Rethinking customer service in insurance
It's time for insurers to ask themselves how their business is engaging with customers, and how this aligns with the company's overall digital strategy.
Einstein once said: “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” When it comes to the concept of customer service, the P&C insurance industry is due a change in thinking about how insurers are using technology to better cater to customers.
Arguably, the insurance industry has been late to the party when it comes to harnessing digital tools to improve customer experience. But innovation is coming. According to McKinsey, by 2025, the insurance industry has the potential to automate 25% of its processes. P&C is one of the categories of insurance that stands to gain the most from digital, due to the high standardization of processes.
In today’s rapidly changing, digitally-enabled world, insurers are being faced with a conundrum: Embrace technology or render yourself irrelevant. This means re-thinking how technology can be used to better cater to customers, at a time when competition has never been so fierce.
Putting the customer back into insurance
In our new ‘digital normal,’ pretty much every task and every service can be provided online. Insurance is no different, and 2021 has seen a new trend emerging for the industry; one focused on building better relationships with consumers rather than the sale of insurance products. Customer service is fast becoming an important strategy and competitive differentiator, according to insights from the 2020 J.D. Power U.S. Insurance Shopping Study. The study found that direct insurance models are preferred, with 90% of customers open to purchasing auto insurance online. Price continues to be an important factor in the purchase decision. With brand loyalty eroding, insurers that can mix good value with convenience and speed stand to reap the rewards.
Never underestimate the role customer experience has on profitability. Research from Deloitte found almost half of insurers cited customers as part of the challenge for growth over the next three years. Knowing what policyholders want is becoming a topic of heated discussion.
No individual wants to buy insurance — they need to. Therefore, making the experience as frictionless, speedy and pleasant as possible is key. Being easy to do business with, and not making customers jump through 50 hoops to get a simple quote is becoming more important than price. As such, it’s time for insurers to start asking themselves how their business is engaging with customers, and how this aligns with the company’s overall digital strategy, to boost bottom lines.
What customers want
According to the J.D. Power 2020 Study, at the start of the year 77% of auto insurance customers were actively shopping for or had experienced poor customer service that prompted a supplier switch. By April 2020, 52% were still planning to reduce coverage, or switch to another carrier. In a tense and competitive market climate, loyalty is harder to retain. This means insurers need to tune into what customers really want.
Essentially, customers want insurance to be easier and more reasonable to purchase. Customers want to know what their policy will cost today, and not wait a couple of weeks to get a quote — even for complicated risks. This stands for whether the customer is speaking to an agent on the phone, or online where consumers can self-serve.
In an era of instant access, speed and agility are crucial for insurers to cement their relevancy.
French writer Voltaire once said: “Perfect is the enemy of good.” The challenge for most insurance organizations is that traditional policy administration systems and underwriting processes can restrict the company’s ability to rapidly define or change products. Some insurers spend millions chasing the “perfect” system for launching new and better products to the market. What often results is time and money down the drain, building something that will largely be outdated by the time it sees the light of day — and will also be outmaneuvered by more agile competitors once in the market. You don’t have to be perfect to get to market quickly.
Welcome to the next generation of insurer
The time for outdated insurance thinking has passed. The introduction of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions enable carriers and MGAs to become innovative at the front end of insurance ideas. Being innovative on the front-end and through the underwriting process enables insurers to sell policies more quickly and efficiently, increasing their bottom line.
SaaS-based platforms are incredibly nimble, taking around 8-12 weeks to implement fully underwritten products, and even quicker to scale. Modern platforms already have most of the capabilities required to get a P&C product to market quickly. But the beauty lies in being able to make changes iteratively, as more is learned about the market. Insurers can do an MVP release, evaluate what is working, re-launch, evaluate again, and continue making changes as required. This iterative process saves time and money for the insurer through agile movements. Current legacy systems take years to build, with no capability for minor tweaks and developments as needed.
This agility also allows insurers to expand into markets or distribution channels they may not have had the time to focus on before. Adding technology is no longer the most difficult part of the product process. Instead, the insurer has more time to harness data and analytics to enhance the effectiveness of the underwriting process, which ultimately helps to serve customers quickly and more effectively.
The revolution is here
Customers want clarity and reassurance that any insurance policy they purchase is going to give them the protection they need — regardless of whether it covers homes, businesses or personal possessions — from the side effects of an increasingly unpredictable world.
Insurers that aren’t providing the right customer experience will be left by the wayside in 2021 and beyond. Insurers that can sell quicker and cater to a wide range of needs, all while keeping the customer front-of-mind, will stand the test of time. These insurers are revolutionizing the P&C industry and evolving in line with a future that is bright and exciting.
Challenge yourself to think differently about insuring, underwriting and business processes. The technology will do the rest.
Greg Murphy (Greg.murphy@instanda.com) is executive vice president for North America at INSTANDA. These opinions are his own.
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