Insurance Agencies to Reimagine the Online Consumer Experience

Insurance Agencies and carriers to re-imagine online consumer rating. If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we’re able to do almost anything online, including our insurance transactions. However, insurance agencies, brokers and carriers are often falling short when it comes to meeting consumer expectations online. When shopping for insurance online, consumers are often asked to carry out mundane tasks like filling in fact files and ticking boxes. This generally leads to boredom, a lack of enthusiasm, and lower incentive to purchase a product. But there’s a quick and easy solution to those problems – insurance technology. By applying leading insure tech capabilities, insurance companies can automate mundane online tasks and create a slick and easy customer experience that will make people want to click ‘Buy’. One of the most important elements for insurance agencies, brokers and carriers to master is online consumer rating, according to Laird Rixford (pictured), president of Insurance Technologies Corporation (ITC). Rixford, who has more than 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship and insurance technology, will be presenting an exclusive webinar on ‘The Next Generation of Online Consumer Rating’ at 1pm Central Time on May 07. In this timely session, he’ll explain how agencies can leverage innovative insurance technology to offer a better customer experience, while growing their business. “Online rating and consumer rating have been around since 1999, and really in the years that followed, agencies, brokers and the technology vendors that support them have failed to innovate in that realm,” said Rixford. “They’re using the same old boring forms that ask for name, address, vehicle type, and so on, and it’s not a very fun or interactive process. Then, throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s, we saw a lot of insure tech companies coming in and looking to disrupt the online market by creating a consumer first experience for their visitors. That included fun, interactive, engaging online experiences, which have traditionally been out of reach from the agent and broker perspective.” In 2019, ITC launched a solution for insurance agencies and brokers called Turbo Rater for Websites, which Rixford claims offers that fun, engaging, insure tech experience for online insurance shoppers. With a mobile-first design, consumers can compare their existing insurance policies against more than 225 national carriers. Time-saving technologies – such as driver’s license scanning and data prefill – make the interface slick and efficient for consumers to use. “A key pain point for online insurance shoppers is when companies ask too many questions. It’s much better to use data prefill wherever possible – for things like addresses, vehicle models, other drivers in the household, and so on – because that experience will quickly engage the clients and will retain them on the site,” Rixford told Insurance Business. “They feel there’s a light at the end of the tunnel because most of their information has been automatically prefilled, and the little information they do have to provide is what will get them the quote. We’ve seen, using this technology, that you can get a full quote as a consumer in less than 90 seconds.” With the novel coronavirus pandemic forcing lots of insurance agencies and brokerages around the world to go digital, it’s more important than ever for firms to transform their digital customer experiences, according to Rixford. He commented: “We’ve seen traffic and quoting volumes decrease in agencies because of the whole COVID-19 situation, but we’ve seen online traffic actually either stay the same or creep up higher. This situation is going to create a new world in the minds of consumers where they can do everything they need to do with their insurance experience online. It’s going to continue the process of agents and brokers having to create a premier online experience no matter where they get it from.” 

News Source:  www.insurancebusinessmag.com

What to Expect in U.S. Casualty Insurance Markets in Year 2016 : Marsh

 

The sharing economy, expanded litigation,surplus capital,custom account underwriting and further consolidation are likely to challenge the U.S. casualty insurance marketplace in 2016, according to broker Marsh. Marsh expects that the new year will also see wider use of new technologies from wearable devices to social media to drones, which will change the risk profile for businesses and how insurance claims are managed.

Here is Marsh’s list of the top 10 trends driving U.S. casualty markets in 2016: Continued downward trends for overall rates. Right now, most insurers say that existing rates barely insure cover losses once inflation and claim development is factored in, according to Marsh’s reports. There’s also this: major competition due to capital surplus, which will likely continue pressuring insurer results. At the same time, Marsh said, there could be at least partial relief because the economic turnaround in recent years has increased exposures, a trend that at least helps make the effect of rate increases a lesser deal, while generating increased audit premiums at the same time. Marsh predicts the dynamic will continue in 2016 on competitive lines of coverage including workers compensation, general liability and umbrella/excess liability. Auto liability bucks the trend. Higher pricing and reduced capacity will likely hit commercial automobile liability over the next year, bucking the pricing trend in the rest of the casualty insurance market, Marsh predicts its annual top 10 list of trends for the sector. Marsh noted that many insurers have seen their combined ratios deteriorate as commercial automobile loss frequency and severity has increased. As a result, Marsh predicts that brokers and insure will need to look at alternative markets and structures. What’s more, insureds will also need to focus on loss control techniques, including driver safety training, fleet maintenance and the use of telematics through vehicle monitoring devices. Mergers and synergies.

