Digital technology is enabling Insurance companies to acquire more customers and reduce time and costs creating a competitive advantage for the digital leaders and also new risks to late movers. While digitalisation can be disruptive for many insurers, it is also a huge opportunity to improve customer experiences, reduce processing time and costs and increase access to data and business information. 

Because of the disruption of these technologies and the abundance of data sources, insurers now have a greater understanding of their customers' preferences and behaviours. Furthermore, it allows insurers to improve their handling of highly sensitive subjects such as ratings, underwriting, and claims.

In this blog series on Process Digitalisation, we examine the benefits of Digital Ratings adoption and easy ways to get started.

1 - Moving to a Cloud-Hosted System

Insurance-specific cloud solutions can help insurers achieve greater IT agility and shorter project implementation times. This agility and speed enables insurers to deliver their service offerings much more quickly than previously saving cost and increasing ROI.

With cloud, insurers can now quickly test and deploy new products and pricing via their websites, branch and contact centre teams, brokers and agents. It enables full visibility and transparency of ratings and quotes being issued, improving control of pricing as data of customers being quoted. 

It also enables them to improve distribution and connectivity directly to consumers (D2C) and within their ecosystem of agencies and brokers and increased flexibility, mobility and portability with web access to systems meaning teams and agents can work anywhere from the office to home or even in the field for enhanced productivity.

While staying compliant and competitive, cloud allows insurers to easily test new business models, minimise time to market, and discard old business models.

2 - Implementing Instant Online Quotes

The old ways of customers going from one insurer agency to another and to phone call different insurance agents were quite stressful and took too long for anyone to obtain several quotes. Nowadays, customers are online and looking for information from their mobile phone and just want to easily go to a website to obtain online quotes in a few minutes. 

Insurers can improve their online quote process by allowing consumers to access pricing details more quickly using a digital rating engine. Insurers can also use direct and automated messaging with agencies and brokers to introduce new products and develop existing ones. This method eliminates errors in the process and makes rating multiple business lines easier. Underwriters will no longer rely on spreadsheets or make unauthorised changes, and most importantly, everyone will be using the same version.

Simple quotation forms with relevant questions that simulate a negotiation between the customer and the insurer are necessary. This allows insurers to engage with consumers more effectively, provide a more convenient and customised way to shop for insurance, and provide improved customer service with less stress.

3 - Integrated Workflow

Poorly integrated systems and databases tend to distract workflow functionality and usability. As a result, insurers may be unaware that one of their auto customers has recently purchased a home insurance or referred a new client. As a consequence, the customer experience is poor, and opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling are lost. Insurers can easily configure the integration points to match their business needs and ensure different components and technologies come together as a cohesive, functional whole system.

Implementing an all-in-one Insurance Sales Digitalisation platform with workflow integration capabilities can connect all your various systems enterprise-wide (Policy Management, Finance, CRM, etc.) to ensure uninterrupted workflows. It can initiate processes based on customer events on communication channels or internal systems and minimise the need for manual data entry, without burdening the IT team with custom integrations.

If you are interested in any of the above or have an upcoming digital project we’d love to talk. 

Get in touch with us today and learn more how ApplyOn can help you achieve your Digital Transformation goals rapidly, easily and affordably.