Life can come at you in unpredictable ways, and having yourself safely insured is always a smart investment plan. The core of any insurance plan is to provide you with protection. Making small investments in insurance can provide you with financial security in advance. Now, with technological advancements and messaging platforms growing popular, the insurance sector has seen a significant surge in the way it has been running all along. Insurance is a data-driven sector and in the last many years, data corruption has been a persistent problem in this sector. Hence, AI-driven chatbots are a boon!
Making use of chatbots in the insurance sector, companies have been able to uplift their services, communication, efficiency, and customer support. So in this blog, let’s dig a little deep into how chatbots for insurance are proving to be advantageous.
Trend- Insurance chatbots for agents?
Insurance Chatbots are growing into the hottest trends in technology for the last 2 years. Chatbot algorithms that enable intelligent conversations with humans are now being used to assist both customers and agents in many areas of the insurance sector. These insurance chatbots enable new functionalities by assisting hundreds of queries all at the same time, and as more companies come up with newer technologies to make bots more intelligent, they’re bound to offer more applications in the insurance industry in the coming years!
Though insurers have been using voice assistants at call centers for a while now, the development of new technologies has been enabling far more complex interactions. chatbots for insurance are being used extensively within the industry to support agents, and customer applications such as onboarding new clients, processing claims and renewals. Even though chatbots offer many benefits, insurers must make sure they’re being supported with the right intelligent tool.
Challenges That Insurance Chatbots Can Solve
Today, the insurance industry faces countless challenges. With the world becoming more digital each day, consumer expectations change at a rapid pace. Consumers look for policies from online websites and compare prices themselves before contacting an agent. As information has been made easily available to the consumers, the insurance companies are using chatbots to overcome these commonly faced challenges to build better relationships with their policyholders.
1. Consumers don’t easily trust insurance companies
According to a recent survey, people trust insurance companies way less than they trust any other sector. People are very hesitant to invest their money in insurance. They’re always looking out for any hidden clauses in the policy fearing ending up with something they don’t want to buy, while the insurance companies are often labeled with a bad reputation if they’re open about their policy!
Customers don’t trust insurance companies easily
To overcome this, insurance companies are building website chatbots that can make quick and reliable engagements while building trust among its users. Insurance Chatbots communicate with the consumers, provide them with details and quick solutions in simple language which builds a good rapport between the consumers and the brand.
2. Consumers don’t always understand insurance policies properly
People lack proper knowledge bases about insurance policies and their advantages, which makes it even more difficult for insurance companies to sell their products. This can be easily solved with online insurance chatbots. Insurance companies usually have a web of complex technical terms that are hard to understand from a layman’s perspective. Chatbots can easily communicate these terms to the customers in an interactive manner using simple language, aiding customers in having a clearer picture of the policy and many things as such.
3. Insurance claims and renewals are complicated processes
Insurance claims and renewals have always been a complicated process and time-consuming when done manually. That’s why insurance companies are building chatbots that allow customers to make claims or renewals directly through the chatbot and there is no need for a live agent to do so. This automation in claims and renewals has made the whole process really quick and easy, both for the agents as well as the policyholders.
4. Consumers have different communication preferences
Consumer-company interactions happen in three ways- online communication via texts, talking over the phone, or in-person meetings. As more and more people turn towards messaging as their chosen communication medium, insurance companies have to cater to this preference quickly. And what better online conversational tool than a chatbot? Insurance chatbots become the ideal customer support agents the buyers are looking for. They’re always available, you can just drop in a text and have a solution/reply immediately!
The future of insurance in a digital world
In this digital age, opportunities and threats are often different sides of the same coin. Customers are less loyal and more demanding; competitors are entering the industry with radical ideas unburdened by legacy systems or mindsets. Disruption is inevitable; insurers must decide whether they will be among the disruptors or one of their casualties.
Now, digital insurance companies are creating unique customer experiences through new combinations of information, business resources and digital technologies. As AI becomes more deeply integrated in the industry, carriers must position themselves to respond to the changing business landscape. Insurance executives must understand the factors that will contribute to this change and how AI will reshape claims, distribution, and underwriting and pricing.
