IBU News Archive

IBU Announces New APS
Reduction Guidelines

Marlborough, CT (March, 2004) – IBU, Inc., the company that pioneered a new model for life insurance tele-underwiting using experienced underwriters to conduct phone interviews, today announces a new online tool: the IBU/APS Reduction Guidelines. An interactive knowledge base system, it is designed to help Home Office underwriters determine whether to order a telephone interview by an underwriter or an APS (attending physician statement).

The IBU/APS Reduction Guidelines together with the IBU tele-underwriting model is a significant advancement in life underwriting. It allows Home Office underwriters to simultaneously improve the underwriting process, achieve better risk selection, and minimize the likelihood of ordering unnecessary APS’s.

Using the comprehensive IBU online system, Home Office underwriters can decide with confidence if the protective value of ordering an APS justifies spending the time and expense, or whether a tele-underwriting interview by an experienced underwriter is sufficient.

In life insurance underwriting, there are obvious medical impairments that will always require an APS. However, ordering an APS is not always necessary or appropriate. Given the rising cost and administrative burdens of HIPPA compliance, knowing when an interview by an underwriter will do can save valuable time and money.

The IBU/APS Reduction Guidelines identifies 15 human body classifications and 216 impairment specific sub-categories, and offers specific recommendations on whether the case to be unwritten is best served by ordering an interview by an underwriter or an APS. IBU developed the guidelines by analyzing thousands of interviews conducted by IBU experienced tele-underwriters over the past three years.

Lincoln Tedeschi, IBU President, worked with Lynn Dreist, FLMI, Director of Underwriting Research for IBU, to compile the data for the comprehensive online system. “By combining the IBU/APS Reduction Guidelines with the gut instincts of the Home Office Underwriter, companies can begin to utilize the tele-underwriting model of using an interview by an underwriter in lieu of ordering an APS.”

Initial response from IBU clients has been extremely favorable. As a model for tele-underwriting, the IBU approach to use experienced underwriters to conduct interviews is already delivering significant bottom line value to insurance companies throughout the United States and Great Britain.

According to Jay Mauri, VP of Underwriting at ERIE Family Life, the IBU model has allowed his underwriters to confidently eliminate the need for APS’s in seven out of nine cases, saving the company approximately $55 per application in raw costs. “We’re spending less time on the cases that don’t need it, which allows us to spend more time on the cases that do. All the way around, it’s saving us time and money.”

Email us at to view an online demo of the IBU/APS Reduction Guideline.