Building Better Mobile Solutions

A software development tool allowed Primerica Financial Services to develop a flexible mobile solution for use by its licensed agents.

Primerica Financial Services, a Citigroup subsidiary headquartered in Duluth, GA, is the largest financial services marketing organization in North America. The company provides financial products and services, including term life insurance, mutual funds, variable annuities, loans, and long-term care insurance, to approximately 6 million clients through more than 100,000 licensed independent representatives. Primerica reps handle a collective 30,000 to 35,000 life insurance applications each month.

Prior to 2005, agents used traditional paper forms to collect information from individuals applying for life insurance coverage. Reps would sit down with prospective clients at their residences or places of business to assist them in completing the documents. Completed forms were subsequently duplicated for agents' files and mailed to Primerica's home office for processing.

"The paper method, which is still common in our industry, was labor-intensive and slow," says Tom Swift, executive VP, field technology. "Agents not only had to collect and send in applications; scanning and rekeying of information then had to take place. As a result of all this, it was not unusual for the paper applications received at our home office to be incomplete, illegible, or both."

Primerica addressed these problems by replacing the paper-based system with a solution that would enable agents to input clients' information into electronic application forms via wireless handheld devices.