Joe Maringer:
You can have the greatest tool in the world or product in the world in this case and in the event that it's on page two of Google, no one will know about it. It's about getting the distributors to recognize the value that they can streamline the execution of the annuity contract. We're very excited about the mission of new distribution and new money because we're knocking down some of those barriers to entry.
Olivier LaFontaine:
I'm Olivier LaFontaine and this is Life Accelerated, a podcast for life insurers who want to achieve digital transformation. The annuity space is evolving fast, distribution models are shifting, customer expectations are rising and technology is redefining what it means to deliver a great experience. In this episode we're joined by Joe Maringer, Senior Vice President and National sales manager at MassMutual Ascend. With over two decades in the industry, Joe brings a frontline perspective on how sales teams, product strategy and digital transformation come together to serve the modern customer. We'll talk about the growth of registered index linked annuities, how MassMutual Ascend is building new technology to streamline the path to purchase, and why in force management, not just the next sale, is the key to long term relationships. Let's dive in. Good afternoon. Hi Joe, how are you? Welcome to the show.
Joe Maringer:
Good afternoon. Glad to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Olivier LaFontaine:
So what I like to do on the show usually is to talk a little bit about things that you do in your spare time. So I don't know if you want to share with us some personal notes on your hobbies or pastimes.
Joe Maringer:
Sure, be happy to. Well, married with two relatively young kids, 7 and 12, so that keeps us pretty busy. We're at the the fields or the the gyms. I you'll have to do a podcast on youth sports and the business surrounding that because it's certainly big and getting bigger from what I can tell. So when not doing that we do, we are space enthusiasts. So during the pandemic got a fairly nice telescope and so we enjoy looking up on clear nights and tracking all the things going on celestially. And then I guess lastly around the, around the summer I do like getting out and playing some golf with some local folks and the neighborhood's great for a barbecue and fireworks show. So those are the passions for sure, but starts with Family at home.
Olivier LaFontaine:
So I had a chance to watch the eclipse, the full eclipse a couple months ago. That was amazing. I don't know where you're located or if you had a good view of that, but that was an experience. I didn't expect that at all.
Joe Maringer:
We were, we were in, we were, I want to say 98% of the what they called the path to totality. And gosh, that was almost to the day a year ago and we were out at, at working from home. They suggested everybody work from home because the streets were closed here in Cincinnati, Ohio and the street lamps came on after about 30 seconds of the eclipse starting. It was really impressive and it actually got markedly cooler, which is just amazing, you know how it all comes together. So that was a lot of fun to see that take place.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Yeah, it was amazing. Did not expect that at all. And was out there with my kids also and they were like very casual about it until it came on. We had the total eclipse, 100% total eclipse for my house. That was quite an experience.
Joe Maringer:
It's all mind blowing. That's somewhat why we like it.
Olivier LaFontaine:
All right, so with that, why don't you tell us about yourself and I guess the company MassMutual Ascend and what you do there and how you came about that role.
Joe Maringer:
Yeah, appreciate that. So MassMutual Ascend was originally known as before acquisition by MassMutual in 2021 as Great American Life Insurance Company. And that's where I got my start now 25 years ago, back in the year 2000. And over that time we've varied lines of business and really stream those down and then also how we distribute our annuity contracts. We had some small life insurance business, we had a little bit of health business as well. And so we were doing a lot of things, but I can't say we were doing anything real well. And over time we realized that hey, let's focus in our systems and the infrastructure, let's really focus in the product lines. And made the conscious decision to get out of life insurance, get out of the Medicare supp business over time was able to sell off the long term care piece.
