Digitalization has been streamlining and personalizing the customer experience in all industries. Life insurance companies continue to trail behind, making customer experience development a priority for carriers.
Unfortunately, as pictured in the poll results above, 50% of executives cite legacy technology systems as their number one client engagement challenge, a result catalyzed by the accelerated modernization of technology in response to challenges presented by the pandemic.
From access to on-demand services to demand for a personalized user experience, life insurance companies worldwide are prioritizing digitalization and access to real-time data
Challenges in enhancing customer experience
Legacy technology systems are preventing insurers from creating a streamlined process and delivering personalized solutions and services to insurance consumers. That means that most current customer experience is hampered by significant bottlenecks, in everything from the timeliness of the underwriting and approval process to the inability to access client data or even track the current status of policy applications.
As Raj Ramani, America's Customer and Growth leader at EY said,
The lack of modernization in technology also inhibits access to valuable data that can be leveraged to create process improvements and a positive customer experience. Important insights are being lost in spreadsheets and within segregated applications. A lack of integration between solutions results in inefficient tracking and analysis – meaning valuable customer information that could inspire significant strategy improvements is not being captured or tracked.
How are carriers planning to tackle these challenges?
In order to remain relevant to the current policyholders, as well as to adapt to the preferences and expectations of future buyers, insurers need to make the investments in their tech stack and adapt their business model. Kartik Sakthivel, CIO of LIMRA/LOMA explains,
Technological improvements must be made in support of a better customer engagement strategy. To do so, considerable enhancements must be made to the entire CX, from the user interface and ergonomics to real-time and straight-through processing capabilities. Additionally, companies will need to leverage their data to create a personalized customer journey and gain insight into their customer base.
Carrier priorities for the upcoming year
Customers have increased expectations for how they engage their life insurer and that won’t change. The industry must adapt to meet these expectations in order to engage current and future policyholders, and create a profitable customer engagement strategy. In order to do so, carriers need to evaluate their current process for innovation, modernize their legacy tech stack, and leverage data to make customer-centric improvements.
Watch this webcast to learn more about how top insurance execs are looking to tackle these challenges and create a streamlined customer journey.
