Meet the insurtech: iLife

Nelson Lee began his career as a software engineer. His first attempt at a technology startup was a consumer-facing business.

Then, he says, it dawned on him that “the bigger opportunity wasn’t my own consumer-facing business, but how insurance agents were stuck with very inefficient processes that were expensive and slow–and they were losing deals left and right.”

Lee set out to build an application that would create value for life insurance agents by helping them sell more policies than they could on their own. With co-founder Amit Lohia, Lee launched iLife 10 months ago as a digital hub for life insurance agents. Lee focused on life insurance as opposed to auto or home insurance because those businesses’ products are legally required for drivers, mortgages or renters. Therefore, life insurance can be a tougher sell, so agents have to do more, he says.

“We started with a mission to be Shopify for life insurance, with a website that would do basic insurance functions – quotes, customer relationship management and more,” says Lee, CEO of iLife. “Then we expanded it for agents to brand themselves, have different quoting features, select different carriers and kinds of underwriting, linking to electronic health records.”

A life insurance agent signing on to iLife can begin by setting up their virtual storefront without having to hire IT staff or web designers. This includes colors, themes, welcome messages and embedded video content. Once this client-facing page is up, the agent can see metrics for how many visitors they're getting, how many potential customers have contacted them, how many of those are turning into viable customer leads, and how many have purchased products.

Conversely, for customers working with an agent on iLife, the agent can provide coverage options, policy illustrations and contracts. The agent can narrow down coverage options based on the customer’s parameters and present them with two to five choices, which avoids overwhelming a customer with all 10 or 15 policies from various carriers that might or might not fit their needs.

An agent using iLife can interact with customers from anywhere, and for carriers directly linked with iLife, enter a policy application and be approved automatically, or be linked to a healthcare provider that can work with the customer to get a necessary exam required for a policy. A customer can also consent to have their healthcare records automatically sent to the chosen insurer for evaluation for a policy, in a manner that follows HIPAA law.

iLife’s service began with two participating insurers and now has 15 carriers on board, within the U.S. The company recently surpassed 5,000 independent life insurance agents participating on its platform.

The company recently eannounced a partnership with Legal & General America, one of the top life insurers in the U.S., which arrived organically, as Lee recounts.

“The moment you have a few thousand agents, every carrier and big agency sits up and takes notice. We didn’t have a contact at LGA but realized a lot of their agents were mentioning us. They took notice even earlier than we opportunistically expected,” he says.

iLife’s handiwork shouldn’t scare independent agents or insurers themselves that the human element of the business would be eliminated, according to Lee.

“Human interaction will be enhanced but not replaced,” he says. “It’s like the way you interact with an e-commerce merchant. That merchant isn’t eliminated because they use the Shopify checkout process. You actually enjoy that merchant more. My goal is to help life insurance agents have a better working life, so they can work remotely from anywhere and sell asynchronously in a better digital experience like e-commerce merchants can.”