The insurance industry has experienced a tumultuous year, paving the way for many opportunities.
According to the World Insurance Report 2020, 42% of insurance firms believe COVID-19 has impacted customer retention. Many policyholders seek better pricing, improved coverage or more unique offerings tailored to their personal lives.
WaterStreet Company offers cloud-based P&C Policy Administration Software to help connect carriers, MGAs and more insurers to the customers of tomorrow.
3 Ways to Enhance Loyalty
1. Innovative Coverages
COVID-19 may have most significantly impacted the insurance industry with a rise in claims related to liability and business interruption. In most cases, coverage does not include losses pertaining to COVID-19, revealing a gap in coverage that could be filled with specialty infectious disease coverage or offerings yet to be considered.
With many events shut down and plans cancelled, travel insurance and event insurance policies have required review, opening up policyholders to consider changing carriers.
Insurers may also be overlooking niches that have risen to light in 2020, such as with cyber insurance. This specialty insurance has gained some awareness as corporations switch to work from home scenarios, but more growth could be realized.
Usage based insurance (UBI) has also gained in popularity when it comes to auto insurance. Telematics data can allow carriers to know when a car is driven and can then charge based on how often a vehicle is used. As fewer people commute for work, auto insurers can take advantage of promoting this unique offering for cost savings to the insured, enhancing loyalty and differentiating from competitors.
Policyholders have started interpreting insurance as a utility that is paid for as it is used, causing carriers, MGAs and other insurers to reconsider how products are marketed and priced.
2. Digitalization & Customer Engagement
Policyholders demand real-time access to their documents. Mobile apps have risen to prominence as well as mobile-responsive solutions that give policyholders their own customized insured portal.
The priorities of carriers may have to shift to make customer satisfaction and digitalization a greater goal. Carriers that have opted to not invest in communication solutions such as chatbots or automated answering services should highly consider these touch points today.
Omnichannel distribution allows insurers to communicate brand and product messaging across a variety of digital channels, reaching new customers and enhancing the customer journey in a more personalized and engaging way. Insurers should review marketing strategies to ensure they are fit for more digital customers.
3. Future Preparation for Pandemics
The pandemic has revealed many unknown scenarios across the insurance industry. Customers feel the weight of these unknowns and rely on insurance experts to inform them of their best options.
Moving forward, insurers are seen around the globe as responsible for coming up with a systematic process to weigh the risks of pandemic coverage. With gaps in travel insurance, event insurance, business interruption insurance, and so much more, there’s demand for an explanation on how companies can protect themselves from the risk of infectious disease.
This brings the opportunity for digitalized insurers to communicate their messaging clearly and to use their depth of data to leverage new offerings and weigh risks, however it could also be too soon to deploy new products related to the pandemic. The market has a clear need for these offerings, and insurers would benefit with improved reputation the sooner these products can be launched.
The reputation of many insurers around the globe is currently at stake through a litany of legal battles. Clear communication on how these conflicts can be avoided in the future is necessary.
Reach out to WaterStreet Company today to request a consultation and demo of our solutions.
