How to build an Award-Winning Adviser portal.

When we launched Integrity Life, there wasn’t a technology solution on the market that could do everything Advisers told us they needed. So instead of launching as just a life insurer (no easy feat) we also launched as a tech company. Even today, half of our company works in technology, development or user-design. This year we were rewarded for the investment in technology with a Good Design Award. These awards recognize the greatest innovations from across the country and we’re thrilled to be the only insurer to ever have won. At the heart of this, striving for the most game-changing platform in the industry, is our Head of Development, Fraser Hamilton. We spoke with him about a year of big achievements.

Hi Fraser, first, congratulations on the Good Design Award. It’s a big deal! Why do you think the judges were so impressed?

Fraser Hamilton: Thanks, we certainly think it is a big deal, especially given this was a platform designed from the ground up to meet the needs of Advisers. I think the judges were impressed by how we were able to simplify the complex process of purchasing life insurance with features such as the flexibility to complete the application in any order and never having to enter the same data twice. The friendly look and feel of the design and of usability was also a consideration, particularly in an industry that doesn’t always focus on the end-user.

What are some of the features in the Adviser portal you have delivered this year?

Fraser Hamilton: We’ve delivered many new features this year – in fact we are able to deliver changes across the entire platform every two weeks. Specifically, we’ve delivered Five+, our small-to-medium enterprise group product in only six weeks. As a ‘digital first’ life insurer we delivered features that allow an Adviser to send the application to the end customer for completion via the online platform – this provides the customer with greater privacy and convenience in how they provide their personal information particularly when compared to other industry approaches such as tele-underwriting.

What are you most proud of?

Fraser Hamilton: I’m most proud of how we have started to deliver a retail life insurance platform with industry leading user experience in just nine months, using some of the most modern technology used in life insurance – anywhere in the world. We were able to achieve this by really backing ourselves and making bold decisions. This gives us huge advantages in time-to-market.

Without giving away the farm, can you tell us about any features you’re really excited about coming soon?

Fraser Hamilton: From an Adviser perspective I am really excited about the policy administration features we will be providing – they are real game changers. From a technology perspective we are continuing to evolve the platform to make it even easier to deploy new features more rapidly. We currently release every two weeks, but there is no reason why we can’t release every day if desired.

How does the team deliver so much? And how do you decide what feature to do next?

Fraser Hamilton: We are able to deliver so much because we do not have any legacy applications and our frequency of deployment allows us to continually improve the platform and keep it fresh. We are also very disciplined at focusing only on the highest priority features required by the business. We determine what we work on next by working closely with the executive team to establish a backlog of features to work on and to set the priority for the coming sprints. Because we release very frequently and we continuously gather feedback on the experience, we are constantly responding to the needs of our Advisers.