Insurance
Is Hyper-Personalization in Insurance a Modern Must-Have?
Providing personalised experiences for customers has become necessary for businesses across industries. In the digital economy, customers have high expectations, and becoming a customer-centric business is not an option, but a necessity. The insurance industry is a highly competitive space. Given the similarity in rates and coverage, insurance is commoditised. Insurers need to distinguish themselves, and customer service is one of the areas where they have the opportunity to create a niche for themselves.
Becoming customer-centric requires insurers to understand unique customer needs and expectations. This includes anticipating customer needs, pre-emptively suggesting products and services, and guiding the customer. With ready and easy access to tailored products and services, insurers can offer hyper-personalised services that are unique for each customer. While insurance policies and pricing standards are typically tailored to customer needs, hyper-personalisation in insurance requires insurers to leverage business intelligence extracted from customer data to make data-driven decisions and offer personalised solutions that increase engagement right through the customer journey. With insurance turning from a financial product to a customer-centred wellness product, and the global transformation of the healthcare and insurance industry, insurers can scarcely ignore the need for hyper-personalisation.
The importance of hyper-personalisation in the insurance industry
Hyper-personalisation allows insurers to enhance customer experiences. Technology has changed the way business is done. By leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and data analytics, insurance companies can determine and predict customer preferences and requirements. Customer segmentation can be done in real time, and proactive support can be offered both to assist the customer and drive deeper engagement. Relevant recommendations drive customer satisfaction and build trust. By anticipating the future needs of the customer, insurers have the opportunity to build customer loyalty and create brand advocates.
Besides customer-centricity, hyper-personalisation in insurance offers several other business benefits that lead to increased revenue growth and streamlined operations. Analysing data of individual customers helps raise any potential red flags by identifying possible fraudulent behaviour and understanding risk profiles. This helps mitigate risks, while also offering genuine customers competitive pricing based on their risk profile. When customers receive products and services they actually need, it reduces the risk of cancellation. As a result, insurers can see a boost in customer retention and also significantly cut down on ad spends.
Implementing hyper-personalisation in insurance
Hyper-personalisation in insurance goes beyond marketing emails and offers. By providing a highly customised and tailored customer journey across all departments—marketing, sales, services, underwriting and claims, insurers can ensure that customers have the best possible experience based on their unique circumstances. Empathy is a must while interacting with customers, and having the right data to refer to can greatly help while responding to calls for help.
Hyper-personalisation requires the customer to be at the focus. Insurance companies need to revisit processes so that every aspect of the business is driven by customer needs. Products and services need to be integrated to provide a seamless customer experience.
Insurers need to build their data assets and a data pipeline. With access to first-party data, such as customer relationship management (CRM) data, claims and fraud, web and marketing data and customer account data, insurers can quickly build accurate customer profiles that are used during hyper-personalisation. The key is to have a master data repository that will allow the unique identification of customers across the enterprise. With data privacy concerns and the ever-changing nature of customer data, insurers will be required to invest in a robust data management platform, as well as establish processes to allow for seamless collection and updation of data across several applications.
Embracing technology will be a game changer for insurance companies. With AI/ML-based applications, insurers can offer virtual chat assistants that can help with generic queries. A personalised recommendation engine can highlight products that may be of interest to the customer. Real-time analytics platforms can garner deeper insights and highlight any possible risks. Insurers can also partner with healthcare providers and health-tech firms to collaborate for data and insights. For instance, partnering with a wearable technology firm can help the insurer gain insight into consumer habits and related health data, giving them the ability to offer flexible plans. Healthcare providers have patient data that can be a gold mine for insurers. Historical medical data can help predict the likelihood of chronic illnesses, and insurers can modify premiums accordingly.
While a customer-centric, hyper-personalised approach is key to sustained success, insurance companies must also tread carefully. Transparent data privacy and security policies and obtaining customer consent are crucial, as is the ethical use of customer data. Partnering with a robust technology platform can reduce the scale of complexity of hyper-personalisation, and help insurers thrive in a competitive landscape.
How Infosys BPM can help
Infosys BPM has a robust insurance practice that offers innovative insurance outsourcing services that drive digital transformation for insurers. With our hyper-personalisation services for insurance, we help insurers exceed both market demands and customer expectations.
