Customer Service Driving Claims Technology Decisions

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

According to a recent study, market conditions are dictating that claims professionals need to draw a straight line between their work and increased profitability based on customer service.  The study and recent announcements indicate technology is key in the geometry.

In October 2011, the global professional services company Towers Watson released its sixth annual Property & Casualty Claim Officer Survey, titled “Claim Implications, Challenges and Innovations”.   The priorities, identified in a release from Towers Watson, could have as easily come from marketing professionals as from claims officers: “Profitability/ROE is the main business challenge for respondents (71%), followed by top-line growth (63%) and a competitive environment (52%).”

Further, the survey found that loss expenses had dropped in priority for the respondents.  In the original survey, loss expense costs were listed as a top priority by 79% of participants.  This dropped to 44% in the most recent survey.  Ahead of loss expenses were customer service (69%) and overall loss costs (61%).

Technology is an important element in addressing customer service priorities. According to Brian Stoll, Towers Watson director and coauthor of the report, technology innovation is improving the customer experience, and making a difference in improving efficiency and boosting financial results:   “Particularly in personal lines, managing loss and expense costs while enhancing customer service are compatible goals, and claim officers who focus on high quality service and faster claim cycle times achieve efficiencies through technology and process innovation, and clearly gain a competitive advantage. These innovative approaches offer the same opportunities for standard commercial lines.”

Carriers statements and actions support this. In a recent Insurance & Technology article, Owen Williams, SVP and claims CIO for Chubb, says: “”Claims handling is a key differentiator for us in the marketplace, and so we continue to invest in the kind of people, process and technology that yields customer service that exceeds our competitors’ performance.”

For Chubb, this means that technology must be robust and flexible.  According to Williams,  “Today’s insureds want the flexibility to choose the level and type of interaction that makes the most sense for them.  For example, someone might choose to initiate a claim through their agent but receive status updates on the claim via a mobile device.”

Lansing, Michigan based Auto-Owners, a leading property/casualty insurer selected Guidewire ClaimCenter® as its new claims management system. The company will implement ClaimCenter to support the management of its commercial and personal lines claims.

Customer service is a key driver for Auto-Owners in this decision.  In a release, Jim Walsh, vice president, Claims, Auto-Owners, said: “ClaimCenter is expected to complement our service efforts and apply increased technology to streamline our processes, allowing associates to focus on serving our customers and agents.”

 

Claims, Modern Technology, Uncategorized

Bring Your Own Device Movement Gaining Momentum, Providing Lessons for Insurers

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

Bring Your Own Device – aka BYOD – is gaining momentum for all the right reasons, even with a customer that would be the most concerned about the scheme.

Last October,we noted that the trend for employers to allow  and even encourage employees to connect their own personal devices – smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. – to corporate networks and resources was picking up speed.  The primary driver seemed to be cost savings for the employer.

However, according to a recent Insurance & Technology article, improvement in employee productivity is become a major driver as well.  The article notes that allowing users to select among a variety of devices with which they are familiar provides tremendous flexibility for the employee at a low cost to the employer.  As we noted in our October post, employees are willing to underwrite some or all costs for the devices in exchange for freedom of choice.

Of course, the major issue with providing ‘foreign’ devices into corporate networks is security.  A recent study of one of the most security-focused organizations in the world is informative in this regard.

CDW – a major technology provider to business and government in the US -  recently completed a report on BYOD implementation in the US Federal Government.  It found that a large proportion (62%) of federal government agencies in the US allow workers to bring their own devices, and approximately 40% of employees have taken up the offer.

Writing in Insurance Networking News, Joe McKendrick  commented on the security findings of the report:  “As with many things related to technology, security is a vexing issue. While 82 percent of the IT professionals in the survey said their agency deployed encryption for mobile devices, far fewer said their agency protects mobile devices with multi-factor authentication (54 percent), remote lock and wipe (45 percent), or data loss prevention software (39 percent). Agencies are providing a good security baseline for mobile device use, however, as the majority are establishing mobile data security policies (85 percent) and requiring data security training for mobile device users (84 percent).

