Annuity Platform Rivals Go Live AnnuityNet Inc.and Info-Onerivals in the annuity platform arenaare starting toturn Web-based distribution of annuities into a real business.

AnnuityNet and Info-One, the owner of the VARDS Trading annuityorder-entry system, both spent years setting up distributionsystems and attracting clients.

But now both companies have gone live.

Tim Lyons, vice president of sales channel technology servicesat Nationwide Financial Services Inc., Columbus, Ohio, praises bothcompanies efforts.

“Its in everybodys interest to move to electronic applications,”Mr. Lyons said. Well-designed electronic systems “can deliverbusiness to us in good order.”

Moving to systems that can do something as simple as ensuringthat clients have come up with asset allocations that add up to 100percent could make the annuity sales process more efficient andmore profitable, he noted.

Executives at each company have questions about the othercompanys statistics, but AnnuityNet says it is handling about30,000 transactions through its system each month.

The companys system is distributing more than 100 products for11 insurers and has live connections to broker-dealers that havethe ability to reach about one-third of the reps at banks,wirehouses and other financial institutions, according to KristinaVaughn, the Herndon, Va., companys senior vice president of productdevelopment.

The company has developed an automated, XML-based system thatwill help it load about 60 more products in the next six weeks, Ms.Vaughn added.

A year ago, she said, insurers wanted to know whether the systemwould really work and whether sales reps would actually use it.Now, insurers have more confidence in the system because they seeother big insurers and distributors using it, she said.

Today, “its a matter of getting the products up,” she said.

Putting products up is tougher than it sounds, and AnnuityNet isproud of a new, XML-based system that helps it get annuities onlineautomatically, Ms. Vaughn noted.

Info-One, a Campbell, Calif.-based unit of Wachovia Corp. inCharlotte, N.C., is distributing 78 products from 26 insurers, and100 more products are in the pipeline, company executives say.

The company concedes that a sister company, Wachovia SecuritiesCorp., and the AIG Advisors Network, an arm of AmericanInternational Group Inc., New York, are the only broker-dealersthat are actually live. But those two broker-dealers alone reachmore than 15,000 reps.

Info-One has agreements with other major broker-dealers–and ithas the advantage that most annuity manufacturers and distributorsalready use its VARDS Online annuity research and marketing system,according to David Shapiro, Info-Ones chief executive.

“Were a data company and a transaction company,” Mr. Shapirosaid.

AnnuityNet and Info-One are both heavily involved in efforts toshape and use XML standards.

Info-One has always used an annuity information format owned bythe Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., New York.

DTCC recently announced that it will let companies in theindustry use the format for free. AnnuityNet had been trying topromote its own product information format as a standard, but it isnow adopting the DTCC format, Ms. Vaughn said.

Another trend affecting AnnuityNet and Info-One is the suddensurge in demand for fixed annuities.

AnnuityNet has responded by agreeing to add fixed annuity datafrom Beacon Research Inc. in Evanston, Ill., to its system.

Info-One will be putting up its own fixed-annuity databaseslater this year, Shapiro says.

Dozens of insurers are distributing through the systems.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, May 19, 2003.Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serialpublication. All rights reserved. Copyright in this article as anindependent work may be held by the author.