Chatbots are bound to play a more significant role in the future to come. But let’s explore how they change the customer experience while assisting your agents and looking after the smooth running of your organization.
The rise of the automated insurance agent
he Insurance sector has invested an average of $124million on AI and related processes, and this value is projected to rise exponentially as more investment on diverse applications is on the immediate horizon. The automation of several processes like broking, low-level claims processing, standardized underwriting is already implemented, and more automation is expected to follow.
Automation for insurance has also helped to mechanize the repetitive tasks that once needed a dedicated workforce.
Simplification
With Chatbots to help lead customers to the exact information, they are seeking, or provide solutions instantly, customers no longer need to navigate the website or any other interface, saving precious time. They can simply ask or type what they need, and multi-step actions are compressed into a single command followed by the chatbot. For example, instead of searching for information on all the different kinds of health insurance that alight with a customer’s needs and then make the effort of emailing it to oneself, the customer can ask the chatbot to find, compile and email the information on his behalf.
Streamlined process
One of the biggest challenges for insurers is the expectation of a faster-than-ever-before timeline for claims management and approval. Customers too dread the tedious process of filling out endless paperwork, only to have their claims rejected due to incompletion or technicalities. Chatbots can be enabled to cut down on unnecessary paperwork and steps within the claims filing and approval process. As machine learning and AI technology evolve, chatbots too will be able to assist customers faster and more accurately, approving valid claims within minutes.
Multi-tasking
Because customers are required to put in minimal effort — they only need to ask or type their queries — they are able to leverage chatbots to do multiple things at the same time. For example, a customer can ask a Chatbot to walk them through the differences and benefits of term-life and whole-life insurances, while, say, drafting emails for another task.
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How Insurance Chatbots Help Brands
1. Drive higher sales
Chatbots optimize the response to user queries and reduces time to action, thereby reducing drop-offs. The click and point nature of mobile apps and the web reduce down to users asking pinpoint questions of their needs thereby increasing the efficiency of information retrieval and quicker decisions.
2. Generates leads
Chatbots are well-known for lead generation and turning up the marketing scales. They engage visitors on your website and keep them hooked with various methods like asking them relevant questions, recommending policies, and providing details. Once the visitor shows interest, the chatbot can assign an agent to them for further decision-making. They recognize hot leads and push them down the sales pipeline through proper customer engagement.
3. Product selection
Bots can also suggest policies and products based on a query-based path because it’s important to capture customer needs.
4. Premium payments
Customers can be sent alerts on renewals; policy lapses; notifications on due dates, and a lot more status information in an insurance sale or support cycle.
5. Personalized customer service
Based on AI and Machine learning, chatbots are capable of reading and memorizing user data from all their conversations and hence, personalization comes into play! Insurance Chatbots interact with the customers and collect user data like their preferences, what kind of insurance they are looking for, and so on. An insurance chatbot can work as an artificial insurance agent that recommends appropriate insurance to clients based on their requirements and lifestyle habits.
6. Help in finding the right policy
Chatbots assist clients to choose the right insurance policy. They collect large amounts of data and are able to provide all the educational support required for the consumer to understand each product. With all the collected data, chatbots are capable of tailoring products according to each consumer’s needs. After helping them decide on a product, they can further assist you in going ahead and purchasing it hassle-free.
7. Manage claims and renewals
Healthcare or employee-initiated policyholders are always eager with their claims. With the help of chatbots, they can check their coverages, how to file for a claim as well as track status. They also assist in renewal processes similarly.
8. Services round-the-clock
The insurance sector has to be available 24/7 because critical moments can strike at any hour of the day! Hence, has been a great assistance tool for not just the prospects, but also the doctors round the clock!
Consumers can interact with chatbots at any given time, make claims, renewals, or even find details on the policy at any given time. Their easy-to-reach and 24-hour availability have made chatbots the best tool for automation in the insurance sector.
According to the Global Trends Study 2017, insurance invests an average of $124 million per company in this alluring technology.
