Editor's note: This article is excerpted with permission from Forrester's "The Future Of Insurance--Vision: The Digital Insurance Strategy Playbook" report.
Digitally empowered customers are seeking better, personalized experiences, but product-oriented strategies handicap most insurers. Today, your customers want confidence and security, yet you sell them a loss-recovery contract. To stay relevant, insurers will become solutions providers offering value-added services that wrap around the underwritten coverage.. Leading insurers will:
• Educate customers about risks. Leading firms use interactive content such as videos, calculators, and risk assessments on their websites and apps to educate customers about the risks they face. For instance, to engage customers at an emotional level and help them make smart decisions, USAA offers a range of tools on its website, including an immediate annuity calculator and a property risk assessment. Although firms can do this relatively easily and cheaply, the rewards of increased engagement will be limited because only customers who are alreadyi nterested are likely to engage.
• Help customers detect risks to protect their assets, health, and wealth. Insurers like State Farm and Travelers offer their customers premium discounts if they have smart or connected home technology that alerts the customer of a fire or burglary. Insurtech Hippo Insurance recently partnered with SimpliSafe to help its customers monitor and protect their homes with connected devices. And John Hancock now only sells interactive life insurance policies — customers earn discounts and rewards for hitting exercise targets.
• Give personalized advice on reducing risks. Insurers of tomorrow will provide customers with personalized assessment of and advice on risk. With sensors, artificial intelligence, and analytics, insurers help customers track and improve their driving behaviors and well-being. Progressive’s Snapshot program and Root Insurance’s behavior-based auto solution allow customers to monitor driving habits and track speed, mileage, and driving time. Generali Deutschland has partnered with Binah.ai to allow customers to monitor their health through their smartphone camera, as well as access assistance and prevention services when needed. And Life.io offers an enterprise solution that motivates customers to frequently engage with insurers and rewards them for learning how to improve their well-being.
• Shift focus to insurance solutions versus insurance products. Insurtechs are transforming the insurance sector through digital-first, AI-enabled capabilities. Incumbents have an advantage in their extensive product suites and their long-standing customer relationships. More than half of US consumers who recently opened home, life, and auto insurance policies did so with their existing insurers. Tomorrow’s insurers will leverage extensive product portfolios in a one-stop shop that will elevate customer experience. Today, Allstate customers can configure a broad array of packages to bundle insurance through the website and mobile app, but they must speak to an agent to obtain solution pricing. Tomorrow, they will start and end their journey digitally, evaluating, configuring, and pricing their coverage online.
