Category: Insurtech

Over the last few years, the insurance industry has been undergoing a digital transformation thanks to the adoption of consumer technology. The proliferation of mobile phones in every customer’s pocket, digital-first applications appearing in many institutional organs like banking and government, and easier online-only services have led customers to no longer tolerate digital-first approaches, but demand them.

It’s a convenience of opportunity for both businesses and customers, and the insurance industry is in the throes of catching up to customers’ digital needs. 

Predictive analysis, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are some of the key ways which have led to a vast digital transformation

This has been an extremely critical move to keep up with the customers’ demands. In the hyper-competitive insurance industry, any business that wants to stay afloat has to constantly think about innovating the customer experience.

Even though customers across industry verticals continue to view the experience offered to be just as important as the product or service sold by a business, there is often a mismatch between what’s expected and what’s delivered.

As a leader in digitalizing the experience and products that insurers deliver, we at CoverGo are here to help you identify what the customers expect and how insurers can take the customer service experience to the next level by adopting a digital-first experience.

What are the customers looking for and how can you improve their experience?

Insurance is no longer merely a financial instrument that people want to buy. Modern-day customers want insurance to be something more than only providing a cushion in times of need — they are looking for a more personalized digital experience to maintain their loyalty. Here’s a look at the key trends that have emerged until now:

Omnichannel customer servicing 

It is no longer enough for insurers to strive to deliver excellent customer service. In fact, simply being online is not even enough. They need to engage and continue engaging customers through their preferred channels of the customers, such as email, messenger apps, chatbots, etc. In industry parlance, this is called omnichannel customer servicing, or simply omni-channel distribution. Delivering such an experience throughout the customer journey seamlessly can make an insurer stand out from its competition. 

A report suggests that over 50% of insurance customers use three or more channels when researching new policies to purchase. Each channel offers unique benefits to them, making omnichannel customer engagement a go-to option. Moreover, after purchasing a new policy, customers prefer omnichannel engagement, such as using the chatbot on the insurer’s website to clarify any queries, using smart wizards to set up new purchases, managing current policies, and more.

For current clients, customer engagement is a passive strategy to keeping those customers by not just engaging them on the channels they prefer, but putting the control of their account in the palm of their hands. Quite literally, mobile apps are a mainstay of human interaction with their day-to-day needs.

While traditionally, the insurance business was centered around selling different products through a network of agents, there is a pressing need for insurers to establish a direct line of communication with clients. That’s why insurers want to develop different channels to interact with them. But a key challenge faced while building newer distribution channels is integrating the channels into the native system of insurers. At CoverGo, our front-end enabler makes it easy to develop flexible and responsive front-end websites without using a single line of code that can be completely integrated into any third-party system.

We’re not saying that the days of the insurance agent are over either. Agents are highly skilled and knowledgable professionals who can translate the wacky world of insurance jargon into easily digestible products and boil down paperwork to something less intimidating to clients.

The nature of insurance agents in a world of digital-first experiences can be bridged by simply allowing for a medium where agents can engage clients through those very same channels they prefer. It just might so happen that the nature of their work might be less head-hunting and meeting clients with paperwork, and change into something of a hybrid between being an agent and also helping with current client engagement, almost like a point of first contact for anything just shy of customer support.

Having access to lifestyle apps 

To find out the appropriate health insurance product a customer should get, they need to get a series of medical check-ups done. This involves a visit to medical professionals. Often, it deters the customer from getting the right insurance product, especially if something should come up unexpectedly, and thusly impact their ability to get insurance products beneficial to them.

Lifestyle apps can make a huge impact in this segment. These apps can track a range of health and fitness metrics of customers, making it easier for insurers to offer customized policies. After all, clinical data such as heart rate, weight, height, blood pressure, etc., do not present a comprehensive picture of one’s health in the absence of finer details of lifestyle. Such apps make it convenient for customers to find the right product based on their unique risk factors and also help insurers to underwrite the risk by weighing in the distinct lifestyle factors for each policyholder. 

On CoverGo, you can create and configure new insurance products on our Product Builder platform without any code. These products can be fully integrated into your system. The key here is an insurer can quickly adjust products to match client profiles that thanks to lifestyle app datasets, show there are more varied and niche risk factors among many different lifestyles.