Joe Maringer:
And then through that now I'm not talking living benefits that were very sensitive during the global financial crisis 2007, 8 and 9 that really took down quite a few variable annuity carriers for those that have been around that long and really focused the risk profile to these long d liabilities. And as it's always been said, you can sell a bad asset but a bad liability, you're stuck with and so that stuck with me ever since that time. And so that morphing over time that gets us right to about the pandemic in March of 2020 and later in that year there was some discussion, I'll say, with MassMutual and in 2021 the acquisition was announced and closed in May of 20. So we're nearing our four year anniversary with MassMutual, who's been a great acquirer and parent based in Springfield, Massachusetts of course. And it's really, it's about the value chain and the team here at MassMutual Ascend. But I do work as the senior Vice president and National Sales manager with our team and having a parent organization that is interested in wanting to grow and continue to expand in the product lines and distribution channels that we do couldn't be more thrilling for us.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Excellent. Yeah, we are the Life Accelerated podcast, but it means life and annuities and pensions also in certain countries because in the UK for example, pensions is included in life insurance. But if I double click on on that, Your title is SVP of Sales for MassMutual Ascend or National Sales Manager. So what does that mean in your day to day, what are some of the issues you have top of mind and challenges that you're tackling?
Joe Maringer:
Well, it's first whenever I leave the house, it's whatever the wife needs. So we all know who the boss is. But here at the office and throughout the country, as we all travel quite a bit visiting distribution, that's going to be key is making sure that we have that communication with our distribution partners, be it the independent agents or agencies, the financial institutions, banks and broker dealers, and now the investment advisory world. From that I also spend quite a bit of time working internally as a liaison between our operations area, our product implementation and development group, the interest rate committee. So we're very keen on currently here we are in early April of 2025 and there's a bit of volatility. And while volatility can be cumbersome to those, especially those who are in or near retirement, which tends to be our core customer, it can also create quite a few opportunities, specifically the recognition that a portfolio can look better with insurance as a part of it. So in that interest rate monitoring as well as then lastly working each and every day trying to enhance and help our team members get stronger and more confident in their roles.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Good. And that's a good segue. So how do you feel like the volatility of the last couple weeks, do you see that as an opportunity? You said yes, but can you expand a little bit more on that? Like what does that mean? Do you see a genuine interest that manifest in getting more guaranteed products and more certainty around retirement outcomes?
Joe Maringer:
Yes. You know, it's been an interesting few years where post pandemic, I'll say during the pandemic we saw interest rates that nearly bottomed out. And after that, because of so much stimulus that was driven in the United States of America to maintain equity valuations and keep small businesses afloat. Well, therefore that increased the credited rates that are paid from the Federal Reserve. And so cash, short term cash had the opportunity through portions of 22 into 23 and the most of 24 that a risk free rate of return was around 5%. And all the while the annuity business, which since 2020 has virtually doubled the LIMRA would state that you had just over 200 billion of annual annuities put in place around the onset of the pandemic. And to today we see that 2024 numbers were just published that all in all annuity types through all distribution channels would have come in around $430 billion. And you look at that and say gosh, well we know there's six to seven trillion dollars sitting in cash earnings so fully liquid that somebody could park money and earn a pretty reasonable rate of return.
Joe Maringer:
Relatively speaking, looking back the last couple decades and you have a 4 to 5% return. Well, gosh, maybe I don't need insurance. Where are consumers going to go? That volatility? Yes, I've been willing to take some risk, but I've had this pretty solid cash opportunity that's been fully liquid that's been paying me 4 to 5% keeping up with with inflation in certain months, maybe not necessarily beating it in others, but a fair reasonable rate of return. Equity markets for the most part separate a few dips in 2023, obviously March of 2020, really since the global financial crisis, if you took a blended line from 2010 to really beginning of 2025, that line would be up and to the right. And so newer advisors, newer individuals in the insurance, in the financial services industry have really seen prolonged low interest rates, which is great for business, which drives equity valuations which have in fact gone up and to the right. I'm now five, seven years older. Am I going to be willing to take on the equity risk to provide those returns on the up and down. Can I sleep at night when doing that? Therefore, maybe principal protection and a fair insurance based contract rate of return is what could be really exciting moving forward.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Yeah, no, that's interesting to see and good for the industry, obviously. And, and that links into with the growth that you mentioned. I'm assuming that there is a number of projects that need to. Technology projects that need to be aligned in order to better integrate with the distributors. You and I discussed that in our pre meeting, I suppose, but can you talk a little bit about that? Like what sort of technology projects help you? What sort of technology projects are top of mind when it comes to distribution in particular and digital transformation as a broader theme?
