EHD Valuation Project

May 2024

Situation

A direct carrier had an interest in evaluating the value that electronic health records may provide. They were focused on pursuing a multifactorial analysis that would help them determine key aspects from underwriting risk to improving the client (applicant) experience. The challenge they faced was the lack of internal resources to manage the pilot project with data vendors, extracting data required for a full analysis, and completing the study with a well-developed executive summary and recommendation. A common problem that direct carriers, reinsurers, and vendors voice as a challenge related to numerous competing R&D underwriting projects and not enough bandwidth!

Details and outcome

Valkyrie was hired to manage the pilot project, extract data from eMedical records, traditional medical record summaries, and additional data elements captured in the underwriting files, and complete a thorough analysis with recommendations to senior underwriting leadership. Valkyrie brought previously established relationships with the vendors, working knowledge of the data aggregators (access points, flow, data, and report formats), and vast life underwriting expertise. This led to our ability to jump in without an extensive learning curve. Under an expedited time frame, Valkyrie completed the pilot and business report. Based on the executive summary and key points from the analysis detail, the carrier moved forward with our recommendations. This quickly propelled the carrier into adopting a fresh and pragmatic use of eMedical data, expanding the program to more distribution partners, and creating a tipping point to a holistic approach and a move away from the traditional age/amount and inflexible accelerated underwriting approaches of the past.

Pilot Highlights:

• Valkyrie developed an analysis tool capturing over (45) key drop-down points for consistent data capture and analysis, leading to insights into the four key categories.
• eMedical orders on (500) recently issued policies that included exam, lab, and traditional APS (age/amount and for cause) included in-depth review and analysis.
• Development of recommendations for an electronic data approach based on individualized applicant factors with supporting analysis reflecting no loss of underwriting integrity.
• Mortality improvements found in non-disclosure situations (tobacco usage and medical impairments).
• Improvement in underwriting cycle time (submission to underwriting approval) with an 80% reduction in cycle time.
• Analysis outcomes and learnings were utilized in additional pilot programs, and enhanced underwriting approaches were developed using other eHealth data tools.