Part 2: 10 Big Ideas to Turn Insurance Data into Value in 2022
Big Idea #2: Personalize to Thrive
By Thomas Chesbrough, EVP
Turn on Netflix, open an Amazon browser window, or if you are athletic put on a Gatorade Gx Sweat Patch, and a consumer is benefiting from high levels of personalization fueled by powerful data insights. These intelligent, personalized products and services lead to greater customer loyalty and increased up-sell and cross-sell opportunities.
Most consumers know that insurance has gone as far as plugging in telematics boxes in cars to reward drivers like Progressive’s platform has saved the insured $945M. Thanks to technology advancements in AI/ML, BI, and data analytics much more can be done.
In the second post of our top 10 series about how to turn insurance data into value in 2022, we are going to focus on the importance of data and personalization.
The examples in the first paragraph of this post have another crucial element to the value that other industries are providing consumers with, and it is positioning companies as trusted partners. Even beyond this is the fact that the personalization fueled by smart data insights enables this trusted counsel to be automatic. Being able to improve trust and increase revenue without adding headcount is a huge win for these vendors.
In the insurance industry, there has been some positive movement by personal auto insurers using pre-fill to reduce the effort required of customers to receive a quote. On the commercial lines front, PIE Insurance is a pioneer in getting a complex Workers Comp application process down to 3-4 pieces of information to receive a quote. However, once a personal lines or commercial lines customer signs up there is still the need to speak with customers to gain one-time insight into their activities to offer counsel on reducing risk or regarding insurance coverage.
What the insurance industry needs to emulate from other industries like entertainment and retail is a drive and passion to be a partner and advisor of consumers during every relevant moment of their life. This does not have to be invasive, but it can be as simple as getting permission from customers to have more access to data related to their daily activities. This is one piece to the puzzle of being able to provide more personalized experiences.
The other piece is ensuring that carriers can quickly and effectively analyze insurance customer data to make near real-time recommendations on how to mitigate risk or purchase additional coverage with the click of a button on an app. This is where insurance-centric BI and analytics can play a huge role in making insurers more smart, flexible, and proactive. The Gatorade sweat patch would have zero appeal if you had to bottle your sweat in a vial, mail it in, and then wait months for Gatorade to send the results back on how an athlete should personalize their hydration with their products. Unfortunately, this is the type of experience the insurance customer is still subject to.
As an industry we are far from where we should be, but there are forward-thinking companies that are beginning to demonstrate this potential in insurance. This Accenture article highlights five innovative insurers treating insurance customers as individuals through relational service providing personalized advice about driving patterns, safety reminders, health tips, and other information.
With quality insurance-centric, near real-time insights, insurers can go well beyond these areas of service to create app-based alerts or proactively schedule a quick video or phone appointment to talk about insurance risk and products. This could be instead of having to wait and hope that the insured is thinking about how to better protect themselves and save money resulting in a visit to their local insurer. Insurance is perhaps the industry where trust is most important between the consumer and the vendor. In an era where there can be unpredictability as to when face-to-face interaction can happen, insurance-centric BI and data analytics can be a vital asset to making virtual interactions more meaningful. As I mentioned this can also help insurance product development teams make new specialized offerings more easily and faster. In 2022, it is time to talk more intelligently to the insured as individuals.
In our next post I will cover how insurance-centric BI and analytics can add value to an insurer’s internal IT team in 2022.