The Insurance Claims Satisfaction Divide:
How to Digitize and Delight
Your claimants might not be as happy as you assume. J.D. Power’s 2022 U.S. Property Claims Satisfaction Study found that claim satisfaction dropped to a five-year low. For insurers who think they’ve been doing a great job improving the customer experience in recent years, this could come as an unpleasant surprise. Clearly, insurers need to try some new tactics.
What Went Wrong?
It’s important to note that insurers have succeeded in increasing their digitization. Insurers have been investing in tech, and the pandemic gave these plans a boost. There’s been real progress in recent years.
The problem lies in the implementation. J.D. Power says that claimants were frustrated with overly complicated claims processes – particularly when they submitted photos online but then still had to schedule in-person visits. They were also unhappy with longer claims cycle times.
Getting Back on Track
The recent drop in satisfaction is a bump in the road, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the insurance industry is on the wrong path.
Insurers have been investing in digital transformation. In the long run, this should lead to benefits for both the insurance customer and the insurance company. McKinsey & Company says that P&C insurers that invest in claims tech can improve their profit margins by 25% to 40%, and KPMG says that digital leaders perform at least twice as well in operational efficiency and customer service.
To move forward, insurance leaders just need to make a few adjustments.
- Consider the claims process from the policyholder’s point of view. You might think that adding the ability to upload photos is a good thing, but will the insured agree? If you make them schedule an in-person appointment even though they’ve already submitted photos, they may find the time savings as moot.. After all, they had to spend time taking the photos and figuring how to upload them to your system – and for what?
- Explain the process Digital tools that let insurance customers track their claim are great, but if policyholders don’t understand what’s going on, a digital tracking tool might not be enough. Clear explanations can help put policyholders at ease and establish reasonable expectations.
- Keep up with rising expectations. As technology has improved, expectations have grown. Policyholders measure your performance against all other experiences in their lives – from entertainment streaming to Uber Eats. The world keeps moving forward, so you have to keep moving with it – or risk getting left behind.
- Resolve claims fast. The claims process is changing, but at least one thing has stayed the same. Speed matters. Your claimants don’t want to be claimants. They want their claims to be resolved so they can get back to their lives. The faster you make that happen, the happier they’ll be. Digital claims payments and other tools can help with this, but only if they’re leveraged well.
The drop in claims satisfaction shows that insurers need to continue to up their game. The Evergreen Policy Administration System can help you do that. Learn more.