Breathing Life Into Insurance: Creative Strategies For Agents

Life insurance companies are facing a challenging period, with rising costs, low customer satisfaction, and intense competition. To breathe new life into the industry, insurers must transform their business practices and culture. This involves setting ambitious goals, adopting new operating models, and leveraging technology to streamline operations and enhance the customer experience. Embracing digital transformation can help insurers reduce costs, improve efficiency, and better meet the evolving needs of their customers. By tapping into the potential of digital platforms and advanced analytics, insurers can increase sales, speed up policy delivery, and make life insurance more accessible and appealing to a wider audience.

Improving customer satisfaction

Life insurance companies are facing a lot of pressure due to rising costs and low customer satisfaction. To improve customer satisfaction, insurers need to focus on transforming their business and culture. Here are some ways to breathe new life into life insurance and improve customer satisfaction:

Embrace Digital Transformation

Insurers need to embrace digital transformation to streamline the online buying process for customers. This means investing in technology to enhance the customer experience and make it easier for customers to engage with the company and its products. This could include implementing a state-of-the-art CRM system to better serve customers and agents.

Reduce Operational Costs

By reducing operational costs, insurers can pass on the savings to customers in the form of lower premiums, which can improve customer satisfaction. This can be achieved by using technology to streamline operations, sales, and distribution. For example, carriers can utilize a digital distribution platform to reduce customer acquisition costs.

Improve Customer Service

Insurers should focus on providing excellent customer service to build and maintain customer satisfaction. This includes making it easy for customers to engage with the company and its representatives, both online and offline. Additionally, implementing a customer-centric approach, such as reorganizing around customer segments, can help insurers better understand and meet the needs of their customers.

Enhance Product Offering

Insurers can improve customer satisfaction by enhancing their product offerings to provide more value to customers. This could include providing additional benefits, such as living benefits for chronic illnesses, terminal illnesses, or long-term care. Educating customers about the various options and benefits available to them can also help improve their satisfaction.

Build a Strong Company Culture

A company's culture can greatly impact its ability to provide excellent customer service. Insurers should focus on building a culture that encourages better decision-making, with the customer experience as the paramount goal. This may involve setting bold goals, instilling accountability, and rewarding initiative to drive behavioral change and improve the overall customer satisfaction.

Investing in digital transformation

One critical aspect of digital transformation is the adoption of advanced technologies, such as analytics and machine learning. This enables insurers to break down data silos, unifying customer information into a single profile. As a result, they can more effectively convert leads into policies and make data-driven decisions to identify product and market opportunities.

Digital distribution platforms play a pivotal role in this transformation. These platforms allow insurers to quickly deliver a fully-branded, user-centric experience, making it easier for customers to engage with their services. This is especially pertinent in the wake of the global pandemic, which has made traditional face-to-face sales and paper-based distribution processes obsolete.

Montreal-based Breathe Life, an enterprise SaaS platform provider, is a prime example of this digital revolution. With their platform, insurers can increase sales, speed up policy delivery, and reduce operational costs. This shift towards digital is no longer an option but a necessity for the life insurance industry to remain competitive and meet the evolving needs of their customers.

To achieve success in this new digital landscape, insurers must be bold in their vision and ambitious in their goals. They need to instill new operating models that promote accountability, weed out underperformance, and reward initiative, all while keeping the customer at the heart of their operations. By leveraging technology and data analytics, insurers can breathe new life into their business and create a culture centered around customer satisfaction and innovation.

Reducing operational costs

Embrace Digital Transformation

Life insurance companies should embrace digital solutions to streamline their operations and reduce costs. This includes investing in modern technologies, such as advanced analytics and machine learning, to enhance the customer experience and make operations more efficient. By leveraging digital platforms, carriers can quickly attract new business, improve services, and reduce customer acquisition costs. For example, Montreal-based startup Breathe Life provides a digital distribution platform that helps insurers increase sales, speed up policy delivery, and reduce operational costs.

Reorganize Business Structure

Insurers can also reduce costs by reorganizing their business structure to be more customer-centric. This involves moving away from function-based operations and instead organizing around customer segments. This approach improves the customer experience and helps to identify and eliminate redundant or inefficient processes.

Set Ambitious Cost Reduction Targets

Setting bold cost-cutting targets can be a powerful motivator for change. For instance, a leading life insurer set a three-year, 20% cost reduction target, which helped them focus on driving greater efficiency and improving customer satisfaction.

Optimize Headcount and Talent

Optimizing headcount and bringing in new talent can also reduce costs. The above-mentioned insurer reduced their headcount by 10% and filled 40% of the remaining roles with new talent. This strategy helped them cut costs while bringing in fresh perspectives and skills to drive innovation.

Cut Distribution Costs

Distribution costs can be a significant expense for life insurance companies. By utilizing digital platforms and streamlining the online buying process, insurers can significantly reduce distribution costs. This may involve investing in technology to improve the efficiency of sales and distribution channels.

By implementing these strategies, life insurance companies can significantly reduce their operational costs, allowing them to offer more competitive products and improve their financial performance.

Increasing sales

Life insurance companies are under pressure from rising costs and low customer satisfaction. To breathe new life into life insurance and increase sales, insurers need to transform their business and culture. This can be achieved by:

Setting bold goals

Insurers need to set ambitious goals, such as cutting costs by a significant percentage over a set period. This will help them focus on improving their financial performance and provide a clear direction for the business.

Building new operating models

Insurers should instill operating models that drive accountability, weed out underperformance, and reward initiative, all while keeping the customer at the forefront. This will help improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Embracing digital transformation

The insurance industry has been slow to adopt digital technologies, but the recent global pandemic has made it clear that digital transformation is no longer optional. By investing in digital platforms, insurers can streamline the online buying process, making it easier for customers to engage with them and ultimately increasing sales.

Focusing on the customer

Putting the customer first is key to breathing new life into life insurance. Insurers should aim to provide a fully-branded, user-centric experience that meets the financial security needs of their customers. By using advanced analytics and machine learning, insurers can gain valuable insights into customer preferences and make data-driven decisions to improve their products and services.

Modernizing operations

Insurers need to modernize their operations to keep up with the changing times and the needs of their customers. This includes investing in technology to streamline operations, sales, and distribution, as well as reorganizing around customer segments to provide better service.

Building a customer-centric experience

One way to do this is by investing in digital transformation. The insurance industry has been slow to adopt digital technologies, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that digital engagement is no longer a nice-to-have but a necessity. By investing in digital distribution platforms, insurers can quickly attract and service new customers, reduce operational costs, and improve the overall customer experience.

For example, Breathe Life, a life insurance startup, provides insurers with a platform that increases sales, speeds up policy delivery, and reduces operational costs. Their platform enables carriers to deliver a fully-branded, user-centric experience, making it easier for customers to purchase life insurance online.

In addition to digital transformation, insurers can also focus on building a strong customer-centric culture. This includes setting bold goals, such as cost reduction targets, and implementing new operating models that drive accountability and reward initiative. By putting the customer at the heart of their organisation, insurers can make better decisions and improve customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, insurers can also consider reorganising their structure around customer segments rather than functions. This allows them to better understand their customers' needs and provide tailored solutions. By adopting a customer-centric approach and leveraging digital technologies, insurers can breathe new life into their business and improve their overall competitiveness in the market.

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