Better risk management services 

Risk management in insurance involves assessing and quantifying the loss that the insurer needs to settle. Digitizing risk management benefits both customers and insurers. For customers, it improves the quality of the overall service once a claim is raised. For instance, if customers have access to a mobile app that monitors the location of the insured item, necessary data related to the loss can be shared directly with the insurance company at the time of raising the claim. For insurers, digitized risk management promotes efficiency in managing risks and identifying unknown ones. 

What are the key challenges to delivering superior customer experience?

The massive amount of data makes the insurance customer lifecycle complicated. One of the crucial challenges faced by insurers is delivering the right product based on the needs of their customers. An easy fix is to identify who is the target audience, develop a buyer’s persona, identify their specific needs, and then place the product as a solution. Adopting a targeted sales approach based on how likely the customer is to purchase a new product and whether the product eases the customer’s current concerns can make the purchase process more efficient. 

Secondly, how customers look at insurance has changed massively. It is no longer about filling out a form and paying premiums yearly. Customers want to have access to policies and insurance resources 24/7 in a manner they can easily comprehend. Here’s where apps and websites become extremely important. 

There is a greater need for insurers to develop self-service portals that takes care of common concerns such as signing up for a new policy, renewing a policy, raising and settling a claim, reviving lapsed policies, etc., without any external help. Simplifying the process can go a long way in improving customer experience and making insurance more enjoyable. 

Not providing personalized insurance offerings can impede customer experience by bridging down both customer acquisition and retention. Being where your customers are and developing omnichannel customer support tools can help offer a more personalized and consistent experience. 

Lastly, a lack of transparency in the claims process can be a deal-breaker for customers. Customers feel more empowered to raise claims when they are armed with relevant information. CoverGo offers an easy-to-implement policy admin system that allows insurers to manage the entire customer journey, including the claims process, from a single portal. Not only is it modern and efficient, but it also helps insurers save time by automating critical processes. Moreover, it can also prevent unnecessary delays in raising and settling claims, leading to a better customer experience.

Is your company on the right path when it comes to customer experience?

If insurers are keen to move beyond a transactional relationship with their customers, emphasizing improving customer experience has to be the starting point. And adopting artificial intelligence throughout the lifecycle of a customer’s journey can go a long way in enhancing customer satisfaction. When customers feel known, served with the appropriate policy offers, raise claims seamlessly and receive payouts, instant policy refunds, or claim payouts, they are likely to have a better experience. 

Set up a demo with CoverGo to understand how we can help you step up your insurance business to design products and services centered around excellent customer experience. And without using any code.

Technological advancements have undoubtedly been a boon for insurance companies across the globe, thanks to easy access to state-of-art software for carrying out business. Yet, over-reliance on technology can sometimes reduce agility due to massive backlogs — when you have limited digital assets and endless requests flowing in, delays are inevitable. An easy way to cut down the heavy lifting necessary for developing unique insurance software is by adopting no-code software.

Here’s everything you need to know about no-code insurance software and what it means for the insurance industry at large:

What is no-code insurance software?

In simple terms, no-code software refers to any software that doesn’t rely on complicated coding for its development. Developers and non-developers can develop apps through simple drag-and-drop, even when not armed with specialized programming or software knowledge. In other words, the tool is specifically targeted toward non-professional developers — there is a code running the platform, but knowledge of coding is not essential for using it and creating apps.

No-code software architecture can be useful for several industries across the board. But in the case of insurance companies, it becomes even more important as business leaders are focused on finding out ways to create critical insurance products using minimal resources and in a cost-effective manner.

Given that the insurance industry is already branched out into various lines of business with its own processes, the need for having something customizable without much heavy lifting on the development side is urgent. While insurers want to move to a digital space, they are also risk-averse and don’t want to commit to anything that requires a substantial amount of money and time.

The rapid development of digital insurance, be it for raising claims, monitoring compliance, or underwriting, is only possible when no-code platforms are available that eliminate the need for understanding the technology behind the development.

The concept of no-code, however, is not brand new. It has been around for a few decades now. In Application Development Without Programmers, published in 1982, author James Martin spoke about a world where computers could exist without any programmers. The early 2000s witnessed further popularization of no-code technology with WordPress allowing users to create professional websites without any coding. Over time, newer digital products, such as email marketing and data analytics, established no-code as a near default option and sparked its popularity within the tech community.

Also important to note is the difference between no-code and low-code software, which is another popular product in the market. Low-code software is typically marketed to professional developers who lack coding expertise. As the name suggests, using low-code software might require the application of some coding skills.

