Insurers Reach Out to Spanish Language Market

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From  Insurance Networking News

Serving an Underserved Market: Insurers Reach Out to Spanish Language
Market. Insurers reach out to the 43 million Spanish-speaking people
currently living in the United States.

By Joe McKendrick

October 3, 2005 - A fast-growing market of more than 40 million people,
representing $600 billion per year of income, cannot be ignored for too
long. The financial services insurance industry is finally learning how to
embrace people of Spanish heritage within the United States, and use
technology to better respond to this underserved segment. Reaching out to
this market involves more than simple translation of documents and Web
sites. The Hispanic or Latino market is a highly diverse one. While
members of this market are not likely to respond to standard industry
pitches, it is a receptive audience to insurance products.

"The U.S. Spanish-speaking population is growing at break-neck speed, with
no signs of letting up," observes Ron Rogowski, senior analyst for
Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research's customer experience practice.
"There's a huge market opportunity for financial services," he says. "I
continue to see to data that tells me this market continues to grow faster
than expected." The most recent statistics show there were more than 43
million Hispanics living in the United States, or about 15% of the
population. Rogowski estimates the Hispanic population has been growing at
four times the rate of the population at large. While members of the
Hispanic market tend to be younger than the overall average, as "these
people have families, and gain more wealth, there's an upside for all
industries, upwards of $600 billion worth of spending power," Rogowski
observes.

A study sponsored by Telemundo, the Spanish language network, found that
between 2002 and 2020, Hispanic household income will grow by an average
of 4.8% per year, 0.4% ahead of non-Hispanic income. Total consumer
spending by Hispanics was $531 billion last year. This represented $51,208
per household, or 81% of the national average. Some insurance companies
have been actively reaching out to this market.  For example, New York
Life Insurance Co. has held a number of annual conferences for agents
serving the Hispanic market. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. has launched
a series of television advertisements in various local markets targeting
the Hispanic and African-American market.  Spanish language TV ads are
airing nationally on Spanish language networks, such as Telemundo and
Univision, in cities with high Hispanic populations.

A recent study of Hispanic residents in the Los Angeles area, conducted by
the Toms Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) of the University of Southern
California, and funded by Allstate Insurance, concludes that Spanish
Americans remain a largely untapped pool of consumers, and that "the
insurance industry is expected to encounter little negative reaction or
suspicion from the Latino community as it attempts to penetrate the
community's great market potential." The TRPI study found that a majority
of Latinos in the Los Angeles metropolitan area own auto insurance, but do
not own homeowners, renters, or life insurance.

This may be a result of insurers not reaching out appropriately to this
market. Yet, only 10% of Latino consumers think insurance is an
unnecessary expense. Latino consumers who are older, with higher income or
more education are more likely than their counterparts to own auto, life,
and home insurance. Further, with each passing immigrant generation,
"Latinos increasingly tend to own insurance," the study says. "It should
be noted that, although they do not own life or home insurance, a majority
of Latino consumers value insurance. They are receptive toward insurance
and express confidence in the insurance industry."

In fact, TRPI found 71% of Latino consumers consider the insurance
industry "trustworthy," versus only 6% that think the opposite. There
seems to be little significant variation in opinion of the insurance
industry by income, education, age, gender, immigrant generation, length
of residence, and language preference.

Along with increasingly wealthy households, a large segment of the
workforce is Hispanic as well. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, there are more than 14 million Latino or Hispanic employees in
the workforce. This is a fact not lost on Blue Cross and Blue Shield of
South Carolina, which has undertaken efforts to meet the needs of
Spanish-speaking workers at employer accounts, many of which have
divisions or locations in other states. To address this requirement, the
Columbia, S.C.-based health insurer subscribes to the Spanish capabilities
offered by Benefitfocus, a provider of employee benefits software and
services.

"We have employers who have Spanish-speaking populations," says Michael
Griggs, vice president of major group marketing for BCBS of South
Carolina. "A growing percentage of our group accounts have Hispanic
populations. On our corporate Web site, we haven't gone fully bilingual,
but we have certain forms that a person needs in Spanish. On our
telephonic voice recognition unit, a person who speaks Spanish can prompt
the system to go to live customer service staff to support them." The most
visible aspect of Spanish language support is corporate Web sites.
Forrester's Rogowski observes that in his own survey of Fortune 100
companies, only about 20 had some Spanish language content somewhere on
their sites.

He also notes that financial services -without the insurance sector-leads
in deployments, but insurance companies can learn from their experiences.
People who are fluent in English as a second language will revert to their
mother tongue when it comes to money, he says. "When it comes to financial
arrangements, things can get pretty complex, and that's when you want to
have information available in a language you're most comfortable with,"
says Rogowski.

