Deepening the Consumer Relationship in the Insurance Industry

This is the 3rd in a 3-part series on the role of the consumer in the insurance industry.

Last week I touched on the changing relationship between the insurer and consumer and in the final article in this series I’ll explore how to deepen said relationship. 

There’s one thing about the industry that’s fairly obvious - selling insurance has always been about relationships. 

An advisor’s relationship with their client builds trust and keeps them renewing their policies. The client’s relationship with a spouse, or children, sparks the desire to purchase life insurance. But as I covered last week, brand loyalty is less and less about the customer’s relationship with just the advisor, and rather about their relationship and engagement with the whole company.

InsurTech now touches the entire life cycle of a customer’s insurance journey and engages with them throughout. Chatbots answer questions during the application process, wearable tech monitors exercise levels, and underwriters rely upon massive data collected and analyzed by algorithms. According to Forbes, all this “new technology and customer insights can help insurers better engage with and retain their customers.”

Customers want to interact with a business on their terms. No longer will they take time off work to meet with an advisor during business hours. Now, they want their questions answered instantly. And it isn’t just younger consumers who demand the convenience of an online application and real-time quotes, even my 70-year-old father shops online! 

By meeting their demands, companies can deepen the relationships with their existing clients and increase retention rates. Responsiveness to twitter messages, claims tracking through an app, and 24/7 availability cater to the customer’s needs. They feel seen and heard.

A survey by Bain and Company found that insurers who scored highly for customer satisfaction are keeping up with customer expectations by providing “customer experiences that are simple and digital.” Their customer experience is interconnected, not siloed, and innovation is customer-centric. In the digital world, policyholders want more, not less, contact. They want real relationships with the companies they buy policies from. 

InsurTech is helping to support and enable insurers to create an insurance ecosystem where they have deeper relationships with customers. By achieving this, insurers are creating lifetime loyalty with their customers which positively impacts their bottom line. 

They can now engage more often – whether it’s by offering roadside assistance, 24/7 chatbots, or by giving customized health advice – it builds relationships. And deeper customer relationships will be the key to capturing and retaining business.  

Over the past few weeks, I’ve covered the importance of implementing design thinking into the insurance industry and how this can help you win more consumers, how that relationship is changing, and finally, how to deepen it to ensure lifetime loyalty.