Insurance Industry Trends Triggering Huge Growth

Be innovative – or risk being obliterated.

This is the message being heard loud and clear by leaders in the insurance industry. Traditionally averse to change, the industry is experiencing a massive shift in how firms operate and serve their customers. Legacy business models are being wiped out, while companies introducing the most streamlined systems – focused on making life much easier for their customers – are the ones thriving.

The momentum for change in the insurance sector has been heavily influenced by the rise in technology. But, in our experience, it’s not enough to merely transition to a digital process operationally.

What’s most important is switching to a digital process that enhances the “customer’s experience” from the very moment they interact with your company all the way through the claims process. 

When done properly, the results can be incredible. Just ask our insurance client LCI (Louisiana Construction and Industry Workers Comp), who’s experienced a 100% increase in revenue as we’ve helped modernize the company’s operations and customer offerings.

In this post, we’ll outline some steps taken by LCI and other insurance companies we’ve worked with to transform their businesses, offering their customers the highest quality experiences across all channels.

Steps for Insurers to Improve Customer Experiences

The industry leaders of today are rethinking their operating models and are moving quickly with hyper-targeted approaches as their customer demographics change. At the top of their list is putting systems in place to streamline customer acquisition and claims processing, as well as improving the overall customer experience through the following approaches:

1. Advanced Tech 

• Using digital technology to gain an edge over rivals by becoming more effective and efficient. This lowers costs and the savings can be passed on to customers.
• One of the most crucial things for an insurance company to do to attract and retain customers is to collect and analyze data. According to Freshdeck, 58% of brands noticed a significant improvement in customer retention after implementing advanced data tracking technology.

2. Customized Products 

• Revival of product offerings creates opportunities to serve under-served markets, expand offerings, and cultivate deeper relationships with customers. This has helped insurers create a new source of revenue through a digital insurance process.

3. Forward-looking Structuring

• The world will continue to change, so having a modernized in-house system that streamlines daily processes and allows you to be proactive as problems arise is critical.

4. Thoughtful Support 

• Introducing a system that uses technology to better serve customers, mitigate their risk, and provide support to enhance the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of the customer.

The Customer Experience Trends We’re Witnessing

Here at LookFar Labs, we’ve been fortunate to work with a variety of companies in the insurance sector and fully understand their practices. The companies that have successfully transformed and adjusted their roles to meet the needs of the modern customer all share the following positive attributes:

• Accessible and appealing
  Insurance products are complicated and complex, and most of the time will not provide the instant gratification seen in many other industries. Those who offered their potential customers a positive buyer experience closed more deals in less time.
• Unique offerings
  As companies like Amazon raise the bar in terms of customer expectations, the majority of consumers now expect both 24/7 service and the ability to activate and deactivate, as needed, in real time. We’ve seen that insurance companies that prioritize this when modernizing their products and business models have achieved great results.
• Lifestyle apps
  Application programming interfaces will influence better decision making through the ability to access more data on customers, while also offering them a more enriching and tailored experience.
• Effective risk management
  According to Castsoftware, insurers are among the least secure when compared to other businesses in the financial services sector. Partly because of the complexities of the US state-based regulatory system, there can be a challenge to make deadlines with legacy systems while maintaining good customer services.
• Modernized claim submission
  Allow customers to submit supporting documents of claims, without any sort of human intervention, through the use of artificial intelligence. According to a joint survey done by Celent and PropertyCasulty360, a touchless claims process is one of the most powerful ways to materially improve the claims organization.
• In addition, the insurers implementing a UX-centric business model through the use of modern technology have experienced lower losses. This is due to the increased accuracy of claims handling as a result of the use of automation. Further, they never doubted the benefits they’d receive from product, organizational, and process changes.
• When an insurer compartmentalizes the modernization of their technology as an IT project, rather than a business transformation, they tend to get poor results or struggle getting through it. This can lead to building outdated processes into a new system (often leading to higher cost) and missed opportunities to have their systems meet customer demands. The most successful insurers have followed an integrated transformation approach that combines a holistic review of their business with customer experience at the forefront. Also, they try to keep things simple, resulting in a more efficient and effective approach.

How We Helped One Company Achieve Huge Growth

LCI is a group self-insurance fund that has been in operation for over 30 years and provides workers’ comp coverage to 4,000 small and medium-sized businesses across Louisiana.

The organization came to us almost 15 years ago to help them improve one product, which then evolved into a long-term partnership around digital transformation. Now, we’ve built a web-based suite of integrated products to manage the entire business. Over the years, the system has integrated with all of their vendors’ custom software, resulting in the ability to provide a variety of medical billing support services to their insureds in an organized and efficient manner.

About 5 years ago, we spearheaded a migration of their legacy systems from on-premise to cloud, introducing new portals to serve their various departments and user types. This allowed LCI to collect a higher volume of information for future risk assessment, improve response and transaction time, and build out top notch user experiences. It’s been an evolving process, as they need to cater to a number of non-tech savvy clients. Finally, we’ve advised LCI leadership throughout the security compliance process for the Louisiana Department of Insurance.

Stay Steady and Stagnate, Or Evolve and Grow?

From our experience, an insurance company that is committed to providing high-quality customer service through the use of advanced technology will continue to grow and solidify their position as a successful organization in the insurance industry.

We want to be on the growth journey with you. Get in touch today and let’s make things happen.