Joe Maringer:
Yeah. Going back to our previous parent in 2019, we began an initiative here called Investment Platforms and Exchanges. And the mission there was how could we go about attracting new distribution and new money into the insurance space? And these platforms were coming up because we were kind of stalled and we were bumping into that $200 billion from an industry perspective, Mark, and we were replacing our own money and it was let's take from one pocket and put it in the other. YoJoe Maringer discusses the importance of simplifying the annuity purchase process for financial professionals. By reducing the complexity of multiple steps—from product selection to order entry—he highlights efforts to integrate these functions into a single platform. This streamlined approach allows advisors to manage the entire process more efficiently, improving both the sales experience and ongoing account management. The goal is to eliminate barriers, enhance adoption by distributors, and drive growth in the annuity market.
Olivier LaFontaine:
That's really interesting. And so you being front and center and communicating with your distribution partners, do you get a lot of that feedback on the experience of doing business with MassMutual Ascent? I assume so, but what's your experience? So you get that feedback. They tell you when it doesn't work. They tell you when it works. Like, what's the general message that you.
Joe Maringer:
Get typically, like, at home, no news is good news. You know, it's when I'm out traveling and I get a call from my wife that something's going on at school, you know, that's typically not the positive. And the same goes here. When we rebranded from Great American Life powered by MassMutual to MassMutual Ascend Life Insurance Company, that was Q4 of 2022. And it just so happened we did have some budget that we wanted to, if you will, make a splash with the rebrand. Although at the same exact time, interest rates really took off. Interest rates, the higher they go, the more that we can push into product and push out to the end consumers. No surprise.
Joe Maringer:
Well, we flooded our ops area. We absolutely flooded it. And while that was a horrible experience for our distribution partners and all of our associates to manage through over time, because we have a real difference in culture here dating back to Great American Life and into MassMutual Ascend. People want to be here and they care. They care about the distribution partners and their end consumers. And that was a really hard time. We learned a ton from it. And so after that, you kind of do a postmortem, if you will.
Joe Maringer:
Why did it happen? What could we do better? How can we build and optimize for the future? And a lot of it came around this experience. If you look, there's 50 or so providers of fixed indexed annuities in the market now. This is $125 billion market, or at least it was in 2024. Biggest year ever. And so you're only taking fire if you're over the target, as they say in the military. And that's a growing line of business. And therefore a lot of the products are looking the same. So other than the a double plus financial strength and the culture and the marketing materials and that, that we have a lot of.
Joe Maringer:
It comes down to how you can differentiate yourself is the experience to your point, that we offer. And make no mistake, when it's not working, we all hear about it, but that gives us an opportunity to in this case, build and optimize. And I'm proud to report that in two months, two of the months of 2024, we did over a billion dollars in monthly production with sure, there's always going to be specific cases where things pop up, but in those months, the organization managed well through those heightened or stressed times and really managed it in an optimized fashion, which was the initiative that we went down that path after we skinned our knees in 2022.
Olivier LaFontaine:
That's amazing. And I assume also you get the voice, you're in an interesting position where I'm sure internally the operations team and IT team must look to you to get a sense for what needs to be improved and how the products and the processes, the workflow, as you put it, is getting received. And once they do put out the improvements, you have to communicate the differences or at least the improvements and make sure that it's known in the industry that we had some challenges and then we made those fixes and now we're going to be better in the future for that reason. So you end up being in that seat where you get from both sides trying to communicate. Right.
