Visit us at BridgelineDigital.com or call 800.603.9936 for more info. Bridgeline Digital and iAPPS ds are registered trademarks of Bridgeline Digital Inc.

Berkshire and Guardian Life Help companies manage employee disability insurance enrollment with customized iAPPS portals

CASE STUDY:

www.enrolldi.com/demo/express

THE CHALLENGE: Berkshire’s challenge was how to

leverage the web as its primary marketing and enrollment

channel, grow the business, and roll out new products such

as “buy ups” that could gain traction in a fiercely competitive

market. This would help it meet the overarching objective of

measurably improving its competitive positioning in the Multi-

Life DI market.

They needed an enrollment system flexible enough to

accommodate different industries and employer demographics,

as well as discrete groups of employees within its target

companies. Specific objectives included:

■ Streamlining the case setup process, using web services to swiftly

create product offers, pricing schedules, contact data and user

profiles.

■ Improving case management and statistical reporting, including data

export and review protocols, microsite assignments and product

lifecycle management.

■ Facilitating web content management and site administration,

including support for microsite registration and authentication,

workflow configuration and dynamic content dissemination

across microsites.

■ Enhancing Berkshire Life’s brand through the delivery of persuasive

educational content and value-added tools such as cost calculators

and consumer tools.

Berkshire Life Insurance Company of America, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Guardian Life Insurance, is one of the leading providers of disability income insurance in America. It specializes in insurance products that are uniquely suited to the needs of highly skilled professionals, executives and business owners. Following its merger with The Guardian Life In-surance Company of America, Berkshire Life took on responsibility for all individual disability insurance (DI) products for the merged companies. A top strategic initiative of the newly merged company was the creation of a new product offering that addressed the multi-life disability insurance market.

Visit us at BridgelineDigital.com or call 800.603.9936 for more info. Bridgeline Digital and iAPPS ds are registered trademarks of Bridgeline Digital Inc.

■ Supporting online enrollment including

electronic billing, eSignatures and

all aspects of the application submission,

review and approval process.

THE SOLUTION: To gain a deep

understanding of Berkshire’s business drivers,

Bridgeline met with key stakeholders, including

several end-users of its products. Bridgeline

solutions architects also met IT stakeholders

to identify baseline requirements and critical

touch points for the enrollment system. Using

clickable prototypes, Bridgeline’s designers

conducted extensive usability testing based

on six distinct employee personas, the results

of which informed the user interface design

and site functionality.

Bridgeline developed Berkshire’s new

enrollment system using its flagship iAPPS

Content Manager. Using service level APIs

built into the iAPPS Framework, the new

system employs web services between the

online applications and Berkshire’s legacy

technology environment, including its back-

office mainframe and imaging systems. This

created a system that was simple to use and

maintain, easy to customize, and capable of

supporting the delivery of flexible, targeted,

and conversion-oriented DI educational

content.

iAPPS Content Manager allows Berkshire’s

business users to quickly create a custom

microsite portal for each new client, built to

address specific needs, such as custom

branding with logos and colors, multiple riders

and coverage amounts, and even varying

interfaces for different types of employees,

such as salaried or hourly workers. New

“cases” are easily created from XML participant

and offer data to allow an unified interface

for each client company’s employees. The

system is full-service, from creating the first

password to providing employee education,

offer information, enrollment materials and

allowing employees to opt for direct billing or

payroll deductions.

Enhancing Berkshire Life’s brand through the delivery of persuasive educational content and value-added tools such as cost calculators and consumer tools.

In the first two months of operation, Berkshire completed a voluntary case with greater than 35% participation, a higher level than previously achieved.

Bridgeline Digital is a developer of

an award-winning Web Engagement

Management platform and related

interactive solutions that help

customers leverage best in class

web-based technologies to achieve

their business objectives.

The iAPPS Product Suite is an

innovative SaaS solution that deeply

unifies web Content Management,

eCommerce, eMarketing, and web

Analytics capabilities into the heart

of websites, online stores, intranets,

extranets or portals – enabling users

to swiftly enhance and optimize the

value of their web assets. iAPPS

Content Manager is a CODiE winner

for the Best Content Management

Solution, globally.

THE RESULTS: In the first two months of operation, Berkshire completed a voluntary case

with greater than 35% participation, a higher level than previously achieved. In addition, Berkshire

accomplished an industry first – the successful sale of a Guaranteed Standard Issue (GSI) DI

product with buy-up through the online enrollment system. Since the system’s debut in 2009,

Berkshire has created dozens of sites that have served thousands of plan participants.

Interactive widgets developed by Bridgeline’s application developers educate employees on

the benefits of Multi-Life DI. Bridgeline also created online calculators to assist employees in

determining how much insurance they would need to replace lost income due to a short- or long-

term disability. The system validates and transmits encrypted employee information that enables

Berkshire/Guardian to generate multiple individual and supplemental offers for each employee,

and even creates secure PDF applications from individuals’ form data, allowing Berkshire to

better serve its client companies and their end users.

Administrators of the system are now able to quickly and easily upload case census data and

create new, individually branded customer enrollment sites without the need for IT intervention.

Berkshire/Guardian continues to add features to their online system and successfully showcases

its demo enrollment site to independent brokers as a sales tool.