– VentureBeat report on Insurance Chatbots.
Key features of an insurance chatbot
Incorporating a chatbot into a company’s environment is not as easy as it seems to be. A chatbot should have several fundamental features that could allow it to function successfully.
Many companies have deployed chatbots for insurance, but not all of them are up to standard. They have limited capabilities and can be tedious to use. In the end, customers still end up speaking to a live agent.
The most proficient virtual assistants provide advice and go beyond the functions of an FAQ chatbot. To do so, they must know what customers want, fully comprehend the services the business provides, and be able to learn from real data to interact with customers and engage as a human would.
Comprehensive speech recognition
This software feature will reduce word error rates and improve machine translations. Improvements in speech and language processing technologies make chatbots more capable, expanding their potential applications across the enterprise.
Perform operations
This feature is vital in the insurance field as we expect an agent to give us the requested information and perform some actions (send quotes, open accounts, sign claims, etc.).
Connectivity
There should be a range of communication methods with customers, including web, mobile apps, messaging platforms, etc.
Security
Customers provide sensitive data to insurance companies and expect the company to follow regulations regarding privacy. Protected data is an important part that builds stable customers’ loyalty to the insurer
Reliability
A vendor should design a chatbot thoroughly so it operates flawlessly and there are no errors that can push away an insurance company customer.
Insurance Chatbot Case Studies
Here’s how 3 of the largest insurers in the Middle East region create fantastic experiences and drive sales through the use of chatbots!
1. Tokio Marine Insurance Company
Operating in the UAE market since 1976, Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., is one of Japan’s oldest and largest non-life Insurance companies. With customer trust as the foundation for all of its activities, TMNF provides the safety and security necessary to provide comfort to its customers. The UAE brand aspired to shorten its sales cycle through proactive support.
Their chatbot, Tokio, helps customers answer their insurance requirements over Web, WhatsApp, and Messenger 24/7. The bot helps customers get quotes, track claims, and renew policies with zero human intervention.
Currently, Tokio handles 70% of TMNF’s inbound queries. To engage global and local audiences, TMNF will extend Tokio’s capabilities by providing support in both Arabic and English.
2. Qatar Insurance Company
Founded in 1964, Qatar Insurance Company is the market leader in Qatar and a dominant insurer in the GCC and MENA region. As the volume of incoming queries started overwhelming their agents, they were looking for solutions that could automate query resolution 24/7 without human intervention. They were also interested in engaging customers in their preferred channels to boost lead generation and shorten the sales cycle.
With their intelligent chatbot, Around, they were able to help customers buy policies in under a minute. The bot was deployed over the web and mobile, functioning across Qatar, Oman, UAE, and Kuwait.
Around provides customers with highly personalized recommendations and also allows customers to renew policies and make claims without assistance from insurance agents. As a result, the number of daily users increased to over 500, and now there have been over 500,000 interactions to date.
3. Oman Insurance Company
Oman Insurance Company is a composite insurance company headquartered in Dubai, UAE that engages in insurance solutions for individuals and businesses in UAE, Oman, and Turkey. Since the insurance landscape was becoming digital, Oman Insurance Company wanted to dabble in solutions that could drive sales without involving agents. An idea that emerged was creating new channels of lead generation to reduce customer effort.
They decided to opt for an AI-powered website chatbot to help empower customers to renew their policies with minimum effort. The bot also facilitated processes like buying insurance plans, making claims, etc. After seeing great success with the website chatbot, they extended the bot to WhatsApp
To sum it up
Chatbots in the insurance sector are able to assist people faster and make the agents’ tasks much easier. They contribute to an overall increase in the efficiency of an organization and also builds better customer relationships. The future of chatbots in insurance looks quite promising. With the growing sense of independence and self-service among consumers these days, the old methods of insurance assistance will be long gone before chatbot replaces them. Engati chatbots are getting intelligent enough to offer a varied level of experience by computing patterns of information and implying them to make interactions more meaningful, relevant, and real-time.
It’s time to automate your business processes and drive past your competition!
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Insurance Chatbot | The success story of 3 largest companies was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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