Joe Maringer:
That's truly what makes this role and I'm grateful to have it and get the frontline producer feedback, distribution partner feedback, then to come in and see how this intelligent. I always call it the value chain with our team of sales professionals. It's one thing if you have great relationships in your territory with the firms that you cover, that can only take you so far. If you don't have the ratings, if you don't have the legal folks that are filing the product, the actuaries, who put them together, the information technology individuals, who put them up on platform, the ops individuals, human resources and all those pieces, you're only as strong as your weakest link within the value chain. And so also we like to do that. We're a we company, not a me company. And while I love confident professionals in the field, it's important to recognize that without all those other pieces, none of it's possible. And so in that when we do bring back that feedback from the field, say, hey, so and so is doing this really well.
Joe Maringer:
No one's doing this really well. It'd be interesting if we could do this. It's all about creating a better experience and in that we know that maybe we don't have necessarily the highest accredited rate or the most income on a paycheck for life or income for life on a living benefit, but yet they know they can come here with the great a double plus financial strength that massmutual affords us at Ascend, that they have the experience to back it. And a lot of that has been in to your point earlier question around digital transformation. We have put so much time and effort into our website. I ran some numbers knowing we were going to visit today and that website development's really evergreen. In 24 we had nearly 2 million visitors come through either the client or the agent distribution partner, secure portion or just out to our public site. To learn more about what is a living benefit on a fixed indexed annuity.
Joe Maringer:
Tell me how a registered indexed linked annuity works. What is tax deferral as basic as that. And so that website now not all firms that we operate with, some banks don't allow their distribution partners, and some could argue rightfully so, to go to the 10 different websites that they may distribute for if they're an annuity professional at that firm. But those that do come in, the clients have access to see their statements and access different updates to their address. They can actually go into our website and request money that can be eft directly to their account. Some of that was born early on in the pandemic mid March we were already allowing distributions over the phone which was relatively revolutionary knowing we were all working from home. But really it was to further that then build out the self user experience at that end consumer level. One of the things I'm most excited about speaking of the experience for the distribution partner is the fact that they can now see the dashboard of their business when they log in and if they're a producer of MassMutual Ascend.
Joe Maringer:
So what does that look like? You and I may go out to DoorDash and you know Olivier, when, when your order is placed and when it's put in the oven and when so and so picks it up and then when it's dropped off at your door.
Olivier LaFontaine:
And notifies you at every step of the way. And the pizza tracker sometimes we call it.
Joe Maringer:
Yes, we tried to get away from the pizza tracker mainly because I love pizza and talk about it way too much. But same with Amazon updated and next thing you know there's a picture of your package at your doorstep and that's the type of real time that people need. And I don't think we would argue to say that insurance is Fairly archaic. And that's a good thing because it's the cornerstone in some cases the foundation of a portfolio. When looking at an annuity, if we knew that annuity is covering what we call non discretionary expenses, then everything above that that we can go invest we can do on a discretionary basis. We really look at it as essential and non essential spent spending or expenses that we're covering. If you know your income is going to be coming in from Social Security and a living benefit, then let's match up what those expenses you have are that are somewhat considered guaranteed. So we know we have our tax bill, we have our utilities and we have the water and we have our cell phones now and so on, all those things.
Joe Maringer:
But then your legacy and your vacations and what you aspire to do and how you want to live, let's do that with other sources of financial products. But let's make sure to shore that cornerstone up like we can with the annuity. And having that dashboard for the agent and distribution partner at MassMutual. Ascend has been a huge benefactor to us. Again, not necessarily. We may not have the fastest car in the race, but we have one that we know is going to be good all the while through the race. They love that experience and that's been a great digital transformation for us.
Olivier LaFontaine:
So that's interesting. And let me understand that dashboard then. It shows a partner what business they have with you. It allows them to see where they are in the process, the example of Uber Eats or DoorDash or those kinds of things where they can see where it is in the process, whether the money has been submitted, whether the policy has been issues and those types of things. Is that what the dashboard is about? So they can follow up with their clients and then report on the portfolio later on as well. And they get the value out of that, right?
