Market Intelligence for Actuaries with Competiscan
By Erika Dochney
NewsDirect, April 2024
What are insurance companies promoting in the market? How are they framing their products and services? What is their value proposition to producers? Members of the SOA Marketing and Distribution section receive an exclusive benefit that addresses these questions.
Competiscan provides up-to-date market intelligence reports covering the financial services industry. For the SOA, Competiscan uses their large panel of agents and advisors to analyze and illustrate marketing copy from insurers by product type and topic. Every quarter, the SOA MaD section selects three reports to make available to members. As an example, the 2023Q4 Life Insurance report provided information on Term Life products covering new products, price updates, and term conversion program changes. Marketing copy from Protective, Pacific Life, John Hancock, Symetra, and MassMutual was provided.
Topics aren’t limited to products, though. The 2023Q4 report also provided information on Life Insurance Product Positioning and Digital Tool Enhancements, among others. While product pricing and benefit design are near and dear to an actuary’s heart, sales are driven by the value insurers provide to their producers. Actuaries who have this exposure and understanding can be more effective in cross-department projects and increase their value to the organization.
Competiscan reports on specific topics relevant to actuarial work are available as an exclusive benefit for members of the SOA Marketing and Distribution section. Below, you will find instructions on how to access these valuable reports.
- Go to https://www.soa.org/ and ensure that you are logged in to your SOA account.
- Under “Tools and Resources,” select SOA Engage. Alternatively, you can directly access SOA Engage at https://engage.soa.org/.
- Under “Communities,” select “My Communities” where you will see a listing of all SOA sections and other communities you belong to. Select the “Marketing and Distribution Section.”
- Competiscan reports can be accessed through the shortcut on the Community Home page, or in the Library.
- The Library contains historical Competiscan reports. You can access the reports for each calendar year by selecting the year, and then double clicking the quarterly report. Note that the name of each report indicates the topics it covers. For example, the 2023Q4 report includes Life, Annuities, and Accelerated Underwriting.
- The report can be opened directly by clicking on the report name or downloaded using the Download button.
- With the report open, you are able to click on the icon for each competitive piece to open a full version of the materials.
If you have any questions about accessing SOA Engage, please contact sections@soa.org.
If you have any questions about accessing SOA Engage, Competiscan, or the Marketing and Distribution Section, please contact sections@soa.org.
Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the newsletter editors, or the respective authors’ employers.
Erika Dochney, FSA, is a market engagement actuary at Haven Technologies. She can be contacted at erika@haventech.us.