Sept/Oct 2021 Reverse Mortgage Magazine

NOT TOO LONG AGO, reverse mortgage servicers were unsure whether older borrowers would take up email and other digital forms of communication. Borrowers, for example, did not always provide email addresses at the time their reverse mortgages were originated, says Leslie Flynne, senior vice president of loan servicing at Reverse Mortgage Solutions, based in Houston, TX. But as it has in many other areas, the COVID-19 pan- demic accelerated the adoption of new technologies among reverse mortgage borrowers, Flynne says. “What we have dis- covered is that older people are pretty hip,” she says. “They don’t want to wait for the mail. They are just like the rest of the world. They’re instant, and their issues are best resolved if you can deliver when they call you or contact you.” The pandemic also forced ser- vicers to adapt, she says. “It opened us up to rapid and significant changes in how we do business that we would have spent years trying to offer and create while mitigating risk.” The changes are especially wel- come given the harder road faced by traditional means of communications, Flynne says. In the early days of the pandemic, some people even hesitated to pick up their mail. Even before, letters and phone calls were not always successful in reaching borrowers. “We all get too much junk mail and oftentimes our communications could have been confused with that,” Servicers Adjust to Changes Technology and Pandemic Drive Innovations By Joel Berg Leslie Flynne 18 REVERSE MORTGAGE / SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2021