Insurers can leverage humanized insurance technology to deliver personalized experiences that support policyholder satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
In a landscape that’s growing increasingly competitive, using the right tools and technologies to exceed policyholder expectations and incorporate the ‘human touch’ can help insurers stand out.
In this article, we’ll cover the importance of curating humanized, customer-centric insurance experiences to complement data-driven insurance solutions. We’ll also take a look at the latest innovations and insurtech solutions that are helping insurers implement this strategy.
Introduction to Humanized Insurance
Humanized insurance refers to a strategic approach by insurers to foster long-term, trusting relationships with policyholders, with the goal of improving retention and reducing churn.
This approach emphasizes personalized experiences, empathetic support, and user convenience while delivering critical insurance products and solutions. In practice, this might look like proactively reaching out to policyholders to provide an update on a submitted claim or acknowledging their policy anniversary with a personalized message or small bonus.
Rather than seeing the relationship as transactional or one-sided, humanized insurance embraces mutual human connection throughout the insurance life cycle. It puts policyholders in the position where they view their insurers as trusted advisors who look out for their best interest and are eager to help them navigate complex situations.
The Role of Technology in Humanizing Insurance
While it’s certainly possible to humanize insurance without the use of advanced technology, it’s not practical to achieve in large volumes. It may seem counterintuitive, but the use of advanced technology can actually help insurers drive more humanized service without taking resources away from core functions.
Take a small insurance office that’s already short-staffed. Writing personalized promotional emails to all policyholders or providing tailored responses to every customer support inquiry is likely not something they can achieve through manual efforts alone.
But emerging tech capabilities like AI and automation make it much easier to deliver tailored, personalized experiences at scale.
The Importance of Human Connection in Insurance
Why might insurers take this humanized approach in the first place? It’s true that much of the insurance industry hinges on technical components like risk management and fraud detection. However, that doesn’t make relationships any less of a key success factor.
At the end of the day, it’s humans who are deciding to renew policies or recommend an insurer to their friends and family, not bots or algorithms. When policyholders feel heard, supported, and understood on a personal level, they’ll develop a sense of loyalty and trust that gives insurers a clear edge over competitors.
Establishing Trust with Human-Centered Insurance Practices
Possibly the biggest advantage to humanized insurance is that it fosters a sense of trust between policyholders and insurers. This trust forms the foundation of policyholder engagement, loyalty, and retention, all of which have a tangible impact on the bottom line.
Trust is earned when policyholders believe that insurers will safeguard their data, offer fair premiums, and deliver empathetic support in times of need. In turn, policyholders feel more compelled to divulge personal information and details. This further enables insurers to deliver personalized services, which improves engagement and satisfaction, thereby creating a positive feedback loop with policyholder needs at the core of the relationship.
Challenges and Considerations When Humanizing Insurance
Despite the numerous benefits to humanizing insurance practices, it’s not necessarily something insurers can adopt overnight. Between tech stack upgrades and employee resistance to change, here are some of the common challenges insurers should be prepared to face during this process:
- Finding the right balance between delivering personalized and empathetic support without letting it negatively impact operational efficiency.
- Delivering emotional intelligence training to insurance professionals in technical or analytical roles.
- Maintaining relationships and frequent touchpoints as the organization scales and the policyholder base grows.
- Choosing the right technology to support personalization at scale without losing the human touch.
- Keeping sensitive policyholder information protected in compliance with data privacy regulations while leveraging it for enhanced personalization.
How Insurers Can Start Implementing Humanized Insurance Today
Adopting a policyholder-centric approach to humanize insurance doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a company-wide commitment to invest in and prioritize long-term relationships with policyholders at each stage of the insurance cycle. These are some of the tools and strategies insurers can use to get started:
Leverage AI
AI-powered virtual agents or chatbots can simulate human conversations with policyholders around the clock, tailoring responses to their specific inquiries. Using AI, policyholders can submit a claim, request policy documents, or receive a quote at any time while receiving the personalized responses that modern consumers expect.
Deliver Personalized Digital Journeys
Implement a personalized insurance policy administration system that leverages advanced data analytics to customize the digital policyholder journey.
More than ever, policyholders are seeking custom-tailored recommendations and solutions and are willing to share personal data and information to receive this service. Thus, insurers need an agile and responsive solution that can analyze real-time policyholder data and derive valuable insights to offer personalized coverage recommendations, tailored premiums, and more.
Offer Multi-Channel Support
Meet policyholders where they are by connecting with them via their preferred channels, with a seamless transition between digital and human support as needed. This helps foster a sense of real personal connection when the details policyholders shared via chatbot are later referenced and understood by human agents.
Of course, there is no direct replacement for human-to-human interaction, and some of the more complex or sensitive cases call for agent support. Even though teams may adopt tech-driven solutions to offer standard support, they may opt to keep human advisors available for such cases.
Delivering Policyholder-Centric Insurance Experiences with Insuresoft
With the right tools, teams can embrace digital transformation in insurance without losing the human element. In fact, delivering a personalized experience becomes even more sustainable at scale with the help of technology like AI-powered chatbots and an agile policy admin system like Insuresoft.
Contact us today to learn how our platform builds trusting relationships between agents and policyholders.
