Berkshire Launches New Multi-Life Product Offering, Including Online Enrollment and Reduced Rates

Berkshire is proud to announce the launch of DI@WorkTM, a new Multi-Life disability income insurance offering for Guaranteed Standard Issue (GSI) business that features superior online enrollment capabilities, competitive pricing and unprecedented customer service and sales tools designed to make your sales process hassle-free from start to finish.

Innovative Online Enrollment
DI@Work promises to be “distinctively different,” and its new e-enrollment system delivers. The Web site makes enrollment easy and helps educate applicants, using tools such as an expense calculator to determine how much supplemental coverage they need. Employees are able to select from a series of product packages for which to apply, including “above the GSI,” to help them obtain a solution that’s best suited to their needs.

DI@Work also reduces the workload for producers and employers as it utilizes true “e-signature,” meaning no paper applications, and offers demographic-based tracking to ensure success. Berkshire’s Multi-Life team will oversee all aspects of your enrollment, which includes customizing an enrollment plan to fit each organization’s needs, managing employee communications, tailoring an enrollment site, and overseeing all administrative tasks.

Income ProVider Rate Decreases
To make this offering even more attractive, we’ve substantially lowered our rates for Income ProVider — our GSI product. We’re also incorporating a more liberal approach to the utilization of pre-existing condition limitations. The new rates are available in all states as of July 1, 2008, except for Massachusetts, New York and Florida. As these states are approved, you will be notified. Income ProVider is not currently available for sale in California. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like us to run a previous offer with these new rates to showcase the savings.

Sales Support
We’re also conducting monthly online training sessions, providing an introduction to our enhanced sales tools and a more personalized approach to managing worksite DI business. Join us on Wednesday, July 9, at 12 p.m. Eastern for our next WebEx, during which our unit will share an overview of best practices as well as offer a demonstration of the new online enrollment capabilities. Watch your e-mail for more details.

More Comprehensive, Aggressive Offers
To further strengthen our team, we’ve added Darlene Demorad, who brings years of experience with a key competitor to her role as manager of Worksite Risk Management. She provides great insight to the multi-life underwriting promise and has already added considerable value through more comprehensive and aggressive offers.

A New Special Limits Program – Up to $7,500 of monthly benefit for Medical and Dental Specialties

The Special Limits for Young Professionals program provides students, residents and first-year professionals the opportunity to obtain disability income insurance without proof of income, giving your agents a competitive entrée to a very lucrative market.

In a recent review of experience, market outlook and salary data, we have identified that typical first-year income within the broad first-year physician and dentist categories can vary considerably.

For that reason, we’re introducing a new Special Limits program that recognizes 13 new special limits for 22 specific first-year medical and dental professions, to protect the income they expect to earn in their specialties. These new classifications and limits are available immediately with new Berkshire ProVider Plus policy forms 1400 and 1500, where approved. They are not available with any other Berkshire or Guardian policy form.

New Occupational Categories and Higher Limits
This new program offers up to $7,500 of monthly benefit to qualifying first-year professionals—a significant increase over the previous limit of $5,000. See the following table for an overview of new categories and corresponding special limits within the medical and dental markets. Items highlighted indicate an increase in limits.

TeleMed Requirement and Policy Form Availability
The new classifications and limits are available with new ProVider Plus policy forms 1400 and 1500, where approved, and when TeleMed is utilized to gather all underwriting requirements. Existing program classifications and limits are available for policy forms 0100/1100/2100 or NC111/112 in California, or when TeleMed is not utilized. See the attached flyer in the “Marketing This New Program” section for complete details.