“One answer to mobile security management as well as administration is mobile device management (MDM) – which is the over-the-air distribution of applications, data and configuration settings for all types of mobile devices. About 71 percent if <sic> federal agencies are employing MDM at least in a limited way.”

Other findings from the CDW survey include:

  • 99% of Federal IT professionals report they have deployed mobile devices – such as laptops, smartphones, tablets and e-readers – to their agency workforce
  • 89% of Federal employees who use a mobile device for work say it makes them more productive, and 69% of Federal employees say increased mobility will improve service to citizens

McKendrick’s concludes that the movement at the US Federal Government level provides important lessons for insurers on BYOD.  We would concur.

Bring Your Own Technology

Brokers Ready to Benefit from Insurance Telematics. (Are You Surprised?)

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

Brokers who are prepared to invest in some education and possibly technology could be positioned to use their ‘trusted advisor’ status to benefit from a trend to Telematics insurance programs.

Telematics for insurance has received a fair amount of trade press and has demonstrated traction in Europe, the UK, the US and elsewhere (see, e.g., our January 23rd post on Telematics’ Momentum).  This traction is driving new data standards development in the UK and US.  Over three-quarters of respondents to a February Insurance-Canada.ca poll believe that Telematics is either being used or on a near horizon for use in Canada.

However, there has been little discussion about the impact on distribution channels.  The common wisdom has been that independent brokers were at something of a disadvantage as Telematics would increase differences in rating criteria among underwriting carriers.

Turns out some notable brokers in the UK actively disagree.  As reported in InsuranceAge, a UK publication serving the broker community, some brokers see Telematics as one tool to help preserve their independence, assuming that brokers are prepared to invest time and money to prepare to serve their customers.

Nigel Lombard, managing director at Motaquote, a Welsh broker, says that brokerages such as his are in the best position to help customers understand the benefits of and requirements for the new rating methods, explaining: “Initially, the hardest thing was to make sure our customers fully understood. They have a lot of questions. How does it work? Will it affect my car? How are you going to use my information?”

The broker has the advantage of looking at his/her clients as potential candidates for pay-as-you-drive schemes. without having to impose it on all clients.  “It’s not the only option, but it’s a good one,” Lombard said. The key is for brokers to prepare.  This will mean discussing the option with markets and determining appetites for different risk profiles.

It will also mean investing in education to learn how telematics works, and possibly investing in technology to begin to store client use data.   Lombard explained: “You have to ask different questions, and a few more questions. For instance, you now have to ask them ‘What type of roads do you drive on?’ and ask about when they do most of their driving, and establish how late they drive.”

But Lombard sees this as the reason why independent professional advice will be so valuable.  And the investment could result in better retention.  Lombard notes that while Telematics is not for everyone, “People who see the benefits will go for it again and again.”

 

Broker Technolgy, Pay-As-You-Drive, Telematics

Occupy On-line Distribution; Mobile for the 99%

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

We recently posted on the pressure new technologies – especially on-line/ mobile technologies – are having to blur lines between channels for insurers.  Turns out some of that blurring working to the advantage of smaller insurers and independent distributors.

For example, Insurance & Technology recently noted that a relatively small organization, Plymouth Rock Assurance. a New England based regional insurer, was able to introduce an on-line facility – eSales -  which allows customers to complete the quoting and binding of policies on-line directly with the company, but subsequently assign the results to one of its agents.  While there has been some success with sales (200 policies with minimal marketing effort), Keith Jensen, chief marketing officer for Plymouth Rock believes that the real value comes from introducing customers to the independent agency experience, saying: “What’s really compelling is that there are 1,000 people who have quoted on our eSales tool and visited an agent thereafter.”

Mobile technology is an area that is potentially threatening to smaller, independent distribution carriers, but need not be.  Chad Hersh, principal in the insurance practice at Novarica, writing in PropertyCasualty360.com, says,  “Consumer expectations are growing and their general computing needs are going to be met by apps. … Will a big direct writer always have a better, snazzier app? Sure. Do consumers necessarily care about that? No, as long as they can get what they need to get done on the app, they are generally going to be happy.”

