New Delhi, December 07, 2017: Insurance has always been a “once in a year” buy. While people are increasingly buying insurance for homes, cars, health and life, many of them do not actually understand the product, the cover they are entitled to and the amount they can claim.
Traditionally, insurance has been sold through agents who may not necessarily be well-equipped with a complete knowledge of the product. This leads to a lot of queries from customers which in turn, burden the customer service centre of the insurance company (insurer). The insurer would address this by investing in periodic training of their agents and their customer service representatives. However, it still leaves a lot to be desired for the customer who expects to be delighted every time he wishes to use his insurance policy.
Today, the customer and his access points are changing. The customer, who could traditionally be tapped only physically or through a web interface, can now be reached through a mobile app. A customer may not necessarily retain the mobile app that he doesn’t use frequently but does retain messaging apps on his phone.
“Chatbots” is anArtificial Intelligence based computer program that can interact with customers, just like a human being. These programs can reside on a messaging app and augment the insurer’s proximity to the customer. A chatbot can solve customer’s queries, act as a robo-advisor, offer insurance solutions, and help in enhancing knowledge and awareness on new and existing products.
Let’s look at a few examples:
- Virtual 24/7 customer service: Chatbots are believed to be taking over customer service in a big way and enabling companies across sectors to save around USD28 billion.In insurance too, chatbots such as Allie by Allianz can answer queries from customers 24/7 and can be accessed from the company’s website. Nienke, a Dutch Chatbot, answers all questions about products of Nationale-Nederlandenand provides a list of FAQs based on the area of concern of the customer. Insurers are also using email bots to give automated reply to customers for requests such as copy of policy document, premium receipts, etc.
- AI-based Robo-broker: Sure, aninsuretechstart-up, has achatbot-based AI robo-broker. This chatbot will interact with the customer and offer customized and contextual solutions on-demand. It is a welcome departure towards on-demand insurance as against paying for a 24/7 cover. In India, ICICI Lombard, one of the leading general insurers, is using a chatbot named MyRA to offer two-wheeler, fire and burglary insurance to India’s huge SME (small and medium enterprises) sector.
- Selling Insurance and settling claims : An insurance start-up named “Next Insurance”, based in Israel, has launched a chatbot on Facebook messenger. Small businesses can use Facebook messenger to engage with this chatbot and buy insurance that would perfectly suit their needs. Lemonade, a New-York based digital insurer has created a claims bot named AI Jim, which is reported to have settled a claim in just three seconds.
What else can mobility do?
The population that insurers are serving today is increasingly millennial. They have ubiquitous access to messaging apps and are comfortable using and interacting through messaging apps. It is hence, an apt avenue for contextually targeting these users.
Mobility canhelp insurers to further leverage new-age technologies and create a seamless user experience for its customers.
Safeco insurance, a part of the Liberty Mutual Insurance group, enables users to use their free app to create an inventory of personal belongings and store images, receipts, etc., pertaining to the same. This can be stored on the Cloud for free and retrieved whenever the user needs to make a claim.
Allianz has created an augmented reality feature named “Haunted”, wherein a customer can enter a house with an iPad and see the potential threats that need to be insured.
HTH travel insurance has developed a mobile app named mPassport that enables convenient access to doctors, hospitals, and other resources through a mobile phone when a customer travels anywhere in the world.
AIA Vitalityapp enables insurers to keep track of health and fitness activities of their customer and gives weekly rewards. It is compatible with wearable technologies such as Fitbit.
Chatbots and mobile apps have enabled insurers to administer on-demand insurance models, serve customers better by settling claims seamlessly, and delight the customer by constantly engaging with them and marketing the apt product to them when they need it the most.
What’s Next?
Messaging apps are here to stay and so are chatbots. However, these bots are going to become more intelligent and intuitive. Once they are trained and equipped at Natural Language Processing (NLP), they would further enable insurers to directly interact with customers.
The “home automation” market is set to gain rapid traction with Google Homepod, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri. The day might not be far when all you might have to do is ask your mobile phone to buy a travel insurance while packing your bag for the trip and it would be done in a matter of seconds, without any human intervention.
Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)
