Frank Heaps
Director, P&C Product Marketing
StoneRiver
Remember all of the hype about the Internet back in the 1990’s: insurance carriers were all going to be virtual, agents were a dying breed, no more branches, etc. That was a far reach but we suddenly had a new way to interact with customers to conduct business. Our industry just had to figure out how that would work.
When the Internet first became a reality, it was uncharted territory. Technology was being developed just to be able to use this new communications tool. Browsers were raw, connections were slow, connectivity was unreliable, etc. There were no standards or guidelines for user interaction. We all remember the excitement and lived through the reality. Insurance carriers took a very conservative approach to adoption of this new way to interact with customers. Part of it was the change to the expected, traditional model of customer relationships; agents and direct sales / support to a lesser degree.
While analysts and media were predicting the end of the agent, carriers passionately defended the right of the consumer to call someone for support on the complexities of basic insurance. Underneath the hype you could see that the future reality was somewhere in the middle with a need for different distribution for different consumer needs and desires. The means to provide simple policy communications had not been developed yet, and no one wanted to jump out in front with a poor “Internet” distribution channel.
The other valid and critical concern was security. Access to information, transmitting information, and moving money around over the web necessitated a cautious embracement of this new communication method. We all know where we are now with routine account maintenance, quoting, policy issuance, claims reporting, and bill payment as just another method to interaction with customers.
Today the same excitement exists for the delivery of mobile insurance apps. Leading Insurance Technology analysts and media groups like Gartner (Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010), INN (More Workers Using Mobile Devices; 10/24/2010), and Celent (A Look at Mobile Apps Aimed at Insurance Consumers; November 2010) have all started studying and reporting on this trend. The difference this time around is the mobile platform is not emerging; it is fairly mature. Cell phones preceded the Internet for development followed by smart phones and handheld devices over the past several years. The challenges of reliability, security, speed, and coverage have largely been addressed. We know that security remains an issue and is at the forefront of application development tools.
More consumers are demanding access to their insurance information as the devices get cheaper and the carriers lower their data plans to gain market share. The device UI’s are small compared to a PC and the graphics required are simple, but that does not deter the demand to be able to click a button and inquire about a bill or install your claims app onto a phone for loss reporting. In fact, using these devices creates some novelty in the entire insurance process. Could mobile apps be making insurance fun and friendly for the consumer?