Hersh believes the critical element for smaller carriers is to act quickly.  There is the potential for vendors to come up with package solutions.  Hersh concludes: “There is always something that causes the smaller carriers to struggle to keep up with the larger carriers. This is not one of them. This is one of those things, that because of their size the larger carriers got into first because it wasn’t a big bill for them. It’s a low enough cost that anybody that wants to be a mobile leader can be.”

 

Broker-Carrier Relationships, Mobile Technlogy, On-line Marketing

Is Big Data Bigger Than IT Can Handle?

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

Is ‘Management of Big Data’ an inherent contradiction?  Perhaps not completely, but recent evidence suggests that it may be beyond many organizations to undertake on their own.

A number of publications have identified data management and analytics as critical to insurance success (this blog identified it as a ‘megatrend’ for 2012).  Recently, a report from PwC, entitled “Top Issues for Insurance” called 2012 the year of the customer and indicated that data management and analytics were key enablers.  In a release, Jamie Yoder, PwC’s US insurance advisory practice co-leader, said: “One of the largest challenges insurers will face in 2012 and beyond is capturing and interpreting data from a growing number of structured and unstructured sources, including but not limited to social media, policy-holder behavior and telematics.”

Some of these data are resident in internal systems, but an increasing amount bridges to outside sources, and linking these data is becoming increasingly complex.  eMarketer  reported on several studies indicating that marketing needs were frustrated by the amount of data and the ability to integrate and report these data in a timely fashion.

As a result, some marketers are turning to outside sources, rather than IT, to meet their Big Data needs.  A recent IBM survey of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs, reported in Information Week) found:

• 71% of CMOs feel unprepared to deal with the data explosion over the next five years.

• 68% feel unprepared to deal with social media.

• 65% feel unprepared to deal with the growing number of channel and tech device choices.

• Overall, technology is the No. 2 external force affecting their companies, CMOs say, trailing only “market factors.”

However, the CIO and IT are not the first places all the CMOs look to for help.  According to the report, “Just 49% of the CMOs IBM surveyed rank cross-CXO collaboration as key to their success over the next three to five years. And when CMOs want technical help, they’re more inclined to turn to outside agencies than the internal IT department.”

The Information Week piece further reports on a Gartner prediction that “by 2017, the marketing organizations at high-tech companies will spend more on IT than the IT organizations at those companies.”

So what should IT do?  Information Week suggests that “If IT wants to be of use to marketing, it needs to zero in on what people can do with their mountains of data. That work might include analysis of social network sentiments, the rate of abandoned shopping carts on a website, or activity on a company’s mobile app….”  But is this practical for insurance IT organizations which are neck deep in modernization projects, mobile device management, broker connectivity, etc.?

Maybe organizations – and IT managers in the organizations – should recognize that in the new world, it may not be possible or desirable for IT to be the only source for information or information access tools.  Perhaps the best source for information is outside the company.  We recently posted on an innovative service from ISO in the the US which allows users to search for specific subjects across millions of websites, social networks, and secondary data sources such as blogs and photo sharing services.  There were several presentations at the recent Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Conference which focused on Big Data and methods for utilizing external resources.

The PwC report says that to service customer needs using Big Data “requires a transformation of leadership models, internal culture, and performance drivers.”   Part of this transformation may be relinquishing some IT control over data management in the organization.

 

Analytics, Big Data, IT Management, Social Media, Uncategorized

Success On-Line is ‘Blurry’ for Channels

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

Insurance has always had challenges with channel strategies.   Historically,  while there was some crossover, the majority of North American insurers did business either directly with customers or through independent agents/brokers.   However, the on-line world seems to be challenging the distinction to the core.

Looking at the broader world, several reports cited in eMarketer note that US retailers are finding that previous ‘channel strategies’ are not holding up in the current environment. Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer principal analyst and author of the new report, “US Retail Ecommerce Forecast: Entering the Age of Omnichannel Retailing.”says “In the past, cross-channel shopping amounted to using a retailer’s different channels one at a time for separate transactions.  But today, consumers are moving between a retailer’s channels—websites, stores, mobile devices, social media—in a fluid way.”

eMarketer cites a February 2012 survey by PriceGrabber, which found that most US online consumers plan to shop this year by combining online, brick-and-mortar and mobile retail channels (see accompanying chart).  Grau notes that shoppers will increasingly move from researching products on-line to using social networks to get opinions on suppliers, to purchasing on-line or in person.  “What will matter most is whether the experience was smooth. If the retailer disappoints the shopper during any of these channel handoffs, it will reflect poorly not only on that channel but on the brand as a whole,” Grau notes.

