BearingPoint Helps MetLife Develop Web-based Benefits Platform

The Client

With more than 46,000 employees and over $32 billion in operating revenue, MetLife is the largest life insurer, with over $2 trillion in life insurance in force as of December 31, 2001. MetLife stands behind its mission to build financial freedom for everyone by offering a variety of products and services to individuals and employers.

The Challenge

MetLife determined that to provide an efficient, effective enrollment system, it must simplify and streamline its paper-based, manually intensive, and time-consuming enrollment process with a new web-based enrollment system. By transitioning to a web-based system, MetLife could improve customer satisfaction, create powerful new sales channels, and decrease time to market.

Based on our industry-specific knowledge and technical experience, MetLife asked BearingPoint to help develop and implement the new Internet-enabled benefits delivery mechanism. With the vast number of insurance products offered and the various administration systems used to manage its portfolio, MetLife envisioned a single and consistent customer experience.

To achieve these goals, MetLife needed to develop and implement a secure online enrollment system that would integrate with a customer’s existing web-based benefits application, as well as allow for future functionality, such as employee self-service.

The Solution

Our team worked with MetLife Institutional Business leadership to analyze current enrollment processes and identify opportunities for leveraging technology across the various product lines. The team then developed business requirements, participated in the technical design and development, and presented a proof of concept using Web services that allow for integration with MetLife’s multiple back-end systems.

Upon MetLife’s acceptance of our recommendations, the team implemented an initial online Internet enrollment application, delivering the contextual application framework and transferring knowledge to MetLife employees. As MetLife continues to integrate its vast product lines into a common enrollment process, the technology delivered by BearingPoint will be reused, the delivery of online enrollment will become standardized, and the customer experience will be enhanced.

In order to facilitate the reuse of existing technology and services, we also established a development process that allows MetLife to add additional Web-based functionality in 90- to 100-day increments. This IT process helps MetLife bring new services to market faster than before and dramatically decrease product cycle times. This concept was proven as BearingPoint continued the joint development effort with the Institutional eBusiness team and the integrated portal expanded its services to include new, single sign-on technology and electronic signature of transactions.

The Benefits

With the new, integrated portal and the online enrollment system in place, MetLife is now able to provide group customers with a single destination for product information, enrollment, and other transaction processing. Customer satisfaction surveys and growth of utilization are proof that MetLife is a leader in the eBusiness marketplace. We at BearingPoint are proud to be part of that success. BearingPoint chose technologies that enable new application development capabilities and utilize iterative development processes, which shorten delivery cycles and save resources for MetLife Institutional Business. MetLife credits our team with delivering positive and measurable results.

Completed on time and within budget, the successful project implementation helped MetLife Institutional Business:

• Improve the customer experience
• Reduce processing costs
• Enhance service capabilities for plan sponsors
• Increase operating earnings
• Implement cutting-edge technology
• Enrich and energize MetLife employees

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