By Adrian Dzielnicki, CEO of Nsure.com
In the United States, there are close to 6,000 insurance providers with premiums totaling $1.28 trillion (S&P Global Market Intelligence, 2020). With all of that competition, it can be difficult to transparently compare products.
The process of buying personal insurance should be getting easier, however, in many ways, companies offering home and auto insurance policies have been slow to adapt to new technology that could streamline the process.
The insurance industry is still drowning in too much paperwork, while customers are tired of being harassed by pushy salespeople driven by commissions from overpriced premiums.
Fortunately, there are welcome changes on the horizon for people needing auto, home, or bundled insurance policies. Here are a few of the technologies that are driving innovation and disrupting this industry.
The Rise of Big Data
Advances in data management are transforming everything from healthcare to travel. The process of buying insurance benefits from faster access to data as well. When it comes to insurance, the top companies are able to offer quotes from their company quickly and provide customers with customized solutions that fit their needs and budget.
However, consumers shouldn’t have to visit multiple insurer websites to compare quotes. What’s needed is a centralized place to compare up to fifty or more company quotes, so that the buyer can be assured they are truly getting the best coverage deal.
An accurate and easy quote process is dependent on leveraging advanced data management systems, such as data lakes. According to Oracle, a data lake is a place to both store structured or unstructured data and organize large data sets from diverse sources. The advantage of a data lake is that it can accept new data very quickly and organize it on the fly, as it’s being accessed.
For a true digital insurance agency, a data lake can make it possible to prefill hundreds of data points about insureds and properties, quickly compare quotes from all of the top insurance providers at once, or allow consumers to switch to new policies with auto-filled information and a minimum of extra paperwork and processing.
Because data lakes are more cost-effective than older ways of managing data, their use cases and popularity will only continue to increase. More companies are already moving their data to data lakes on the cloud, making it possible to access stored data from anywhere.
Automation Software Could Soon Replace Insurance Salespeople
Does anyone really want to speak to a salesperson when buying insurance? Insurance salespeople are motivated by commissions on premiums, not helping people find the best deals. There are plenty of third-party sites out there offering to help people compare quotes, but most of them are lead generators; they turn around and sell consumer info to the insurance companies, so their salespeople can call, email, and try to close deals.
The process of shopping for policies needs to be streamlined. It could be automated with the use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA). This technology employs bots that interact with humans while connecting to digital systems and software. Of course, it’s recommended to have licensed agents available to answer questions, should a customer want to speak to a real person.
Today’s technology is already advanced to the point where robots can read text on a screen, identify and extract data, autofill information, and deliver relevant results. When these processes are run by intelligent algorithms and not humans with their own interests, it ensures that buyers will not end up over or under-insured and get the best deal possible.
Auto insurance alone accounts for 2.57% of the average household income, or $1,771 annually (Bankrate 2022), so it’s critical that people aren’t paying more than they have to. The entire process of comparing quotes and buying insurance online should only take minutes – not multiple phone calls and filling out several lengthy forms.
Insurance Information: It’s Already in the Cloud
Many online actions today rely on cloud technology. Whether a user is playing an Xbox or shopping from their smartphone, they are often initiating a request on their device and that action is connecting to a cloud server to access the information needed to complete the transaction.
Even today’s cars and home electronics utilize the cloud to update systems, perform automated or user-directed actions and deliver information.
When a digital insurance agency’s customer service experience is cloud-based, it means that customers can review and manage their insurance policies anytime, anywhere simply by logging into their account.
Digital-first platforms shift the power of the insurance buying process from the seller to the consumer. Users are the ones having to be insured, they should also be empowered to modify parts of their homeowner coverage to account for changing life events.
Or, if someone wants to increase their personal property coverage, they should be able to do it simply, without engaging an agent – unless they want to ask an expert a question. Changing an auto coverage policy could be as simple as selecting a new plan from a dropdown menu.
The consolidation of insurance agencies is expected to increase in the next few years, with the companies that leverage technology the best, swallowing up all of the mom-and-pop agencies that still rely on cold calls, email, and filling out long forms.
That’s good news for customers, who have been handicapped too long by an insurance purchase process that takes too long, offers users too little control, and is much more complicated than it should be.
About Adrian Dzielnicki
Dzielnicki is a licensed insurance agent and CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) charter holder. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Nsure.com. Before that, he co-founded Graviton Capital, one of the largest microcap investment banks in Poland.
In less than 10 years, he took over 60 companies public on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, raising over 200 million USD. He received his Masters in Economics from Wroclaw University.
About Nsure.com
Nsure.com is a proprietary online insurance shopping platform that utilizes best-in-class technologies to allow users to compare quotes from 50 of the US top insurers and buy online in minutes.