Agility and Innovation is Pushing No-Code

For the longest time, the insurance sector has been quite slow to adapt to newer software. Customers in recent years however, have begun demanding a more digital approach thanks to the proliferation of smart mobile phones, the internet of things, and events like Covid-19 that put the squeeze on in-person meetings.

While digital demands sit waiting to be conquered, it’s also true that innovation isn’t completely lacking in the insurance industry. There are now wider, more customized, and varied types of insurance coverages that have been launched and innovated on at the core of most insurers. It’s simply because of a gap in customer-insurer experience caused by a lack of digital fluency.

So, insurers are busy innovating on their own products, but are struggling to launch those products fast enough to meet market demand.

IT teams get busy working on singular products, now there’s a backlog, and the capability to even invest in new software seems like a pipe-dream.

This is where no-code comes into play.

If an insurer can achieve the agility and innovate on their ability to launch, deliver, and manage their products, all without stuffing their IT team’s backlog, then clearly this means a second-wind for a lot of insurers is on the horizon.

Key benefits of adopting no code insurance software

Prior to the advent of no-code software, launching a new insurance product for insurers meant spending a sizeable amount of time. The lifecycle would consist of several stages, with the product manager initiating the request, followed by the business team identifying the gaps in the market and working on a business plan, and actuaries working on risk models. This would be followed by specialists working on underwriting and claims processes.

These cross-functional processes result in operational inefficiencies and make it challenging for insurers to truly address the needs of the customers and receive sustained engagement. No-code platforms like CoverGo make it possible for insurance companies to build and launch new products faster, regardless of the complexity. This helps them save both money and time. It also makes them more agile and allows for automation. As a consequence, businesses can scale their products at a faster pace since processes, products, or third-party system integration can be created without any formal coding knowledge.

The endless wait for product cycles for releasing simple applications can reduce productivity and also hamper the bottom line. Providing access to product innovation to those who directly deal with the customers can result in the swift development of better products that address the pain points. Moreover, digital insurers want to work on a platform that helps them to automate complex workflows, integrates easily with their existing systems, and allows them to build an omnichannel distribution front end, and no-code software is the perfect solution to meet all these needs.

Challenges with using no code insurance software

As is the case with any new technology, adopting no-code software requires a cultural change within insurance organizations. Insurers need to invest in learning and training to increase familiarity with such technology and come out of silos.

It is also important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and business leaders should be open to the idea of experimenting with different platforms before they find the right one suited to their needs. Commercial standard insurance software has been in the market only for a few years. As a result, there are several off-the-shelf solutions to choose from.

Usually, the inability to add new features on account of integration issues and the availability of limited templates for creating apps hold back insurers. To reap the benefits of becoming truly digital, insurers need to opt for one that provides them a competitive advantage.

This is where CoverGo can make a difference. Our innovative no-code insurance platform is built to offer maximum flexibility. We are truly no-code and allow you to streamline all your processes, create a variety of products along with complete end-to-end integration, and build responsive front-end websites or client/agent portals without absolutely zero code.

Our platform is built keeping in mind the most novice developer with zero tech experience. Whether your product is a simple or a complex one, CoverGo supports it all. So get in touch today to schedule a demo.

Technology has irreversibly changed how the world functions as reduced human intervention and increased digitization are the new norms. Any business serious about making a mark in this hyper-competitive market must embrace it to keep up with consumer expectations.

The insurance industry is no exception to the above. In fact, despite being heavily reliant on manual processes, going digital can help insurers become more swift, efficient, and accessible to their customers.

Here’s everything you need to know about digitally transforming your insurance company.

What is Insurance Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation of any business refers to the adoption of technology for creating new processes or modifying existing ones to cater to changing customer needs and expectations.

In the context of the insurance sector, digital transformation includes adopting digital strategies for managing various aspects of the insurance business for a more swift turnaround and better customer service.

It enables insurers to rely on the Internet of Things, big data, cloud-based services, predictive analytics, and even AI to handle a major chunk of the work — from preparing quotes for policies and receiving payments to processing claims.

Why is digital transformation important for insurance companies?

Digitizing the critical components of an insurance business that generate maximum value, such as product building, customer service, payments, claims, and the sales and distribution of various insurance products, all come together to benefit insurers in various ways.