This message seems to be resonating with some insurers, including Progressive.  As reported in PropertyCasualty360.com, the insurer, which does business directly and through independent agents, wants to ensure that the end customers have a consistent experience regardless of the channel.

“We are having success in tools that cross over,” says Matt Lehman, mobile business leader for Progressive. “As we build out certain capabilities, clearly we are looking for those to be channel agnostic. When you look at the servicing and claims’ capabilities … we want those to be available to all customers regardless of how they choose to work with us.”

Progressive is not afraid to develop specific tools for a channel.   Lehman notes, “If a customer chooses to work with one of our 35,000 independent agents, that’s great and we want to put tools like the new FAO (ForAgentsOnly) effort into agents’ hands so they can be mobile.”   And the company actively seeks input from agents in developing and deploying the tools through an agent council.

In addition, Progressive looks to leverage experiences with one channel into another.  “We certainly look for crossover opportunities and in certain cases we may release something for the direct channel, which ultimately will cut over to the agency channel as well.”

At the end of the day, customer satisfaction ifs the goal.  Back in the retail world, marketers are now segmenting customer preferences by channel.  While there is a continuing need for personal service, it is important to determine where this is most appropriately supplied.

Matt Josefowicz, principal at Novarica, commented on this in a recent blog post: “In the age of information scarcity, commissioned sales people were a valued information source for customers — because they were the only accessible information source. Now, in the age of information super-abundance, there are alternative ways for customers to get information, ways that are more responsive, and have more information available than the best informed salesperson. It turns out many customers prefer not to interact with a channel that has incentives to sell them something they may not really want or need.”

This reflects some of the views of Lauren Foy, the Millennial who commented on independent agent’s social media strategy.  We posted on this last month.

Josefowicz ends his post with the real money question for insurers:  “how are they going to adapt their sales experience to attract these buyers?”

Blurry looks good for the moment.

 

 

 

Insurance Marketing, On-line Marketing

Service Makes Big Claims Data Operational

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

Claims data driven by social media is offering opportunities for insurance practitioners.  However, managing the volume of the data is a challenge.  This challenge is turning into an opportunity for at least one third party supplier.

A number of analysts and commentators (including ourselves) have identified the management of data, especially Big Data, as key to success in business generally and insurance specifically.  The proliferation of Social Media and other on-line sources is a major contributor.

A recently issued report from consulting firm PwC highlights the importance of data management.  In announcing the report, entitled Top Issues: The Insurance Industry in 2012, Jamie Yoder, PwC’s US insurance advisory practice co-leader, said, “One of the largest challenges insurers will face in 2012 and beyond is capturing and interpreting data from a growing number of structured and unstructured sources, including but not limited to social media, policy-holder behavior and telematics.”  (Reported in Insurance & Technology.)

It seems that the challenge to insurers is opportunity to third party suppliers.  One of the first off the mark is ISO with a new offering which allows searches of social media and other on-line sources sources to support claims handling.

The recently announced  service – Web Presence Search – allows users to search for specific subjects across millions of websites, social networks, and secondary data sources such as blogs and photo sharing services. Rich Della Rocca, vice president, ISO Claims Solutions, says, “The massive volumes of information available on the internet can make any online investigation of a subject a daunting challenge.  Web Presence Search can make a real difference.”

To deliver this service, ISO has formed an alliance with Social Intelligence Corp., a leading provider of social media screening and research solutions. Search results are displayed in a Match Report summary consisting of URL links to web pages where reference to a search subject is detected. Findings can include personal profiles, employment history, educational background, recreational interests and activities, and personal photographs, including pictures of family members, friends and associates, video clips, blog entries, and news articles.

