As the insurance coverage industry has grappled with creating meaningful touch points with this customers, several interesting models emerged, for example Amica Life with Cardiogram or John Hancock with Vitality. Several insurtechs, such as Life.io, emerged as leaders centered on customer engagement. Life.io has reduced lapse rates as much as 35% through carriers deploying its engagement platform and taking advantage of wearables to inspire healthy living through gamification and rewards.
These examples reveal that, around the main focus continues to be with an engaging experience for that customer, work has to be done on the back end, too, to deal with some age-old problems.
The customer engagement in life insurance was long limited to paper and also the answering services company. We printed policies. We printed statements. We printed bills. There was little to no engagement with customers following a policy was sold except for an intermittent telephone call if they had service issues or needs.
The industry continues to be constricted by its adage that nobody buys life insurance; it is sold, not bought.
The life insurance coverage industry has been conflicted about who its real customer is. The carriers considered distributors to become their customers, and the distributor has usually owned the end customer relationship.
Shifting customer demands usher within an era of change
Today, all those old truisms need to go away.
Customers want self-service capabilities. They want to begin their research online, seek views through their social networking sites and obtain feedback from their peers. There’s a shift happening from, “I spoke to my father, and that he introduced me to his financial adviser,” to, “I’m speaking with my social networking, and I plan to order online.” So, people do buy term life insurance products without a financial adviser. While current distribution channels won’t go away soon, direct-to-consumer is definitely an emerging channel, specifically for products that are simpler and also have modest face amount which focus on the millennials and also to mid-market consumers.
Meanwhile, carriers aim to own the relationship using the end customer.
Digital takes hold
And insurance providers or even financial services information mill no more viewed in isolation; the is benchmarked against other enterprises through the digital age consumer. Social networking companies, the Googles and the Amazons of the world, or the latest app used by consumer have the opportunity to become the benchmark. Consumers are comparing insurance carriers from the better of breed out there and demanding, “The reason for less good?”
Ultimately, a lot of the struggle returns to the antiquated back-end architectures. Customer experience isn't just concerning the front-end presentation – we as an industry have to solve the issue of the back-end enabling architecture, as that becomes critical in enabling this digital experience. Having a modernized back-end that may connect APIs and expose those capabilities into the presentation and experience layer, you can create an engagement model that makes consumers wish to use you and also be faithful to your brand. Through breaking down the customer journey, prioritizing pain points and redesigning those journeys to pay attention to what matters most for that policyholders, carriers can differentiate themselves like a customer-centric business.