Some of the key advantages include:

Increasing efficiency

The key advantage of leveraging digital technology is speeding up operations, and one of those operations that oftentimes brings efficiency to a screeching halt is product building.

For insurance companies to thrive in the market and meet client needs quickly, the speed it takes to get to market is key for insurers who want to stay ahead of the pack. Without proper digitization in place, in a world where customers are demanding more digitization in their experience, no insurance company can truly hope to grow in this day and age.

Digitizing the experience and using tools like CoverGo’s no-code product builder can often flip the script for insurers and turn product building from a 6-month endeavor into a 6-hour crunch. The rate at which an insurance company can build products and then launch them to the market is one of the biggest deciding factors for becoming an insurance market leader today.

And once a product is finally out in the wild, then comes the efficiency question for handling claims, policy admin, agency management, and other background processes that insurers need to handle perpetually. Digital transformations help to automate or streamline processes so that they’re painless to handle.

For instance, instead of having a claims handler manually enter data online into the insurer’s system, an insurance company can set up automated processes to feed the data instantly. This not only improves the accuracy of claims but also results in higher customer satisfaction by minimizing touchpoints for claim management.

Similarly, insurance companies can harness digital technology to cut down on unnecessary paperwork and get their customers to complete all aspects of policy management remotely using digital tools.

Additionally, digital transformation can enable insurers to configure, price, and underwrite various insurance products at a quicker pace. Using predictive analytics, an insurer can find out whether certain vehicles are more likely to meet with an accident during specific weather conditions and decide the premium of the vehicle insurance policy accordingly.

Delivering personalized services

Digital transformation helps insurers deliver a seamless personalized experience to all the stakeholders by automating various aspects of policy administration and claims management. This means no more unnecessary delays for customers who may be left wondering if their claims process has been started.

Hassle-free processes and ease of access can boost customer satisfaction, resulting in higher revenues.

Enhancing innovation and agility 

Insurance companies can use evergreen digital transformation tools to future-proof their business and become empowered to look for more advanced solutions for their customers in the time to come.

Having said that, insurers are also free to undertake digital transformation at their own pace. They can choose one line of business and implement new technology to examine what it is really capable of achieving.

Supporting omni-channel distribution

Insurance companies are facing new challenges due to the growing number of channels through which customers interact with them. The rise of mobile apps has led to a shift from desktop to mobile devices, from agents over the phone to chat messaging, etc. In addition, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have become important touchpoints for consumers as well. These changes have created new opportunities for insurers to reach their target audiences.

Modern-day customers prefer researching and making purchase decisions about insurance products via omni-channel applications. Digital transformation allows insurance companies to create white-label omni-channel applications to engage customers online and offline with limited human interaction. This can be client portals, microsites for instant quotes, comparison, e-application, online claims handling, and more.

The trick is, how does an insurer tackle these changing consumer needs on so many channels? Quite typically, this comes down to digital distribution being handled by software like CoverGo that is tailor-made to combine all these channels and make it so products and policies can be delivered seamlessly, open new channels for insurance companies, and drive clients through digital onboarding that works.

Enabling Digital Embedded Insurance

Say you go to buy a car. The sale is made and the inevitable question of insurance comes up. This is the principle of embedded insurance, the offering of insurance coverage at the exact time the sale of a product that concerns the customer comes to fruition, and when it matters the most.

Digital embedded insurance is the same principle applied to digital channels. Have you ever booked a flight and at the checkout screen before you pay for your flight, you’re offered an option to add on Travel Insurance?

Insurers are often looking for options to digitally deploy embedded insurance, with the key component being that products are delivered personalized, and scalably. These days, enabling digital embedded insurance comes from the act of using software to deliver products to customers online where it makes sense.

Offers for insurance coverage online need to be seamlessly deployed to hundreds or even thousands of instances of purchases and deal-making online, whether it’s embedded in a check-out page of an e-commerce giant, an airline’s booking system, and more. Only a true digital transformation can both personalize this experience and deliver it at scale for every customer use case.

Engaging in Affinity Partnerships

Affinity Partnerships are the backbone of embedded insurance.

Enabling embedded insurance is one thing, but if you lack the networks to deploy your embedded products on, it’s not going to get your business very far. Affinity partnerships are not a new thing in the insurance world, but the rise of digital-first purchases has made it so that affinity partners will often demand that insurers keep up.