Joe Maringer:
Yep. And then once issued, it's about management. Just like I Talked about these third party vendors in our IP&E investment platform and exchange initiative where they can stop from the swivel chair by looking at these. They can also do that here. So we can't just be one sided and say oh no, you have to come to us because there's firms out there for their rightfully, they don't need website or wholesaler pollution. We hear that term in the sales world that there's just too many websites for my advisor, my financial professional to go to. So in their case, great. Use one of the IP platforms, investment platforms and exchanges out there that streamlines this, then we can get more people in and we can get more new money in or we have at MassMutual Ascend we've built out the framework for a portion of our distribution that can leverage not only the client portion but also the advisor secured portion where you know which does all of the two factor authentication that's required today.
Joe Maringer:
And they can go and manage not only see that dashboard where the business is that they've submitted, but it's not all about what they've submitted, it's also about what's in force. So many sales professionals out there are about the next sale. We're doing a presentation actually right now that we're putting together. I was at a conference back in March of 25 here where they had an advisor panel and about 80% of what these advisors were up on this panel talking about was how I manage my in force. I'm forgotten at this company I can't even get this done. My customer is so upset with so and so company they end up calling and they're now upset with me. So if I don't have that experience and technology in place for me to be able to manage it, it's not always about the next sale because you won't be able to get it if you can't manage the last one.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Agreed. And the product is a little bit more complicated than a fund or a stock. Right. There's some features, there's guarantees, there's market value adjustments and all sorts of things. Right. That come into play. So I assume that the even though the advisor might like a way to see all of their clients across different providers, are you aware that some providers or some distributors prefer to sell massmutual ascent products on the basis of that experience that you guys provide and ultimately benefits the client because they can better explain the products to their clients. They can better report on the portfolio and answer questions.
Joe Maringer:
We've all chased a shiny object here or there at some portion of our lifetime and I think the same goes true. There's newer entrants in the space and like I mentioned earlier, it's a growing marketplace. The ability for asset managers to want to attract annuity inflows so that they can go manage the money is something relatively new in the insurance and annuity space and therefore maybe it's all about attracting that money and not necessarily about the in force management. Many moons ago tell you a story back at our previous parent and this goes back to the early 2000s and we were just getting that website that we've worked on and like I Said has been evergreen ever since, you know, the web opened. And so we were talking, we had customers, distribution partners that were curious to see their book of business with the company at the time. And there was one executive who I'll not forget, who's long retired now that said, oh my gosh, could you imagine if we put the book of business that the distribution partner wrote, they could move all that book of business and take it somewhere else. And I sat there and I thought about it and I was younger then and didn't speak up. Maybe as much as I am confident or comfortable in doing so now.
Joe Maringer:
But what it comes down to, insurance companies forget, it's not our money, it's the end consumer's money. And the distribution partner made a choice to place it with our company. So when it's managed and considered and thought about like that, it's just a different perspective. And I don't know that some of the newer entrants have really thought about that. And in that some distribution partners will go chase that shiny rate or shiny object for a period of time until they say, gosh, you know, I've tried that. Mr. And Mrs. Jones, they don't like that experience.
Joe Maringer:
I don't like that experience. I'm going with what I know and that certainly affords us some, some business. I should have mentioned we've been grateful over the last four years we've put on $31 billion of fixed, indexed and registered index linked annuity premium. And that's through a network of approximately 60,000 appointed insurance agents, registered reps or investment advisors. And we couldn't be more grateful, as I had said, for those relationships and partnerships. And we know with the financial strength that massmutual backing MassMutual Ascend that if we can continue to hit the notes on the product as well as the experience and in force management that we'll be able to retain that and create a great long opportunity to continue to grow with the organization.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Very impressive. With the last few minutes we have, I want to take the conversation in a rather different tangent, but obviously you hear about AI all the time. I don't know if you had a chance to react. I like to ask different people, some are technology people and some are more on the business side, such as yourself. And so what's your view of what you're hearing out there? People launching? Obviously there's lots of buzzwords and lots of things being said. And what's your view of all of this in terms of how can it help or how it applies in our.
