Tag: thought leadership

How to Make Your Business More Customer Centric with e-Delivery

Written by Dennis LaTour on . Posted in Thought Leadership.

We recently asked our customers what trend they were seeing in the insurance and financial services industry, and they overwhelmingly replied that it is the demand for a customer centric business model.

But what does that mean?

When asked, one customer responded that customer centricity is all about the ease of doing business. To become a customer centric business, it’s important to focus on doing things more easily – for the agent and the customer. According to Celent’s 2023 Annual CIO Survey, life insurance companies are taking note of the changes in the industry – with 94% reporting a focus on the digital acceleration of their business. By digitizing their business, companies can complete tasks with an ease that has previously been unattainable.

Sounds great, right? But how do you accomplish this goal?

The insurance and financial services industry is complex, with many layers and components, and the term “ease” is not one that typically comes to mind when thinking of our industry. How do we change that? Well, let’s look at the components that make up the business to find a way to do each one better, starting with something that affects carriers, distributors, and customers – document delivery.

Manual document delivery is slow. It adds days to the cycle time that, frankly, neither you nor your customer can afford.

It is also expensive: Between the human capital, the paper, and the postage needed to manually deliver a document, your business incurs significant costs.

So how can this process be improved so that it is easier for everyone involved?

e-Delivery allows you to streamline your processes and deliver documents with one simple click. Documents are sent securely to the recipient without postage, paper, or people. With this type of solution, you can not only save time and money, but you can also improve your customer satisfaction due to the ease of doing business with you.

There are several e-delivery solutions in the marketplace, so how do choose what is right for your business?

We’ve assembled a list of questions you should consider when adopting an e-delivery solution:

  1. What is the cost of e-delivery relative to the cost of delivering documents manually?
  2. What is the average reduction in cycle time achieved by using e-delivery?
  3. Can you send a document to multiple people at one time for signature?
  4. Can you track the progress of a document (received, opened, signed, etc.)?
  5. What security measures are in place to protect the document and its corresponding data?

As a reference, below we have broken down how iPipeline answers these questions regarding our e-delivery solution, DocFast®.

  1. DocFast can eliminate delivery costs by 78%*
  2. DocFast can reduce cycle times by an average of 23 days*
  3. DocFast allows you to send a document to multiple people with one click
  4. DocFast uses dashboards that allow you to track when a customer opens, views, comments or e-signs a document
  5. DocFast employs full document encryption to ensure the protection and privacy of your data

Whatever product or solution you choose to implement, e-Delivery has the power to help you transform the way you do business by focusing on the ease of doing business – for your agents, your customers, and yourself.

To learn more about e-Delivery or DocFast, click here for more information.

*These are average numbers and are not indicative of definite future results.

About the Author

Dennis LaTour is a product enthusiast with over 20 years of experience in the Insurance Industry.

With his long-standing experience in the product management, Dennis loves working directly with the customers on projects and building long lasting relationship.

In his free time, Dennis enjoys camping, hiking, and spending time with his family.

What Can You Do With 50 Petabytes of Data?

Written by Roy Goodart on . Posted in Thought Leadership.

Over the past five decades, our industry has collected over 50 petabytes of data—that’s a huge pile of information by anyone’s calculation—including demographics, financial and purchasing history, and many other pieces of potentially valuable information collected by insurance companies. Alone, it’s just data—basically zeros and ones—however, when amalgamated, analyzed, and put to use, it has tremendous power to find bottlenecks in our business flows, help guide our customers through a lifetime journey of financial awareness and family protection, and present new opportunities for agents and advisors to grow the business.

I can say with confidence that we have the technology and tools to put that data to good use not only in the future, but also today- something you won’t easily find, short of hiring an army of data scientists! Let’s take a step back and look at some examples of how to best utilize all of that data:

Here are five big data scenarios that could make an impact on your business.

  1. Consumer Bailouts
    Most of us spend a lot of time and money driving people to our websites and creating a customer journey experience that results in a quote. But how might we use big data to drive people through a different, more effective workflow? For those who are direct marketers, your data will tell you where consumers bail out from the buying process. Smart systems can drive the consumer through different workflows, selecting the best path based on their answers along the way. Machine learning can help further improve rules and workflows for the benefit of insurance companies and individuals.
  1. ‘Know Before You Go’ Quotes
    Why give consumers an approximate price when you can let them know the exact rate and the best carrier that fits their situation, based on analytics? By looking at the consumer as an individual, we can give them an exact price, their percentage chances for approval, and the shortest path to a policy. With all of this powerful data, maybe you decide not to give an individual too many choices—just the top three—so that they’re more likely to make a purchasing decision on the spot.
  1. Growing Your Book of Business
    Perhaps obviously, you can leverage your data to increase new business. We recommend using a third-party tool to continuously scan your data to see what’s happening in an individual’s life. Someone may have just bought a home and could use more coverage. Others may be looking to buy other types of insurance, like home and auto. With Artificial Intelligence capability, you’ll be able to use these tools to create an automated quote based on what you believe they need, according to the data.
  1. Cross-Selling at Delivery
    People may not want to be sidetracked with additional recommendations until they reach the end of the sales cycle. But, once a policy has been issued, what else might they qualify for? You could, for instance, send them a car insurance quote based on what you know- and then ask them to apply. Overall, to reach a successful outcome, you need both the analytics and a way to manage them.
  1. Your Best Rep at the Ready
    What if you could drive consumers to the rep who is best suited to speak with them? This is a potential gold mine within your business. Some of your reps may be more empathetic in certain situations (for instance, difficult health issues) than others. Simply stated, some reps are better at getting those individuals through the process. Sometimes it’s hard to identify them; however, machine learning and analytics can automatically drive those consumers to your best reps. Ultimately, this approach provides significantly better customer service and also helps drive more sales.

So how do we bring it all together?

Our InsureSight® product leverages data analytics and delivers AI technology that makes all the data work for you. We can amalgamate, massage, and help you interpret your data to make the most impact on your business, with the end goal of helping more families feel safe and confident.

If you want to take a deeper dive, check out the recent LIDMA webcast I did with our CEO Larry Berran called ‘Rise of the Machines: Using Data and AI to Grow Your Business’. You can also find more detailed information on the InsureSight product page.

Watch the Webcast
InsureSight product page