Wireless Processing: Primerica Goes Wireless In The Field ; The insurer processes up to 35,000 policies a month with over half of those coming in the last four days of the month. That crush prompted a need for a faster method.

When it comes to a new product rollout, any IT group would savor the kind of success that Primerica Financial Services has recently had. At a company conference in June, Primerica officials introduced new wireless software that the IT staff had written to run on the Palm handheld device, which most agents already used to offer quotes to customers. The new software promised insurance agents they could complete applications with their customers, eliminate paperwork back at the office and, here's the kicker, pay them their commissions faster. By August, no less than 22 percent of all insurance applications at Primerica were done via the Palms, with September tracking close to 30 percent.

"At the top 20 offices that use the application, the percentage of wireless applications is running at 80 to 85 percent, meaning that once an office picks it up and starts using it, the numbers go way up," says Tom Swift, evp of field technology at Primerica, who says the company plans to extend the product to mutual funds and variable annuities by the end of the year.

Bob Egan, director of emerging technologies at TowerGroup, says the Primerica experience is a vivid example of what has been brewing in the industry since the 1990s. "Companies are looking to accelerate business processes. They are studying where you can save time and have an equivalent cost of ownership. The end point in the sales delivery channel is a big hole, and empowering endpoints seems to be where mobile technology is getting some significant play. Mobility is essentially the extension of the laptop and other devices like the Palm, and it's got the attention of everyone. It's hard to find a bank doing nothing at all in this space."

Egan says there was a lot of talk about...