Mobility across insurance

It is crucial that the insurance industry adopt and embrace mobile technology to provide superior benefits to the customer

The insurance sector has historically been quite conservative in adopting new technology due to its stringent regulatory compliance requirements. But mobility has transformed every industry and insurance is no exception. Mobility has changed the way insurance companies market, sell and deliver service to customers.
 
As in any other industry, the insurance sector rolled out the low hanging fruits like email, calendar, activity and contact management. The challenge lies, however, in taking it to the next level by implementing a mobility solution which enables the entire chain – customers, IT staff, sales force agents, customer care alike.
 
Mobility can play an extensive role in almost all business processes in the insurance value chain. A standard insurance value chain and the respective areas which can be mobile enabled are provided below:
 Product Management
Mobility can help in customer segmentation based on factors like location, demographics, phone usage etc.

Sales and Distribution
Most insurance companies have provided tablets to their sales staff. Sales force applications are enabling an end-to-end workflow from lead tracking to customer acquisition to distribution channel management. Customer applications help in comparing policies, issuing relevant quotes and enabling policy renewal.

Claims Management
Document submission, claim registration and validation are areas that have been mobile enabled. It is common to see motor claim agents carry tablets that enable a vehicle claim processing at the garage site itself.

However, despite the many benefits involved in going mobile, most insurance companies today are trying to cope with the problem of integrating their disparate systems and modernizing their IT infrastructure in view of the costs involved. Trying to provide a seamless customer experience across the internet and the mobile is proving to be a difficult challenge for the CIO as they try and address the many challenges of data security/confidentiality, BYOD and application management.

In the times to come, the importance of mobility will increase due to the need for customer segmentation as well as de-tariffication and reduced legislation. One such example would be the use of telematics in motor vehicle insurance. The driver's behavior is monitored directly while the person drives and valuable information (speed, distance, time taken to travel, driving techniques) are transmitted to the insurance company. The insurance company then assesses the risk of that driver having an accident and will charge insurance premiums accordingly. A driver who drives less responsibly, will be charged a higher premium than a driver who drives smoothly.

With growing proliferation of mobile devices, it is crucial that the insurance industry adopt and embrace this technology and leverage it to provide superior benefits to the customer.

Nester Dias is co-founder, Mobileware Technologies, a leading mobile software company