Data and technology have fuelled the growth of some term life insurance products, particularly in the United States, offering bread and butter solutions to technology-savvy, digitally-enabled younger families, says Yaron Ben Zvi, CEO of Haven Life. 

Started six years ago, Haven Life, now owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., offers term life policies for those who prefer to skip the medical and don’t mind paying a bit more for the convenience. 

During a Reuters Events webinar held April 27, Ben-Zvi said his firm wants to offer not just term products, but other kinds of protection using simplified products. 

While advisors are good at selling complex products, there are many other insurance products that can be sold via social media and sophisticated data science algorithms optimized over time.

Ben-Zvi said one of the challenges his company faces is that it tends to “overfocus” on first-time life insurance buyers, putting a lot of time and energy into teaching potential buyers the benefits of what might be their first and only insurance product. 

But it’s on customer service that Haven Life prides itself, providing not only insurance products but documents like an online will an online digital archive of documents and other value-added services.

Its clients are mostly mid-to-late 30s, upper-middle income and geographically dispersed; they have one or two kids and while there are currently more men than women coming to the Haven Life website, Ben-Zvi said his firm is shifting more towards women now. 

“We want to make sure we’re acquiring customers profitably. I think one of the challenges you have in the life space is that even with our products it takes a week or two to know if a customer is coming onside….but we have other metrics that we look at along the way as to whether our product is successful.” 

He said it has taken about two years for Haven Life to get national with sales up 60%-70% over last year. 

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the value of insurance is now more desired than in any time in recent memory. 

“I think if you combine that basic need that still exists with all of the talk about changes in data and technology, it’s a wonderful time to think of how we can serve our customers better. As an industry, the more people who are doing that, the more we’re going to train our customers about that value proposition and bring people along in a way that everyone benefits.”