Insurance practitioners are always developing new methods to improve communications and expand data applications. Some are on the edge of 100% digital communication and applications (completely paperless).
Interested? Read on.
Lloyd’s helped rationalize – and operationalize – the business of insurance
Some of the most important insurance application forms were born in the 17th century in Lloyd’s Coffee Shop when Lloyd’s of London organized and gave authority to ‘members’ to represent Lloyd’s for the purpose of insuring shipping.
This started a chain around the world that hasn’t been broken. Lloyd’s still exists today, developing new insurance programs supported by state-of-the-art technologies.
Mountains of paper
Insurance developed over time – its evolution spanned insurance applications, sales, and financial management.
With greater competition, insurers expanded with new coverages and programs.
By the time I joined an insurance company in 1985, I saw desks with piles of paper that clerks had to check and check again.
It was mind-numbing, I was told, and I believed it.
But over time, people found ways to cut out some of the redundancies.
Insurance businesses are tackling the CX challenge
Recent research by SMA concluded that improving the customer experience is “the top strategic initiative of North American insurers, with over 90% undertaking major initiatives in this area.” One tactic is digitization.
In a post on communications and CX, Rebecca Maurice (a “strong believer in content”) notes three major options and constraints in the production of communications by insurance companies. These are:
- Customers’ expectations: Today’s customer wants messaging to be clear and easy to understand, but also digital, individually personalized, and even interactive.
- Internal systems: The volume of communications involved necessitates automation of the process – an approach which can be complicated by multiple systems, templates, etc. within a single company
- Compliance: Insurance policies are subject to laws and sometimes constrained by other guidelines, which has repercussions for the form of a document as well as its content.
Information from clients and prospects is sometimes submitted on paper and sometimes transmitted in digital messages. Whether it arrives in a structured format (a form completed and submitted) or a free-wheeling, conversational correspondence, this data must be captured in order to be processed.
Today, innovators and stakeholders are deploying new technologies to automate both the capture of data and the interpretation of it – a necessity in this increasingly data-driven business.
Looking ahead
Forward-looking brokers, MGAs and insurers are working on digitizing most everything. This would put pressure on others who are still printing hard copies to utilize 100% digital processes for storing and moving data.
Ten years ago, this would have seemed like a crazy idea; today, it is doable – and brilliant.
Learn more at ICTC2020
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Register today at the lowest early-bird rates; plus, the first 50 delegates registered will be entered into a draw for a next-generation iPad 10.2! There’s still time to get in the running if you register now.