Customer experience

Everyone is talking about the digital experience, but what does it really mean to go digital?

Insurers have strived to keep pace with consumer technologies and ever more-sophisticated expectations around the customer experience, and now carriers like USAA are banding together with Google Compare and other insurance aggregation sites to offer consumers a new way to shop for and purchase auto insurance.

Professional services company Towers Watson has agreed to acquire Brovada, a Canadian insurance technology business best known for the BrovadaOne platform, an application for integrating and automating interactions between insurers, and their agents and brokers.

Insurance core systems technology company Insurity Inc. now offers integration with Social Media Risk Scoring, predictive analytics technology from tech firm Social intelligence.

The Canadian insurer is allowing customers and advisors to opt for voice recognition over manual password entry in the contact center.

Allstate’s Drivewise Mobile application now features Allstate Rewards, which safe drivers now can use to earn points for deals on merchandise, gift cards and local offers, regardless of whether they have an insurance policy with Allstate.

The company’s new Prime initiative releases unbound web quotes to independent agents.

Members of the IAT Insurance Group have implemented the electronic signatures application in an effort to improve internal processes, ease of doing business for independent agents, and delivering a better customer experience.

The idea that someone could tarnish a brand name by cyber- squatting on, say, Vodafone.sucks, ManchesterUnited.sucks or LloydsBank.sucks led to a flurry of registrations by the companies themselves. To take control of their trademarks on this domain, firms had to cough up around $2,500 per year.

The health insurer is offering American Well telehealth services to its members.