“Combining online search results with public record findings from other third-party sources, such as data aggregators and government agencies, is one of the most effective and innovative ways to provide a comprehensive, multi-dimensional profile of a person of interest,” said Della Rocca. “The Web Presence Search and Report will be an important resource for our claims and investigations customers.”

Big Data, Claims, Social Media

Mobile on the Move: Applications Growing in Sophistication, Users Growing in Numbers, Regulations Growing in Support

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

We identified Mobile Technology as one of the major technology trends impacting insurance practitioners in 2012.  The applications are growing and covering a wide range of insurance disciplines.  Demand from customers and distributors is driving  insurers to exploit mobile devices.  Even governments are supportive.  The only wrinkle is a lack of standardized approach.

We recently posted on some of the newer applications, including Progressive’s use of mobile phone cameras to collect data for comparative quotes.  David Schwartz,  VP, product marketing, of Obopay, Inc., notes in a recent Insurance & Technology piece, that banks and telecommunications companies are adopting mobile technology to effect new payment methods.  Schwartz believes that insurers could take advantage of the same technology for field disbursement of payments in claims. “These new mobile technologies when combined with digital payment capabilities can dramatically reduce the cost of issuing claim payments for an insurance company, and improve customer satisfaction by enabling real-time payments that are instantly spendable by the claimant.” Schwartz says.

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of smartphone capabilities for managing financial transactions and lawmakers are moving to set appropriate regulations.  This past week, the US House Financial Services Subcommittee on Consumer Credit examined the growing trend of mobile payments (or “m-payments”) that allow consumers to make purchases with their smartphones.  According to C-Span, “During the proceeding, lawmakers touted the technological advances that make it possible for consumers to purchase items in stores using their mobile devices.”

While Canada has lagged behind some other countries in adoption of mobile payments, Canadians’ use of smartphones is growing rapidly, and commentators expect increased use combined with appropriate regulation.  (See commentary from business law firm Osler on the subject.)

One element that could hold back mobile implementations is the debate concerning deployment of functionality using dedicated mobile apps versus using standardized internet-based applications via  browsers.  With mobile apps, the insurer can write custom applications for specific devices.  At the present time, this essentially means writing the application twice:  once for iPad, and once for Android.

The other alternative is to write the application so it runs on mobile browsers.  Since there are a number of such browsers, there is inevitable loss of some functionality.  There are some suppliers that are offering technology to allow a write-once, deploy-to-many strategy, but these still require significant customization.  (See Insurers Look to Streamline Mobile App Development in Insurance & Technology.)

The fact is that consumer demand will force a business standard.   And mobile will continue to move.

 

Mobile Technlogy

Developing Social Media Strategies: Learning to Rake Leaves During A Windstorm

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

There is an old saying which suggests that trying to set strategy while dealing with a crisis is akin to trying to rake leaves in a windstorm while herding cats.  If a leading analyst is correct, the state of social media strategy and insurance may be close to this.   But help may be coming, from the felines themselves.

In a recent post in this space, Greg Purdy of Pathway Partners suggested that Social Media was creating a perfect storm for the insurance industry which, in Greg’s words, “will change the landscape and influence every aspect of the industry.”

Greg quotes recent data which suggest that the new customer segment – Millennials – have grown up in a state of constant connectivity.  To reach these consumers requires a marketing strategy which effectively incorporates social media.  However, the leaders in the industry are not of this generation, and the rule book for social media is being written in real time.

So, if we accept Purdy’s analysis that the storm is upon us (and many do),  the money question is:  How can we develop a strategy in a timely fashion?  A recent article offers shortcuts to the thinking of millennials on the topic of insurance sales.

The back story of the article is informative.  Independent Agent Magazine  recently published a piece entitled Marketing to Millennials, which offered the views of Michael Fleischner,  an Internet marketing expert and founder of MarketingScoop.com on how to market to this community.

To validate some of the article’s suggestions, Independent Agent Mike Foy asked his daughter Lauren Foy, currently in college, to comment, and the reply became a second article -   A Millennial’s Take on Social Media – published on the ACT Website (ACT is the technology division of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America). It should be required reading for anyone developing insurance marketing strategies and tactics;  not so much because of the major elements (Lauren agrees with most of Fleischner’s expert opinions), but because of the unique insights Lauren provides from her personal experiences.

