But as time moves on, modern agencies are taking some of the boldest steps forward when it comes to launching new technology projects to innovate the insurance industry. The past few years of heavy venture investment in insurtech has brought a huge array of tools to the market that is solving palpable insurance business problems and providing quick and significant returns. Here are some of them:
AI
Early technologies regularly put distance between insurers from their policyholders. Phone auto attendants droning “Press one to talk to Sales” and voicemail that never seemed to get a return call. Artificial intelligence tools are different. They intensify and support the human connection and personal guidance that is core to the industry. Policyholders still want to feel like insurers understand them, empathize and listen. Customers continue to crave tailored recommendations and advice.
From underwriting, compliance, reporting, documenting, billing, quoting, so much time is spent on minutiae that the human connection gets shunted to the bottom of the priority list, and worse, the boring or highly detailed tasks are simply wearing out the staff.
So, customer service and sales departments value the AI tools that can help them locate answers, take care of details and make sure workflows are as efficient as possible for the customer as well as the staff. This allows them to focus on outstanding customer service instead of regulations, requirements, and databases.
Smartphones
This smartphone ecosystem fits together perfectly with AI tools that give consumers what they want and how they want it, thereby improving the customer experience. A new twist has appeared with the ubiquity of smartphones — the preference for texting, chatting and messaging over calling customer service for assistance. Research has discovered that 2.53 billion people globally owns a smartphone since last year, but just like the majority, most prefer to connect with brands online via web and mobile self-service interactions using a phone app. Machine learning and natural language processing have created instant traction from carriers to agencies, despite some solutions being in the early stages of development.
Most consumers now have gained an advantage from the convenience of the well-designed app experience, and some of the most well-known set of tools integrated on these mobile apps or insurance brand websites are the customer-facing virtual insurance agents that have brought in hundreds of varieties. Some live on agency websites, able to interpret plain language questions and can also answer mirroring the customer’s own tone and vocabulary. Others are versatile, able to carry on conversations in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and on voice-enabled devices like Amazon Alexa or Google Home. They are able to take care of insurance claims, handle questions about billing, take payments and churn out quotes by the thousands. The uniqueness of the virtual agent applications is limited only by the insurer’s imagination. Connecting with the target market using approachable, human-like automation is helping insurers stand out to current and prospective customers.
Blockchain
Chinese and Babylonian insurance from thousands of years ago distributed risk and trust to facilitate commerce and the advancement of society. Blockchain continues this tradition. Digital transformation can increase the speed and complexity of the insurance business, so there is a growing need for certainty, trust, and automation in insurance transactions. With demanding regulatory compliance requirements, evolving fraud detection and mitigation needs, swelling numbers of third-party payments to make and a complex network of data sources, insurers can no longer work with manual processes and non-integrated systems. Blockchain promises to trust and reliability among the market participants without the need to integrate with each and every system.
Conclusion
As insurers gain more experience with a variety of technology offerings, they will discover the depth of transformation they can achieve. Machine learning methods applied to the volumes of data available to insurers make advanced analytics and business intelligence within reach to even small agencies. They can affordably track product performance, predict loss and fraud, offer products that make sense with AI automation and blockchain-enabled trust mechanisms and even work on designing new products for risks emerging during the current digital transformation. Advancements in AI, smartphones, and blockchain unlock previously hidden business growth opportunities.