Imagine you hit the jackpot and you become the sole travel insurance provider for a huge flagship airline. If you were transformed into a digital-oriented insurance provider, this would be a cakewalk, embedding your coverage into their traveler’s booking experience, increasing everyone’s value.

But if you skimped on digital leg-day, you’ll be found wanting in the eyes of potentially fantastic affinity partners, and even your less preferable competitors will scoop up the opportunity simply because they can digitally deploy quickly, and you couldn’t.

In the end, your affinity partnership success depends on whether or not your company can meet its customer’s demand for digital-first experiences.

What’s the process of digitally transforming your insurance company?

Digital transformation can’t just happen overnight. But it doesn’t have to take long either.

Depending on the systems and how legacy they are in current insurance systems, quick wins are still possible in a matter of hours or as much as a few days. One thing is certain though, and that is it’s entirely realistic to transform from a traditional insurance company into a digital one in a short amount of time.

Some insurers are scared to dive into digital transformation, thinking it would take too long to upgrade their customer-facing processes, and oftentimes focusing on the internal processes for digitalization. While internal processes do stand to benefit from a digital upgrade, none of these improvements can truly be felt by their customers, and this is where the biggest impact of digital transformation lies.

Digitizing is a 360 degree transformation, impacting primarily the processes that concern customers and their experience. With software platforms out there like CoverGo, insurers are achieving quick wins by using out-of-the-box, no-code methods of transforming their business processes both internally and client-facing.

A super-rough roadmap for the digital transformation of an insurance company consists of the following stages:

Stage 1: Automating existing processes

Automating current processes is key to starting the insurance digital transformation journey. Without automation, it is nearly impossible to anticipate various customer demands, reduce waiting times, and deliver a personalized experience.

Here are some aspects of an insurance business that can benefit from automation:

• Billing and communication
• Underwriting
• Policy management and administration
• Answering customer queries in real-time
• Fraud detection
• Marketing new insurance products

Stage 2: Optimizing key business elements 

After automating specific processes, an insurance company should identify the key elements of its business that differentiates it from the rest and optimize them through digital technologies.

For example, some insurance companies may adopt digital transformation to create newer products to serve specific needs in the market. Others may employ digital transformation to deliver their offering faster than their competition or simply become a company providing seamless customer service.

Stage 3: Undertaking complete digital transformation

The ultimate stage is opting for an end-to-end digital transformation of the insurance business by keeping the customer’s expectations at the front and center of every decision-making.

For true digital transformation, insurers need to understand the changing dynamics between various market participants and facilitate real-time communication between their various internal and external business units.

Are you ready to transform your insurance business digitally?

Undoubtedly, the wins from digitally transforming your insurance company can be huge. It can help reduce unnecessary costs across the insurance value chain and boost the customer’s lifetime value.

But before diving straight into it, here’s what you need to ask:

• What business goals do you want to achieve?
• What is the business’s KPI for the next 1,3,5 years?

• Have you identified what the customers want?
• Are your employees prepared for the digital shift?
• Do you need to hire someone for digital transformation or do you plan to do it in-house?
• Do you have adequate resources?

It’s only after assessing your business goals and KPIs can you truly move forward with a digital transformation. It’s only once you identify your goals that you can start to also identify your must-haves in your organization, systems, and processes.

Ancillary items like resources, support, etc, can all be solved after the fact. Worrying about the how long before the why will often distract insurers from realizing that digital transformation was always about getting them to reach their business goals, and not their technical goals.

It’s key to focus on the goals that bring your business to a higher level, and that’s where platforms like CoverGo often deliver quick wins to mission-focused insurers.

So how do you know if you’re ready for digital transformation?

Contact one of our experts at CoverGo and we’ll help you find out.

Digital transformation is the future 

Insurance companies have immense pressure to keep up with the ever-changing customer demands and innovations in the industry. Given the low-entry barriers, the possibility of newer players coming in and offering products at a faster pace and cheaper rate cannot ever be ruled out. To stay relevant and ahead of the competition, companies need to adapt to the changing digital era and have a long-term plan for technological innovation.

At CoverGo, we offer cutting-edge technology to insurance companies to help them serve their customers better. CoverGo is a pioneer in the insurance industry that provides a fully configurable, modular, enterprise-grade, no-code SaaS insurance platform, supporting omni-channel distribution, policy admin, and claims. Get in touch right away to schedule a demo.