5 Ways Mobile Apps Can Benefit Insurance Providers

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If you’ve users who need to set up alarms for regular reminders about taking medicines, or customers who constantly worry about the way their insurance claims are handled by your agents, then jumping on the bandwagon of mobile solutions will ensure that you partake of the gains — financial and otherwise — a la top Insurance companies like United, Geico and MetLife.

Why mobile solutions?

In these times of uncertainties in the global economy, players in the insurance industry are bound to face many risks. In order to assuage the fears of customers and have an edge over competitors, it has become imperative for insurance providers to offer a new range of products with their customers’ needs in mind. Mobile solutions (read creating mobile apps), therefore, have become a natural choice for insurers to improve the ROI and empower them to gain their customers’ trust.

How do mobile apps help?

Mobile solutions help insurance companies in a lot of ways – especially when it comes to handling claims. They certainly help increase efficiency, customer satisfaction, user engagement and loyalty, besides reducing formalities of paperwork to a large extent. According to a report put together by Forrester, by 2016 there will be 1 billion smartphone users globally which shows the tremendous potential created for mobile solution providers to leverage this growing trend.

We’ve put together a five-point strategy to help you understand how mobile apps can work to the advantage of insurers.

1. Have an edge over competitors

If you can deliver claims-related stuff right to the user’s smartphone, you have gained an edge over competitors by winning a loyal customer. Involving employees in customer-engagement activities and improving the productivity of insurance agents will increase your chances at being successful. The other tactics that you can employ include consistent app experience for users, reduced cost per transaction which can be achieved by providing efficient service(s), and improvement in user base and loyalty, among others.

2. Make claims processes simple

An insurance app will be the most handy tool when it comes to Claims. It is believed that a mobile app can improve the efficiency of handling insurance claims by 25%-30%. While it makes consumers’ lives easier by letting them make claims using their smartphones, it also eases the workload on employees, by eliminating a few tasks, and helps them use their time productively in user acquisition and engagement (by aaron). The ability of a smartphone user to take pictures at the scene of the accident helps make a strong impact on the insurer.

3. Deliver what customers want

Although not all apps created in the insurance industry are for customers alone, it’s good to have more consumer-oriented apps in place. In a survey conducted by PwC, over 75% of the participants in the age group of 25 to 44 use health and wellness apps regularly, understand the benefits of an app in comparison to traditional methods of service and, hence, expect apps to provide “Alerts and Reminders”, “Access to your personal health record”, “Access to specific disease info/products”, “Provider/specialist search”, and “Disease Management apps”.

A targeted mobile strategy, especially in the realm of health insurance, is the need of the hour, writes PwC in its report

“Smartly designed mobile applications can provide a competitive edge, especially for younger consumers. But to see the biggest return on investment, insurers should think about conducting targeted market analysis, assessing the value of popular/high-use apps for activities such as exercise tracking and food intake, and building on mobile applications that have already proven successful with other audiences.”

4. Improve customer engagement

How can you engage customers in better ways? As a service provider, you can ensure that consumers can report an accident, a theft or a loss; take, upload and submit photos from the scene of an accident; do claims; make an inventory of all valuables in your home for insurance purpose; or seek information on getting your vehicles repaired. Policyholders sure have a field day now with many top insurance providers vying with each other to woo customers with their mobile solutions. Having realized that mobile apps can make claims process easier for customers, the companies are now trying to attract more users even while retaining the existing ones by providing an excellent customer experience.

5. Increase revenue opportunities

Mobile apps are certainly cost-effective and, therefore, provide the right incentive to companies to leverage the mobile space. Insurance providers are in a better position today in terms of gaining customers’ trust through multiple means of customer engagement thereby ensuring satisfaction. From getting the requisite information on policies available, and comparing various options and providers available, to browsing the company’s website to understand the different kinds of insurance policies before making a choice, from buying policies and upgrading the existing ones to reaching agents and paying bills using a smartphone, now the users have umpteen reasons to celebrate. This customer-centric focus is what improves the chances of revenue increase for companies.

To sum up, there are a bunch of things that mobile apps could do to benefit both the providers and their customers: tracking insurance claims, enrolling for a particular plan or purchasing it online, get an in-depth understanding of the company’s products, learn ways to improve their health via healthcare and wellness apps (some of which are created by insurance companies) are just a few in the list.