Has the Insurance Industry Fully Embraced Chatbots?
August 16, 2017
Gartner estimates that in 3 years 85% of companies will be using automation and AI as a part of their business strategy, meaning that those who don’t have a plan in place now, will assuredly be left behind in the wake of our fast-paced technological landscape. So how does the Insurance industry shape up in light of this statistic?
One study suggests the insurance industry may be falling behind. The Future of Insurance, a 2016 survey of Insurance Professionals, found that 1 in 3 professionals felt that “tech capabilities and legacy systems” were the parts of their business slowing them down the most. The report highlighted that out of date technology is the biggest barrier to change for insurance, and that insurance professionals feel that digital channels would have the biggest impact on insurance going forward, with 23% of respondents listing digital channels as the top impact on their business along with Wearables and Big Data and Analytics.
Thankfully, many insurance organizations have begun their descent into the chatbot world and have worked towards updating their legacy systems. Insurance companies are currently using automated text messaging for use cases ranging from incident management, to sales enablement, to billing, and to resolution confirmation.
Perhaps the most transformative use of chatbots in the insurance world is in claims processing. Often a long, tedious process, chatbots can simplify and automate the interaction between the customer and the insurance company. Insurance Innovation Reporter, in their article on how chatbots have disrupted the insurance industry, describes parts of the claims process that can be automated.
For those companies that have taken steps to update their systems with automated text messaging within these use cases, they have already begun to see big results. One Fortune 500 company had the goal of reducing claimant outreach by 10% after deploying chatbots, but results after deployment are showing greater than 20% reduction in call volume saving the company significant time and resources.
As we stated at the beginning of this article, many Insurance professionals feel that they could invest in more advanced technology in order to break barriers to growth. It is important to note however, that when insurance companies have invested in updating their systems, 28% feel that their Digital Customer Relationship Management was the most important new technology investment to their organization for growth potential.
While the industry’s chatbot and AI usage has taken off, it seems to be just the beginning. In our recent survey of Millennial Mobile Consumers, who will have purchasing power of $200 billion by 2020, 40% of Millennials reported wanting insurance companies to use more text messaging for customer engagement. So there is a disconnect between what consumers want from their companies, and what the Insurance industry has provided thus far. We’ve seen when that gap closes, company conversion rates soar to 85% and the automation of 70% of services saves significant costs. If the Insurance industry would like to see these results and to keep up with the 85% of companies who will be automating their systems by 2020, hopefully they will consider updating their legacy systems.
