Conversation #2 : Going all-out to track down beneficiaries of life insurance policies
Finding the beneficiaries of life insurance policies on which payouts have not been made after a policyholder’s death is a major responsibility for CNP Assurances, which manages over 150,000 policyholder deaths and an average of 360,000 beneficiaries every year. This task may sound simple enough, but it requires commensurately large human and financial resources, including over 340 expert managers, data scientists and external investigators. CNP Assurances’ systems rank among the best in the market, enabling it to live up to the trust placed in its longstanding life insurance business.
Conversation between Anani Olympio, Corinne Bourrut Lacouture and Olivier Oria
Anani Olympio,
Head of CNP Assurances’ Data’Lab in Paris
Her team of actuaries and data scientists have developed a machine learning model to help spot the deaths of policyholders not reported to management units, which helps to simplify and speed up the search for beneficiaries.
Corinne Bourrut Lacouture,
CNP Assurances customer executive in Angers
She describes how searches have become far more sophisticated over the years and talks about her experiences in this area.
Olivier Oria,
CEO of investigations company ATER in Montbazon
Based on his ten years of working with CNP Assurances, he explains the challenges and rules involved in tracking down beneficiaries.
Anani Olympio,
Head of CNP Assurances Data’Lab
To help identify policyholder deaths not reported to management units, the first stage in the process is to cross-check CNP Assurances’ policy portfolio against INSEE’s RNIPP(1) database. AGIRA(2) provides an exact matching service between insurers’ data and the RNIPP database, which can find 87% of the recently deceased. In almost all cases, where information about deceased policyholders is not found in these two databases, the situation is caused by errors (accents, hyphens, spaces) in surnames, first names, or date and place of birth.
To handle these cases, we decided to use machine learning techniques from data science and we have developed an innovative model.
It is based on progressive, fuzzy matching between the databases to handle the various types of errors that they contain. Since it was first rolled out in November 2016, its performance has been excellent, lifting the percentage of the recently deceased identified from 87% to 99%.
Data science makes it possible to tackle operational and business issues in new ways. We are continuing this line of investigation by looking at issues submitted to us by the Group, ranging from the screening of marketing targets to the processing of letters returned to sender.
99% of beneficiaries identifiable thanks to data science
Missing persons
Over the past ten years, insurers’ responsibility has changed dramatically. Until 2007, it was up to beneficiaries of a life insurance policy to make themselves known. But this meant that they needed to be aware that they were a beneficiary. Insurers, meanwhile, had no way of knowing that a policyholder had died. As a result, the number of unsettled policies piled up, especially at CNP Assurances, France’s number one personal insurer. The French law of 2007 made insurers responsible for finding deceased policyholders, and CNP Assurances swung into action.
Gargantuan task
The search began with the oldest policies, but the first-tier beneficiaries had died in some cases, or were too elderly to manage the requisite administrative formalities, or they decided to waive their rights given the small amounts at stake.
By 2009, CNP Assurances had sized up the task and called in licensed investigators to help find the beneficiaries. Between 2012 and 2014, the resources devoted to the task were scaled up fivefold, with a 60-strong team fully dedicated to handling case files dating back to before 2007. Notwithstanding these efforts, the supervisory authority took sanctions against CNP Assurances in late 2014 after an inspection that lasted for a year, illustrating the complexity of the issues.
Rules tightened up by the Loi Eckert
The new law of 2014 clarified the rules on unsettled life insurance policies and tightened up insurers’ obligations. Its key measures included mandatory consultation of the RNIPP database(1) on an annual basis, a broader obligation to inform all policyholders without any minimum policy size being applicable, a ban on charging clients a fee for investigation expenses, and the transfer to Caisse des Dépôts of sums remaining unpaid ten years after the insurer found out about the policyholder’s death or the policy’s expiry date. CNP Assurances immediately redoubled its efforts. A total of 125,000 investigation requests have been processed (in personal insurance) since 2009, with three-quarters being resolved, and 100% of policies prior to 2010 taken in hand by year-end 2015. Since then, efforts have been stepped up further. Over 340 managers have been drafted in, a formal investigation process has been introduced, two investigation companies and a genealogy firm have been retained, and the latest data science and big data techniques are used. Preventative action has also been taken, such as educating partner networks and clients about wording the beneficiary clause precisely to avoid creating additional unsettled life insurance policies in the future. CNP Assurances now applies some of the highest standards in terms of the management of unclaimed policies and the search for beneficiaries.
Making things easier for beneficiaries
Life insurance, often a savings vehicle for pensions, is also a tremendous form of inheritance planning. To make the search for policy beneficiaries easier and to avoid potential disputes between them, CNP Assurances takes great care to word the beneficiaries clause precisely and encourages policyholders to update it after key family events (marriages, births, etc.). In 2017, a dedicated website for beneficiaries will make it easy to submit and track the progress of a claim online, while further shortening payout times.
Olivier Oria,
CEO of investigations company ATER
Our company, which was founded in 1988, specialises in finding individuals owing money, and it is well-versed in dealing with civil status issues. We have expertise in processing large data volumes and 110 specialised inheritance investigators, and we track down around 75,000 people a year on behalf of the market’s leading insurers. CNP Assurances selected us in 2008 following a competitive bidding process, and tasked us with finding and locating the beneficiaries of its unclaimed life insurance policies. We work as discreetly as possible, we don’t tell the beneficiary anything, and we don’t even know how much money is involved. Discretion is the most important attribute of an investigator. The profession is regulated – it is overseen by the French ministry of the interior – and all our investigators have gained the relevant qualifications (CQP). We need to be able to put people at their ease, and listen rather than talk, with patience and perseverance. Our performance is tracked using special metrics. With CNP Assurances, everything is clearly laid out, with agreed response times and performance commitments.
Corinne Bourrut Lacouture,
Customer executive
CNP Assurances handles on average more than 150,000 policyholder deaths p.a. We conduct a preliminary search for beneficiaries internally. With recent policies, the beneficiary clauses are up to date, and so we can find the relevant individuals rapidly. With older policies, if we are unable to identify the beneficiaries, we activate the search system. Around 700 files per week are given out to the two companies of licensed investigators we work with.
Our approach has become far more sophisticated, and the training of an expert team has made CNP Assurances highly proactive.
Our job is very exciting from a human perspective, since we generally deliver good news. From a technical standpoint, too, finding the solution to a complex problem can be highly satisfying. We need to provide expert guidance to beneficiaries to help them with the formalities required by the tax authorities and also show compassion, when we announce the policyholder’s decisions.
Committed to helping our policyholders
The Data’Lab programme is overseen by a steering committee representing all CNP Assurances’ business units and divisions. In late 2015, from a selection of 22 process optimisation projects, the committee whittled the field down to five, and CNP Assurances’ employees voted to pick the winner. The project of improving detection of unclaimed policies won hands-down, claiming close to 50% of the votes cast. This also reflected employees’ attachment to continuously improving the service provided to policyholders.
Over 340 people assigned to finding beneficiaries
(1) National directory for the identification of natural persons
(2) Association managing risk information for insurers