In new reserch, Strategy Meets Action offers insurers 10 of the most pertinent mobile business needs. This comes on the heels of SMAs annual Insurance Ecosystem research, which tracks IT spending plans and this year highlighted mobile as a key area, with 42 percent of property/casualty insurers and 27 percent of life and annuity insurers increasing spending in 2013. The trends are broken up into two groups, the first is related to content, and the second, technology.
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Business Capability Bundling
Insurance apps that provide one narrow capability, such as a rate quoter or an agent locator, have not met with great success.
Mobile Payments
Mobile payment services such as Square and PayPal are becoming well known and growing in usage. Insurers that distribute through agents should consider providing such a method for collecting payment on-the-go.
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Location-Based Services
Location is rapidly becoming important for many industries. In the context of insurance, the ability to provide insureds with real-time location-based risk information and advice is an emerging opportunity.
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Usage-Based Insurance (Telematics)
Although early initiatives in North America have concentrated on leveraging mobile driving data for premium discounts, the model is likely to evolve to include a wide variety of value-added services.
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Mobile Advertising
With little tolerance left in consumers when it comes to pop-up ads, etc., its become a question of how to approach the space.
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Rich Media (HTML5, Image Capture, etc.)
Individuals are demanding visual, colorful, and animated interactions with computing and mobile devices. Every industry should be considering both the customer experience and the entertainment, or 'wow' factor, in the capabilities they provide to their customers.
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MDM/BYOD Mobile Device Management
Insurers are faced with determining how to best integrate personal mobile devices into the companys IT ecosystem while maintaining the required levels of security and privacy especially when employees are dealing with customer information.
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Mobile User Interface Design
The traditional design approach for back-office transaction systems or websites won't work. Designers must consider the interaction modalities available for mobile devices (pinch, swipe, tap, voice command, etc.), and the device form factors (screen size and shape).
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Cross-Platform Enablement
The ideal approach for insurers creating apps is to write once, deploy everywhere, but to achieve this, enlisting help is required.
Tablet Proliferation
Tablets are a natural extension for the many and varied insurance professionals working in the field.