COVID was the catalyst to a lot of new trends in the insurance space relative to UX and customer expectations. Adopting digital capabilities was critical during the pandemic and will continue to be. This is what incumbents need to do in order to stay relevant as competitors.
The environment in which insurance is in will be drastically changing in the next decade or so, with an immense rate of change. Customer experience and technological adoption will be the critical driving forces.
Digital native consumers will be the largest segment of insurance consumers going forward and they expect a seamless experience in submitting claims, point of purchase and maintenance. Insurance providers need to meet these needs and need to fully accelerate their innovation to do it or they will be eliminated.
Big data is assisting in meeting these needs. Having connected devices, autonomous vehicles and other smart products is increasing the amount of data being shared. These advances allow insurance providers to engage in a more appealing way to their customers and the touchpoints at which they can be reached are increasing.
We’ve seen a significant acceleration of digital implementations in the past year or so. Digital claims have used estimation technology an increasing amount since the pandemic and P&C claims have been using telemedicine in injury claims. More than 60% of consumers plan on leveraging habits they adopted during the pandemic, including their insurance consumer behaviors.
Another trend is the increased use of AI in claims processing. Simple claims only require little human attention, so they can be almost fully automated at this point and humans can focus on delivering a strong CX in the meantime. Complex and difficult claims are still largely handled by human beings because they require highly complex decision making skills, which cannot fully be automated by AI at this point.
Using multichannel communication with customers has proved beneficial to incumbents as well. Using a proactive method of reaching out to consumers allows for a more personalized experience for their customers. For example, customers can provide claims information in several different ways using multichannel which provides seamlessness in a quick way. Using mobile applications is one example of how this is being rolled out. Using analytics, insurance providers can anticipate questions to ask and responses to give with AI. Updates and notifications can also be provided in a more gentle fashion with this integration.
The pandemic delivered the change that consumers were asking for and it has led to an increase of technology innovation in the process. Firms that are more proactive in their communication, use AI in claims processing and focus on reducing claims will be in the right position to compete.
