Designing an Internet-Friendly Health Insurance Product

October 4, 2006 - Mike Wise, IdeaStar Vice President of Insurance Technologies, recently returned from the 6th Conference on New Product Development for Health Plans in San Francisco.  He helped facilitate a class on Designing and Marketing an Internet-Friendly Health Insurance Product.  The class focused on best practices employed by leading-edge health plans.

When developing a health plan product for the Web, Mike says there are several things to consider.

One is the need to create new communications formats.  “The Internet offers enourmous opportunities to go beyond just simply ‘Webifying’ existing products,” Mike said.

Next is the need to make sure the Web site is easy-to-use. “A user-friendly Web site is essential,” Mike said.  “If it isn’t you’re wasting your time as as well as the users.”

It is also important to keep the consumer in mind – not just the agents – when designing a new product.  Make the product as attractive as possible for our target market.  Focus on developing product combos for specific consumer segments.

And, it is important to use technology to retain customers.  Newsletters, special offers, important information can all be sent automatically.

Let’s not forget accountability.  It is important to make sure your product does what it promises to do.

“We were fortunate to have in the class one of the guys who was the creative mind behind one of the most successful products in recent history, www.tonik.com,” Mike said.  “We spent a good part of the class picking his brain, and we came up with some good points,” including:

• The need for a truly special plan design to be sold online
• The need for strong executive leadership to make the project a priority
• The need for a strong project manager to keep the project on track
• The importance of tailoring a Web-based product to a specific audience

 There was one item which class members expressed frustration over. “Everybody, and I mean everybody, complained about internal IT departments.  Although I’m sure this doesn’t happen in every case, many times they come up with horrible Web sites.  Their timing is bad, and they slow down the whole health care industry,” Mike said.  “Sounds like a good endorsement for outsourcing to a Web development company like IdeaStar.”

For more information, contact Mike Wise, IdeaStar Vice President of IdeaStar Insurance Technologies, at 216-674-1600 ext. 116.  Or read Mike's blog at http://insuratech.blogspot.com/