Good morning Beckham.
For the benefit of those outside the insurance industry, B-line is Irish Life's online life assurance application strategy for brokers and agents, where one can apply for life assurance online, with rapid turnaround of policies, an ability to print off cover notes at point of sale by the broker etc.
I am a broker but I don't use B-line for the simple reason that Irish Life's life assurance rates are rarely if ever the cheapest. I would also question Irish Life's comment that B-line offers the best overall service proposition, given that Eagle Star have a similar set-up which seems to work quite well.
I would imagine that one should only recommend Irish Life in a situation where it is clear that speed of processing is of primary importance to the client, and that you have clearly explained to the client that while XYZ Life have the same cover available at a lower premium, Irish Life's B-Line set-up will enable the application to be processed more quickly. The client should agree to this in writing as part of the "Reasons Why" letter. That's not a Central Bank opinion, by the way, just my own cent's worth as to what I'd do.
On a related note - I must commend Eagle Star for offering discounts from 5% to 15% over their standard rates for online applications. I'm not aware that Irish Life offer such discounts. My view is that Eagle Star have taken the correct stance - obviously, online applications significantly reduce their costs of processing (cost of printing application forms, cost of data input etc.) and so it's only right that some of these savings should be passed back.
Now what I'd really like to see is some of these cost savings being passed back directly to those who are having to spend more - brokers are now doing data input and printing off application forms - that's an extra cost - how are we to be repaid this extra cost?
L