This language comfort level is key when it comes to understanding terms of
agreements and benefits. "When you talk about investing in something, you
don't want to leave anything to chance," says Rogowski. "I lived in Japan,
and spoke Japanese everyday. But when it came to looking at investment
opportunities, I wasn't comfortable with Japanese.  There's legalese,
there's fine print, there's jargon I didn't understand.  Jargon is tough
enough in your own language," he says. "Put it into a second language, and
it becomes more challenging."

That challenge is being addressed by Genworth Financial Inc., which has a
comprehensive program to provide not only full translations and
interpretations at all levels on its Web site and within documents, but
also educational materials about money and insurance. The Richmond,
Va.-based financial services and insurance giant, which provides mortgage
insurance and a range of other financial and insurance products, has a
working group of Spanish-speaking employees, called the Hispanic Forum,
which pours through all documents and presentations to provide appropriate
translation and meaning. "We created a Web-based platform in Spanish to
help consumers buy their homes," according to Javier Ismodes, vice
president of Latino marketing for Genworth Financial.

The Web site, www.tucasaahora.com or "Your Home Now," offers information
in Spanish on the home-buying process. The site also includes the names of
mortgage partners that have end-to-end Spanish services. The TRPI study
found that almost three-quarters of Latino consumers prefer to receive
information about insurance in Spanish or both English and Spanish.

This signifies the importance of the Spanish language as a medium to reach
out to the Latino market. Of the foreign-born, 72% of those who have lived
in the United States up to 10 years want to receive information about
insurance in Spanish, while only 2% prefer English. In contrast, 44% of
those who have lived in the United States more than 30 years indicate they
prefer Spanish. Twenty-one percent of those long timers prefer English.
However, attaining and entering the market requires a deeper effort than
simply posting translated documents. The TRPI study, for example, finds
the focus of sales into the Hispanic market needs to be based on
face-to-face interaction, rather than electronic contact.

Latinos refer to family members and relatives (24%) most often as the most
reliable and trustworthy source of information about life insurance. When
looking for information about life insurance, Latinos also rely most on
friends (13%), insurance agents (13%) and television (9%). "Direct
translations can often times be meaningless," says Forrester's Rogowski.
"Literal translations can really lose effect. Especially when you're
marketing the benefits of a product. There needs to be a clear message,
and the content needs to be reviewed and edited, and checked for
messaging. That's a skill that's needed in-house. You need a content
reviewer, a native speaker, who reviews translations."

Genworth Financial's Hispanic Forum tries to recreate a concept from
English into Spanish, as opposed to translating it directly, says Ismodes.
"You cannot just run an automatic translation and publish it," he says.
"If we translate it directly, it may not have the same meaning. There's a
lot of homework we do before translating. The Hispanic Forum helps us to
make sure the content is relevant, and that we're not offending anyone in
any way, that we're communicating our message."

At Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, Spanish capabilities were
introduced within the past two years, first at the call center, followed
by the Web site. "We're using the Benefitfocus self-service tool for
eligibility, benefit information, as well as workplace policy manuals-in
English and Spanish,"  says Griggs. Forrester's Rogowski advises insurance
companies to offer bilingual services across all channels, including the
Web, e-mail, call centers and agents.

"Firms must realize that a Spanish-language site creates expectations for
Spanish-language e-mail and phone service as a part of a larger
cross-channel experience," he says. Providing a dialogue "For some firms,
one of the most valuable services is the dialogue they provide between
Spanish-speaking customers and Spanish-speaking call center reps," he
adds. "It's important to understand why people are calling your call
center. What are they asking in Spanish? Just as you would in English,
document that, and find out where there may be a need that you're not
serving enough online."

Genworth works with a number of brokers and partners that reach out to the
Hispanic market.

"We support them with market materials and presentations," says Ismodes.
For partners that don't have a strong Hispanic distribution, Genworth
helps them recruit Hispanic agents, and provide assessments and focus
groups.

The need to reach out to the underserved Spanish-speaking market is also
an opportunity for group-benefit providers and health insurers to step up
and offer a service that many employers need, sources say.

"Big employers need help managing a diverse workforce," says Shawn
Jenkins, president and CEO of Benefitfocus.com, Mount Pleasant, S.C.
"Insurers can provide them with tools and ways to communicate with their
employees about benefits."

Joe McKendrick is a business writer based in Doylestown, Pa.

http://www.insurancenetworking.com/protected/article.cfm?articleId=3605&pb=ros