Joe Maringer:
Market Appreciate the question and it certainly is a bit of a buzz and rightfully so. If there's technology that can make things more efficient and easier for individuals to manage their role at the organization, so be it. We should be looking at that. And good news is we've been spending quite a bit of time either in force with a solution we have here called handwritten character recognition hcr, that's been a form of artificial intelligence that as we do get 14% of our new business comes in the way of forms a lot more on the back end or enforce policyholder service wise because everybody's RMD is unique. There's. There hasn't been a great systematic way. While we do allow it, many still complete the forms for that. We use AI through handwritten character recognition for that to automatically when we, when that form is received, it can automatically be put in and populated and has a 98% when it doesn't know.
Joe Maringer:
And it's continually machine learning. If you think about the chatbots that are out there, they call it LLM and the large language model and the constant learning that's taking place too. If this handwritten character recognition we've had that in place several years, helps with efficiency, helps our individuals. While we didn't necessarily say we've added staff since the acquisition to the tune of about 200 employees primarily here in Cincinnati, Ohio. So it's not like when we're bringing these efficiencies that we're saying this is at the expense of individuals. We're sensitive to that. And that can be a narrative that's sometimes out there. In our case that hadn't been the case.
Joe Maringer:
And when you look at what's upcoming, I talk a lot about the web and how that's evergreen and writing the secure code, the coding for the web enhancements ongoing is where we're looking to leverage artificial intelligence. I can tell you we've just started implementing the predictive call routing. So last year we had approximately 600,000 policyholders call in. And make no mistake when they call in. The hardest thing that we have to overcome because of fraud, I mean fraudsters recognize that insurance companies like banks have a lot of assets on the books to the tune of trillions if you look industry wise. And so most of the time that is spent on the customer call is identifying who they are. So AI is going to help. We're working with a biometrics group that's going to help identify the individual based on sound, based on the area in which that phone number is calling in through the background noise and it's if you think bio, most things biometrics like CLEAR at the airport and it's going to scan my iris.
Joe Maringer:
Clearly we don't have the opportunity to do that over the phone, but there's other voice inflections and things that we're going to be able to pinpoint, shorten the time, provide a better experience. And then as I was getting to on this predictive call routing, if we know Olivier has called in over the past two weeks about the same topic twice, it'll automatically recognize this is him and let's go ahead and route him to the individual who we know can answer that question based on the previous two. So we're trying to really predict that behavior again to shorten the path to get the right execution for that end consumer. We think that's all, all positive.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Yeah, that's really promising. And things like in that same area, customer sentiment analysis, which I've done a couple experiments with the large language models with very little effort you can, the ChatGPT or Claude or any of those will be able to identify is this client angry, are they stressed, are they happy? And that way you could perhaps route your call also in a way where you're going to give it to the experimented group with the angry customers, for example, to try and calm them down. Maybe it's a situation of, you know, fluctuations of rates and things like that so they can explain it and they're more experimented in that way. So it opens the door to lots of optimization. Obviously some of that is compliance related. Also we have to, I mean, I don't really foresee a chatbot doing the advice. I'm sure you've noticed that. Have you heard about this at all? Is that a concern in your distribution partner with the large language models actually delivering the advice on which products to use? Is that something they think is going to happen or not really?
Joe Maringer:
I have not heard that. But while I wouldn't necessarily say it's all the way to artificial intelligence years ago and I'm talking 2018 time frame, so 7ish years ago, robo advisors came out one named betterment, one named Wealthfront and some others. And they were more algorithmic based and can they move quicker than a quote unquote human could and would there be an opportunity to tax loss harvest at year end to better the client's tax position. And they came out, you know, with quite a bit of private equity money and venture capital money behind them. And for a while they turned a lot of heads.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Yeah, that was A big trend for a couple years ago, right?
