The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation's Insurance Services business unit has announced the largest fee reduction in its 10-year history and the second one in six months.
This latest reduction, which was effective January 2, 2008, is projected to save customers $6 million in 2008 alone.
"DTCC's at-cost business model brings real savings to our customers at a time when technology costs are a key concern for the insurance industry," said Leonard Schmitt, head of customer relationship management, Insurance Services. "We are able to provide the reductions through a combination of disciplined focus on cost controls, productivity and collaborative development of services with our customers. As our volumes grow and generate greater economies of scale, we reassess our fees and return excess revenues to participants."
The historic fee reduction eliminates all file fees associated with insurance products. These fees of $15 per file have been linked to the older core products, including Insurance Services' largest-volume service, Positions and Valuations (POV), along with Asset Pricing (AAP), Commissions (COM) Applications and Subsequent Premiums (APP/SUB) and Financial Activity Reporting (FAR). With the end of file fees, customers will pay only per transaction costs for the services.
Insurance Services experienced record volumes in 2007, expanding its family of automated connections and data exchange solutions between carriers and their broker/dealer, bank and other distribution partners who market insurance products. Last year, for example, Insurance Services processed nearly 3 billion POV records and settled Annuity Premium and Commission transactions valued in excess of $20 billion.
Fee Reduction a Benefit of Collaboration
Insurance Services acknowledges the contribution of its Senior Advisory Board, composed of senior-level representative of 13 carriers and 11 broker/dealers, in helping guide an expansion of services to the industry. The SAB, established by IS in 2007, provides a new avenue of collaboration with the industry in the automation and standardization of a traditional, manual processing system for insuranceeerance products, similar to the benefits that DTCC has brought to the mutual fund industry. The fee reduction illustrates the effectiveness of DTCC's collaborative efforts in leveraging proven technology and expertise to drive down customer cost and increase processing efficiency for the insurance industry.
The earlier fee reduction on July 1, 2007 for the POV service would have been approximately $3 million in savings on an annual basis. POV automates and standardizes the transmission of annuity, life and other insurance product contract details from carriers to distributors, providing them with information on all assets under their management, including key contract data, current values, service features and parties to a contract.