6 Areas Insurers are Upgrading
May 31, 2016 1:29 AM
The competitiveness of personal lines is driving insurers to make investments in customer acquisition and retention, according to Novaricas Business and Technology Trends: Personal Lines report, authored by Stephen Kaye and Jeff Goldberg. Carriers continue to look for ways to improve their cost profiles while concurrently creating competitive advantage through enhancements to products and services, the authors write, identifying these shifts within systems.
1. Agent portal
Many carriers are on their second or third generation of portals, Novarica writes. The focus has broadened to a more omni-channel approach, including investment in direct agency integration, policyholder portals, mobile options, and other means of agency interaction outside of the portal.
2. Customer portals
Mobile-enabling policyholders is an area where many insurers are attempting to catch up, says Novarica: Insurers are either creating mobile websites or ensuring their existing websites display properly and have full functionality when viewed from mobile devices.
3. Rating, underwriting, and policy admin
Policy admin is the top area of investment for personal lines carriers, Novarica says, with a focus on speed to market. Insurers are also working harder on implementing predictive models in underwriting, and incorporating third-party data sources.
4. Billing
A crucial component of customer service, insurers are moving to multichannel, digital direct billing at a high rate, Novarica says. Carriers want the ability to easily design and implement additional plans to offer multiple billing plans or to change plans during a policy period, they write.
5. Claims
Insurers are working hard to incorporate analytics in the claims process, Novarica says. Self-service and collaboration technologies are becoming more common in personal insurance claims handling as well, the authors write. Claimants can report claims online, check on claims status, complete home inventories, see their automobile in the shop, select repair facilities, and schedule rental cars.
6. Business intelligence
With analytics underpinning many initiatives, insurance companies need to have top-of-the-line management capabilities, Novarica says. Carriers use predictive analytics in virtually all aspects of the insurance value chain, the authors write. Priorities include the ability to leverage third-party data, data analysis tools to support the data scientist in development of predictive models, as well as tools that allow business end users to easily navigate and understand data.