Digital Insurance – The future of insurance carrier
Avakash Dekavadiya
The core transformation investments of many insurance companies stand unrealized to their maximum value, and are eventually leading their operational capabilities into the 21st century. It seems eminent to shift focus on digital strategies to fuel growth in such scenario. The digital strategies envelop everything from communicating with clients to managing social media to search engine optimization.It is vital for insurance companies to have a good intranet and extranet platform to address their pressing business need. The linchpin of insurance company’s digital strategy is the portal that allows to a achieve all the objectives at one go
Intranet portals are hosted on private network and are accessible only to the organization’s staff. It acts as an important focal point for internal communication and collaboration, while providing single window to access all internal resources.
While. extranet Portals reside on public network and allows controlled access to suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other business stakeholders.
Portals make it easier for employees, captive agents, independent agents to access their policyholders’ details from central server with like products, billing history, claims, etc. A good portal also equips its users with easy-to-use interface and dashboard personalization. For example: a user can update their personal details, information about their owned policies, billing transactions, claims, etc. They act as a single-window for simple & quick online policy purchase, easy filing of claims, policy renewals, E-proofs etc.
For Policyholders
- Account Opening: Supports simple and integrated account opening. For instance, to open an account, users need only an ID and password, to simply signup without purchasing a policy
- Online Policy Purchase: Simple & quick online purchase, easy claim settlement, policy renewal, e-proofs.
Personalized User Data: Policyholder can access following information
- Policy details
- Fund price information(including push notifications)
- Account information(investment linked accounts)
- Personal information
- Advisor information
- For Captive Agents
- Helps captive agents measure their performance and maintain their relationships with policyholders.
- Captures policyholders’ interactions and information, leading to improved communication and relationship management
- Enables cross-selling based on the profile and need of policyholder
- For Independent Agents
- Supports agents’ business transactions with carriers and maintaining relationships with policyholders
- Provides the ability to view and manage personalized incentives and compensation reports.
- For Service Center Personnel
- Enables better client service
- Supports account services such as billing plan updates and payment reconciliations
- Supports agent licensing with state insurance departments and facilitates appointment between agents and potential/existing policyholders.
- For Sales
- Product Information including new products
- Target based marketing with personalized offers
- Auto notification of portal activity to the advisor (potential sales events)
- Promotion of annual checkup
- Communication
- Secure email channel to enable most service transactions and provide an easy route for non-urgent communication
- Secure email channel to enable most service transactions and provide an easy route for non-urgent communication
- Integrate with SMS
- Customer surveys
The portal allow role-based access to employees. While it provides secure channel for internal communication, it also allows community based discussion platform for organization and its stakeholders. The tag based search functionality helps in quick search through content making it a centralized knowledge base.
Various technologies can be leveraged to build portals for Life Insurance, Health Insurance, Automobile Insurance, Electronic Gadgets Insurance, property & Casualty Insurance, etc. Leading technologies are listed below:
- Liferay
- IBM WebSphere Portal.
- Oracle WebCenter Portal.
- SAP NetWeaver
Portals have evolved from being functional to collaborative in nature. The transition from basic knowledge bank to self-service hub can’t be overlooked. Organizations have realized the value portals bring to connect their internal and external stakeholders. They are partnering with technology partners to customize and integrate their portals to make it a powerful communication tool.
