Making decisions easier and lives better at the North Pole

December 2023

“I don’t want a lot for Christmas…” Jack Frost sang as he was putting together his annual insurance portfolio review for his most mysterious clients, Santa Claus, the Claus family, and the employees of the North Pole toy factory. The reports were ready, and information was laid out clearly on holiday-themed spreadsheets, it was time to prepare for the trip to the North Pole.

Jack Frost first met Santa Claus as a young boy who had a passion to make the world a better place and provide families with good financial security long before he knew anything about the world of insurance. Jack woke up one Christmas Eve to find Santa in his house, leaving toys for Jack and his sisters. Santa said, “Jack, you should be asleep. If you scurry into bed, I won’t add you to the naughty list next year”. Each year after that Jack crept into the room where Santa left the presents, and they had a similar interaction.

Jack first learned about the importance of insurance after his girlfriend Pepper Mint’s father, affectionately named Junior, passed away unexpectedly. Mr. Mint had purchased life insurance which helped Pepper’s mother Cocoa, and her children and paid the mortgage while they grieved the loss of their father. Jack knew if he became a successful insurance salesperson, he could make the world a better place and provide families with financial security. When Santa arrived that Christmas following this terrible time for the Mint family, Jack asked Santa if he had life insurance. “Life insurance?” said Santa, “I’ve never thought about it, but I should probably learn about it”.

Jack was in his final year of university at that time, and after graduating joined a firm and became a licensed advisor, selling life, critical illness, travel, and group benefits for small business. When Santa arrived later that year, Jack broached the subject of insurance with Santa and since that time, the entire Claus business enterprise has been Jack’s biggest client. 

Jack arrived at the agreed-upon coordinates close to the North Pole, the weather was frosty and crisp, and the smell of sugar cookies filled the air. Suddenly the snow began to swirl around Jack, and he was whisked away to Santa’s secret workshop where it was warm and the sound of busy Elves building and wrapping toys was coming from every direction.

Jack sat down at the table in Santa’s private quarters where there was a steaming cup of hot chocolate and freshly baked cookies on a platter. As he was opening his laptop, Santa appeared saying “Ho ho ho! Jack Frost, I can’t believe a year has gone by already! You look great and are keeping fit!”.

Jack replied “It’s good to see you Santa, and you’re looking fit as well. I see that you’ve maintained your Vitality Platinum status for 2023, did you take advantage of some of the rewards this year?” 

“Ho ho ho” Santa exclaimed, “Why yes, Mrs. Clause and I took a 2-week vacation using some hotel discount rewards we achieved through Vitality in 2022. We really enjoy long strolls and reindeer games in the yard; keeps us fit and young and those points add up, ho ho ho! We bought our travel insurance through Manulife, the Cover Me product because we don’t use the magic sleigh for personal travel”. 

Jack wanted to get straight to work knowing how busy Santa is at this time of year. “Well Santa, I have some good news for you. Your policies are all performing well and there are a few things we should update. Let’s go over the list of your key Elves and make sure that they’re properly insured; you also have a Family Term 10 policy that will renew next year, and we should look at converting the insurance or rewriting it.” 

“Ho, ho ho!” Santa exclaimed. “I’m not sure we have time for a lot of paperwork this year Jack, we’re very busy and it might be best to do this in March”. 

Jack was trying to hit a personal sales goal and didn’t want to leave the work for next year. Jack said “Santa, my good friends at Manulife have made it much easier to do new business and manage your policies this year. The process keeps getting faster and easier. This year Manulife built a Customer Secure Site. It allows policyholders to create a Manulife ID and make banking and address changes to their inforce policies and see most of their policy values and statements online. You know how hard it is to keep your personal mail separated from the mountains of business mail you get. It’ll be much easier for you to manage your insurance because it’s all in one place.”

“One other great improvement the Manulife team made this year was revising their tele-interview questions. You probably remember how challenging that interview was, especially the ‘Have you ever’ questions because ever for you is a really long time. The new interview is much shorter and gives the Manulife underwriters what they need to approve new policies quickly with the same great products they’ve always had. I’ve had clients tell me the interview was much shorter than the 30 minutes I told them to block, and Manulife has their own tele-interview team who can handle rush cases like yours easily”. 

“Jack! That’s amazing!” Santa said excitedly. “I can do some of my own updates and I can get my newest key Elves insured without a major disruption on the production line! Great let’s get those applications going!”

“Santa, I have even better news. That conversion we’ve been talking about is even easier than before. We can use the e-conversion application and Manulife just launched Par Pay 100, which has quicker cash value accumulation than Manulife’s other Par products. This product seems pretty sweet, almost as sweet as that plate of cookies”, Jack said, reaching for his third cookie. “The other opportunity we should consider in 2024 is an overall review of the Association of Elves coverage we put in place through Manulife’s Affinity markets team”. 

“Ho ho ho!” Santa exclaimed once again, “Then let’s get that done while you’re here and you won’t worry about that renewal rate anymore. What else has the team at Manulife done this year, I’m pretty sure they’re on the Nice list with all of this great work. Let me check”.

As Santa pulled out his smartphone to search the names of the Manulife team, Jack filled Santa in on some other great updates; building the impaired risk team to handle more challenging cases such as people who’ve had cancer, cardiac disease, stroke and diabetes; updated financial guidelines allowing higher income multiples at younger ages and inclusion of more foreign assets in the needs analysis; updated ratings for diabetes and people with HIV, and those are just the tip of the iceberg. 

Santa paused at a few of the names on the list but kept them there for the time being. “Jack, it seems that Manulife cares about people who are living with or recovering from an illness and are trying to help Canadians stay healthy with Vitality. You must feel good working with a company that cares”. 

“I do Santa”, Jack said “Manulife is helping me to reach my goals of making the world a better place and helping families achieve financial security”. Jack began to complete the E-Applications on his computer, and one by one the key Elves DocuSigned their applications for life and critical illness insurance. 

After a few short hours, Jack was ready to leave full of cookies and hot chocolate. Santa thanked Jack for coming such a long way and for the complete review of his portfolio. Santa had set up his Manulife ID and had reviewed his inforce insurance. After Jack left, Santa thought to himself, “I wonder what Manulife will do next year to make decisions easier for customers and advisors? Ho ho ho, back to work, the holidays are coming!” Santa began to whistle the tune “All I want for Christmas is you”, the Elves began to dance and the team was working at full capacity once again.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, from your friends at Manulife!

For more underwriting tips and insight follow Karen Cutler on LinkedIn. Karen is our VP, Head of Underwriting and Claims, Chief Underwriter Individual Insurance.