Joe Maringer:
It certainly was until I think the private cap, private equity and venture capital money ran dry because they realized there's two challenges. One, what every sales professional or organization has is how do I create qualified prospects and what's the cost to doing so. But number two, the robo advisors were unable to have an empathetic discussion with an individual and understand, you know, their aunt just passed away and what the implications are to that and their getting ready for college planning and 529 and their legacy. And there's always money's very personal and we have a feeling about it. And we all have stories about those in our family that, you know, worked at the savings and loan or placed money here or there and it's very personal. And robo advisors realized that the way that they could survive and provide the value that they do it was when they said, well, how can we marry this good technology with a person who can deliver that on the same level as you and I are having this conversation today. And they continue to be in use for that as a supporting tool but not necessarily the tool. And I think that's a nice bow tie for technology in and of itself.
Joe Maringer:
It's great until it's not. But when you execute the efficiencies and that the technology can bring and can better the end result for the end consumer, then we have a win.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Yeah, more like an admin assistant almost. The broker or the advisor I think is the model that is more likely to surface and rather than the resurfacing of the robo Advisor. Powered by ChatGPT. But we'll see.
Joe Maringer:
I'll keep my ear to the ground and follow up on that because if that is something that's out there, I'd like to learn more about it. I mean I'd get in big trouble with the team if we all got replaced by the machine.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen because of what you said. Right. The part which is the empathy and the relating to the customer is what's so important in this because the human is not all of a logical and rational entity. So some of it is emotional and that's important as part of making your investment decisions and your choice of insurance or annuities. So pretty sure that's going to stay. But listen, that was a great conversation. I think this was good insight. We don't oftentimes get annuity people on the show.
Olivier LaFontaine:
So this gives us a different perspective and also from the perspective of sales and Distribution. So I really enjoyed it. Thanks for your time and if you have a last, last comment, happy to hear that.
Joe Maringer:
Sure, sure. No, I appreciate being with you and thanks for the additional visibility to the annuity solutions and products. Certainly that MassMutual Ascend but really the industry, I mean we want to see the industry grow and new people come into it and frankly we recognize and those who don't, I think they're, their lifespan will be relatively limited. Insurance and specifically annuities are just a portion of the overall portfolio. We're not looking for 50, 70, 80% allocation. We're looking again to be that cornerstone that can help the financial professional use other tools to create a better result for the end consumer. I think that's really important. There was something that I wanted to touch on that I didn't want to lose sight other individuals with other carriers talking about with technology vendors, be it this IP&E, because I've done some work around that.
Joe Maringer:
I certainly there's other individuals here at MassMutual Ascend that do work on the vendor side with the more technological plugins that we have here. But just a tip, as much as it's about the spend, it's also about the prioritization. And so when those vendors are approaching insurance companies making sure that they understand what the priorities are for the organization, well of course they're going to bring what the value proposition is and why they should do it. Maybe they're identifying a gap or a problem within that insurance company or any companies why they're struggling and how this tool will help. Oftentimes they don't recognize we all have other things in flight. And so yes, the financial impact but also the prioritization is just a tip out there that I think could maybe help some of your listeners and most importantly grateful again for you to have us on at MassMutual Ascend. The future is bright and we look forward to helping more of your customers and hopefully they become end consumers of MassMutual Ascend Life Insurance Company. Thanks Olivier.
Olivier LaFontaine:
Thank you Joe. This was great. Joe walked us through the rise of annuities, the evolution of distribution and why experience both digital and human is becoming a true differentiator in the industry. One key takeaway from today's discussion is it's not enough to offer a great product. The real difference maker is how easy you make it for advisors and clients to work with you when the experience is seamless before, during and after the sale. That's where loyalty and long term growth really begin to find out more about advancing your own digital transformation, check out equisoft.com/lifeaccelerated.
