to-date so agents throughout the United Sates could
be confident that they were using the latest product form
to write new business and/or make changes to current policies.
Another major challenge for IPG was how to accurately and
economically get this information to the agents in a timely
manner before it would become outdated again.
(See JT Ryan Case study for more information on IPG)
Solutions. After working with IPG to better understand
their challenges and how their business operates, JVL
developed a dynamic web site that allows IPG to add/edit more
than 16 different content areas, controlling hundreds of company
and product combinations. Now one IPG employee can make interest
rate edits quickly after they are notified, and all Sales
Support Specialists quote rates directly from the web site
when agents call in, assuring that they always quote the latest
and most accurate information.
To solve the forms challenge, JVL
developed a special forms area that has allowed IPG to upload
more than 2000 pdf forms. Not only can agents access the password
protected area themselves 24 hours a day to download the latest
form, but internally IPG Sales Support Specialists use this
area as an internal "filing cabinet". This alleviates
the pain of sorting through thousands of hard copy forms to
find the one they need, sometimes only to find that the form
was outdated.
Through the use of JVL developed
HTML newsletter templates IPG now sends out monthly newsletters
helping to keep their agencies updated on the latest industry
and product news and trends. Also an HTML newsletter template
was developed to help IPG send out immediate announcements
regarding interest rate changes, product updates etc. that
are time sensitive.
Technologies. Primarily PHP and mySQL, supplemented
with HTML and Java Script.
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