Insurers will have to adapt to the increasingly prevalent use of mobile devices, a new study from the
The study says that as the world nears one billion mobile devices in use, insurance companies will need to invest in mobile channels in order to service their customer base.
“Mobile technology presents the insurance industry with an opportunity to meet two familiar and linked challenges: adopting new technology and marketing to young customers,” the study states. “Handset owners constitute an extensive technology infrastructure that many insurers are not pursuing aggressively enough, if at all.”
Yet, the decision to invest in mobility requires a complex subset of decisions regarding competing and complementary technologies. For example, insurers must choose whether to focus on optimizing their existing websites for use on mobile devices, or to develop apps for specific mobile operating systems, such as the iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7.
“While developing apps specifically for mobile devices is popular, some insurers choose the less laborious option of optimizing their existing websites for use on hand-helds,” the report states. “While apps are easy to use, they require testing on multiple combinations of device and software, and training customer service to address possible problems with apps.”
The report, prepared by
“A downside of new access points (such as mobile devices) into corporate systems is pressure on companies' security capabilities,” the report says. “But overall, the threats facing mobile systems are not drastically greater than those on the desktop and the Internet. Platform makers, app creators, and Web designers are now more aware of security flaws, and security has become a crucial part of development and testing of mobile systems.”
Indeed, insurers will need to surmount both security and technology challenges and fully embrace mobility if they hope to gain market share, the report concludes.
“Since many insurers work in low- or no-growth markets in which customers are often gained from other insurers, mobile systems can be an important competitive advantage,” the report states. “The industry's future innovative strategies for communication and service will rely on hand-held devices.”