For example, Flieschner recommends:  “be genuine and let your prospective market understand what you’re really about and what you stand for.”  To which Lauren responds:

“While I am not sure how you can be insincere regarding matters of insurance, I think that the author makes a good point to be sure your target really understands what you are marketing. One example would be to not make a company look like a friendly personal environment when chances are a customer would have to get through many automated messages or new employees each time they try to contact the company.”

Get this:  Millennials don’t classify insurance people as sleezy sales types, but they do ask us to deliver on whatever  service promise we give.  Why is this important?  Lauren says: “Finding a company on the Internet is a lot more of a guessing game …. If you are trying to attract people through this medium, it is much easier to do so when the message and the reality are matching.”

Same with Flieschner’s recommendation for engagement on a personal level.  Lauren says: “This is an easy thing to do with blogs or Facebook, etc. I have become a ‘fan’ or ‘liked’ a few companies that I never see again. I have done the same to others, which now seem to haunt my Facebook. I think a medium level of posts is good.”

Lauren gets into recommendations on style:  “One company usually posts a fact, story or comment relevant to their product and ends the post in a question. This gets a lot of feedback and then is likely to show up on more people’s home screens. …    My generation feeds on being ‘heard’ and finds it so appealing that we give more attention to the social media sites that try to engage us. ”

There are a number of gems in the piece, including a discussion on the importance of personal contact.  One that is not stated, but implied might  the most important.  If we want to know how to market to millennials, perhaps we should ask them how they want to be marketed to.

They just might tell us.

 

On-line Marketing, Social Media

Telematics Momentum Driving Insurance Data Standards Development

By Insurance-Canada.ca BlogEditorNo Comments

The increasing use of Telematics in the UK,  US,  and Europe is driving data standards development activity.  One industry leader believes standards are key to maintaining consumer confidence while telematics momentum increases.

In a March 15th press release, Wunelli, Ltd., a UK based supplier of telematics solutions to the motor (automobile) insurance community, announced that it was  “kicking off a campaign to create a common standard for the collection, verification and security of telematics data.”  Wunelli noted that the ” implementation of the gender ruling in December 2012 is expected to prompt a huge rise in telematics products and take-up.”  (We blogged on the implementation of gender neutral requirements in the EU in March 2011).

In addition, there is pressure in the UK to establish standards in advance of regulatory activity.  Sandy Dunn, Chairman of Wunelli said: “Insurers have a small window of opportunity to agree to a common data standard. As an industry we need to grasp the opportunity now, while telematics is still in its infancy in the UK, or we will find ourselves facing the same issues insurers faced, for example, in sharing ‘No Claims Discount’ information.”  Dunn and Wunelli are inviting senior industry leaders to a data focused Think Tank, in Loch Lomond sometime in the next 3 months.

At the same time, US-based ACORD is responding to pressure from its members to investigate data standards to handle telematic information.  At the 2012 Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Conference (ICTC), Marcia Bernier gave an update on ACORD activity, including the establishment of a work group to gather information on data requirements.

Bernier believes that there are value points from the data gathered by devices in vehicles that go beyond underwriting.  “If you stop and think about it, there are a great many advantages to using the data from these devices,” states Berner. “Let’s say an insurance claim is submitted for a severe case of whiplash. If the insurer could prove the person was hit by a vehicle going only 5 miles per hour, they might not have to pay the claim. This is the type of data being collected by some devices.”

Dunn believes that a number of elements will drive implementations of telematics, and the industry must be prepared.  “The fact is, the cost of telematics solutions has fallen dramatically and will fall further as volumes increase, particularly when the gender ruling comes into play at the end of year. We anticipate that, of the 25 million motorists on the road today, 15%-20% will take up a telematics solution in the next 2 years – that’s between 3 and 5 million telematics policies,”  Dunn said.

He continued, “We need to be ready or we will face a whole host of challenges, not least the problem of cars being fitted with a different box every time the customer changes provider! This will ultimately lead to a lack of consumer confidence.”

 

2012 Technology Conference, Data Standards, Telematics
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