INSURANCE 2.0

Insurance is deemed as a boring industry with very little innovation. Most of it is due to old legacy systems and merging of layers of different systems talking to each other. The industry has second thoughts about change. Times are now changing and few insurance businesses are advocates of innovation in the online space. Some online insurance businesses have started hiring usability experts which is an indication that there is a willingness to bring innovation.

I’m a huge advocate for customer focused design and if insurance businesses start using their customers for product development, they will discover a wealth of ideas that’ll help insurance businesses build next generation online models. Insurance 2.0 is still a fiction because insurance businesses haven’t figured out the area of opportunities where they can introduce customer engagement or two way communication.

I find insurance is one of the toughest financial services product to work with. We spend so much on it yet hope we never use it!

I have a theory about 5 stages where financial services interact with their customers. This is applicable to most financial services and not just insurance.

1. Educating

2. Quoting

3. Buying

4. Servicing

5. Deepen Customer Relationships

Most sites do (2) Quoting and (3) Buying well enough, although usability in quoting is far from perfect. The biggest area of Insurance 2.0 opportunities are around (1) Educating (4) Servicing and (5) Deepen Customer Relationships. Some brands are moving into DIY servicing, online claims, chat, click2call etc. But it’s the opportunity to educate and acquire customers then deepen the relationship & retain customers where I see the opportunities exist to really differentiate. Introduction of web 2.0 technologies like Ajax could be used to improve Quote and Buy stage of the cycle.

Insurance 2.0 will soon be a reality in short-term future.  Some insurance businesses are already innovating towards opening new channels of two way communication with customers.

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