5 Ways Mobile is Transforming Insurance

Mobile devices aren’t just useful tools. They’ve become a way of life. Smartphones and tablets have transformed so many daily processes – from shopping, to sharing, to managing tasks – that they’ve wholly redefined the way people navigate their lifestyles.

The mobile revolution has born an impact on just about every industry out there, insurance no less than any other – a conclusion supported by a report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit which conducted two surveys last year on how mobile is transforming insurance.

One of the surveys polled 113 insurance executives, 62 percent of whom acknowledge that mobile has capabilities other channels can’t provide – “capabilities with the potential to change the game.” The other survey focused on customers, including 1,827 respondents across five regions and 48 countries. Here’s what they found.

1. Mobile lets insurers reach customers in new ways. Historically, there haven’t been many touch-points between insurers and insureds. Traditional advertising, word of mouth and web presence just about summed it up. Mobile opens the door to value-added services, updates and reminders that expand the conversation and deliver a new array of benefits.

2. Mobile introduces convenience to the conversation. Sixty percent of customer respondents said that mobile lets them communicate with their insurer any time they want. Forty-one percent said it lets them do so without waiting. Thirty-seven percent said it saves them a trip. In short, mobile offers anytime, anywhere interactions, and customers who use mobile devices have come to expect that.

3. Mobile can increase the frequency of communication. How often do most people contact their insurer? Communication typically takes place once a year or less, when the insured needs to buy a policy, pay a bill or file a claim. Mobile devices can offer behavioral feedback and other value-added services based on data collected through telemetry and location-based sensors, bringing the dialogue from once a year or less to once a day or more – strengthening customer retention with more frequent touch-points.

4. Mobile equips insurers to provide new and better services. Aggregated customer data can empower customers to identify their own risks, assess those risks and seek out individualized protection. It can also allow insurers to present custom offerings while demonstrating greater efficiency and responsiveness.

5. Mobile helps insurers improve on their game internally. By collecting and aggregating data that correlates with risk, mobile equips insurers to improve risk assessment, streamline policy admin and lower claims volume.

With capabilities like this, it’s not surprising that mobile has evolved into a channel that insurers can no longer afford to ignore. “More than half … of insurance executives surveyed by the EIU acknowledge that customers learn and buy in many ways – from web and mobile to word-of-mouth and traditional advertising – and that every one of these channels must be supported,” said the Economist.

Bottom line, mobile introduces a new intimacy to the customer relationship, establishing insurers as trusted partners who can help their customers get a better understanding of their own risk profiles – not only streamlining insurance processes, but giving insureds a more expansive vantage point to assess their situations.

Ask me how Silvervine Software can equip your organization to succeed in a mobile world.