Buying and selling insurance has long relied on interpersonal deals. Recent years have shown many industries the need to improve the ability to sell online.
Over the past decade with the rise of ecommerce platforms, many insurers have noted advancements in usability and trust with online shopping. This has led carriers to seek out ways to enhance shopping online for P&C insurance policies.
WaterStreet Company offers cloud-based P&C Policy Administration Software for managing policies, claims administration, document management, billing, accounting and more.
Top 3 Factors Behind Online Insurance Shopping
1. Mobile-friendly designs for easy communication.
Customers want to be communicated with on their own terms. Nearly all modern policyholders today are experienced with mobile technology and have expectations of a smooth user experience when looking into a P&C insurer online.
Digital insurers are making an impact by placing their technology at the forefront of the business, causing disruption to many incumbent insurers. These disruptors rely on AI technology for claims administration, mobile access for simple document retrieval and text-chat services to communicate with users exactly when they’re available.
WaterStreet Company’s team of design experts offer carriers, MGAs and more white-label, mobile-friendly insured portals for policyholders to gain access to their documents at any time.
2. A fast quoting process.
Today’s policyholders expect information at the tips of their fingers, especially when making a purchase. Much like shopping on an ecommerce platform such as Amazon, comparing prices has become routine. A comparative shopping experience shows the shopper how much they save by choosing one product over another and if any special discounts are applied.
One 2016 study by J.D. Power found 74% of consumers research insurance purchases online, but only 25% end up making a purchase online. Insurers that are able to attract shoppers during their research phase can follow up using direct channels for contact, whether with a text message, email or phone call.
Carriers have long depended on internal software for arming policy administrators with surveys and checklists to conduct the initial quote process. Modern P&C insurance solutions have reframed these lists to allow the shopper to answer these questions themselves on their own time. This also allows carriers to easily tailor these questions to give the user opportunities for discounts as new products are offered.
3. Third-party connections with robust API.
The amount of data a carrier gathers is limited. Connecting to third-party solutions opens the door to remarkable advancements. Cloud-based solutions with next-generation Application Programming Interfaces (API) are designed to easily share data with your system, giving the insured additional benefits by sharing this information.
Self-service inspection technology is one example permitted for cloud-based solutions through third-party connections. Submitting a FNOL marks the beginning of the claims process and can be made more efficient by giving the policyholder the tools to communicate information directly into the insurer’s system. The system keeps a history of all data and documents related to the policyholder, allowing the insurer’s team to easily access these records in chronological order.
Rating by peril has become more common practice with the addition of solutions for more accurately assessing location risk. Some customers are greatly affected by perils while others are not at all, such as with wildfires. Most home insurers today weigh risk based on zip code, which is imprecise and treats many homeowners unfairly. Peril data allows carriers to analyze the unique risk of a property’s location, such as how closely a home lies next to a known burn perimeter, further informing the insurer’s underwriters to make clear and fast decisions.
WaterStreet Company integrates with rating by peril solutions, such as HazardHub, to help connect the insurer and insured on the best ways to minimize property risk while identifying new market opportunities.
WaterStreet Company’s P&C Insurance Software
Legacy software systems are bootstrapped from accessing cloud-based advancements. These systems rely on standard models for processing insurance data, but have quickly fallen behind.
Fast data sharing is made possible by WaterStreet Company’s advanced API, connecting insurers to any number of third-party solutions.
Reach out to WaterStreet Company today to request a consultation and demo of our solutions.