Marsh said it expects insurers in 2016 to generally follow the lead of ACE/Chubb and XL/Catlin as far as seeking global synergies. With this in mind, larger carriers will pursue acquisition of specialty carriers so they can add more niche areas to their products and services. Marsh also expects some carriers to shut down unprofitable lines and consolidate offices in a bid to trim expenses and retrench. They’ll also look for ways to diversify how they deploy their capital. Acquisitions will also go global. Marsh said that carriers in Asia and Europe will continue to pursue acquisitions outside of their home region, in the U.S., in a bid to diversify. Custom underwriting. Marsh said insurers will need to underwrite on an account business instead of using a portfolio approach so they can target profitable business and identify acceptable insure rates for renewals. To do this, the market will see a few trends, Marsh said, including a bigger correlation between risk and renewal terms and a need for more participating of key client personnel in underwriting meetings. Also, expect to see more “industry-specific appetites and product offerings,” and a greater reliance on data and predictive modeling to drive underwriting decisions. Underwriting across multiple products. The idea here is that insurers will gain an edge in 2016 if they handle underwriting decisions across multiple products including primary, excess and international. 

“Clients will benefit from the combined casualty approach that some carriers are pursuing,” Marsh said. “This approach can improve pricing, prevent coverage gaps, allow for cross-collateralization, and allow insureds to take a fresh look at global retention philosophies.” As part of the combined approach, clients will want to place higher local underlying limits. Marsh said this is being driven, in the face of more assertive regulators, by “stringent contractual obligations” and a wish for more consistent compliance. Insurers that take this combined casualty insurance approach will gain with these efficiency improvements, Marsh said, especially in the face of regulatory toughness. Insurance coverage and the sharing economy. Marsh said that insureds will begin to have more options from personal lines than commercial lines insurers for the sharing economy. This comes as challenges remains on how to define an employee and what kind of coverage that person needs.

News Source :  www.insurancejournal.com

Study finds link between insurance type & treatment for patients of stroke

insurance type & treatment for patients of stroke

University of Florida researchers have found a correlation between Medicare and patient access to surgical treatment for subarachnoid hemorrhage, a type of stroke that affects as many as 30,000 Americans each year - often causing death or long-term impairment and disability. For patients who have suffered this type of stroke, surgical intervention can spell the difference between recovery or long-term disability and death, life insurance yet patients on Medicare are less likely than those with private insurance to be referred for surgical treatment, according to findings published in the journal PLOS ONE. This may represent a conscious or unconscious bias against Medicare patients, who are typically older and have preexisting disabilities or chronic illnesses, said Azra Bihorac, M.D., senior author of the study and an associate professor of anesthesiology, medicine and surgery at the UF College of Medicine. "Not every hospital has skilled neurosurgeons who specialize in subarachnoid hemorrhage," Bihorac said. "If these hospitals don't have the necessary expertise, then they may actually overestimate the risk of a bad prognosis. They may assume that the patient won't do well anyway, so they won't proceed with surgery." For the study, the researchers analyzed data from the National Inpatient Sample hospital discharge database. The data includes information on more than 21,000 adult patients discharged from 2003 to 2008 with a diagnosis of subarachnoid hemorrhage. Approximately 62 percent of the sample was female and the mean age was 59 years - younger than is typical with other types of stroke. Compared with privately insured patients, life insurance

Medicare patients were almost 45 percent less likely to undergo surgical treatment and were more than twice as likely to die in the hospital. This may be because Medicare patients tend to be older or have additional health issues, said lead author Charles Hobson, M.D., M.H.A., a surgical critical care specialist at the Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center and a doctoral candidate in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions. "It's not that you don't get surgery because you have Medicare - your doctor isn't checking your life insurance," he said. "But having Medicare as primary health insurance may be a proxy for bias against the elderly and those with chronic illnesses." Subarachnoid hemorrhage accounts for 5 percent of all strokes, according to the American Heart Association. It occurs when there is bleeding in the area between the brain and the thin tissues that cover the brain, most often caused by an aneurysm. The condition causes sudden, severe head pain and must be treated immediately to prevent brain injury, disability and death. Risk factors include a family history of aneurysms, high blood pressure and smoking. Approximately 10 to 15 percent of these patients die before reaching the hospital. For those who survive, the next 48 hours are critical, Bihorac said. During this time, the main goal of the treatment team is to stop the patient from re-bleeding, a repeated rupture in the same location of the aneurysm and the leading cause of death in people who survive the initial hemorrhage. A combination of early interventions including medications to lower a patient's blood pressure can help reduce the chance of re-bleeding, but surgical treatment to repair the aneurysm has been shown to decrease both illness and death life insurance after subarachnoid hemorrhage, Hobson said. The study found that patients who did not undergo surgical treatment were twice as likely to die than those who did have surgery. In addition, patients who survived the first 48 hours without surgery had a greater risk of developing a severe disability or cognitive impairment. However, only about one third of all subarachnoid hemorrhage patients in the United States actually receive some form of surgical treatment. "Surgery is valuable - really, essential - if you're going to have a good outcome," Hobson said. "But we've found that if there are two people who are otherwise the same, but one is either elderly or has chronic illness or disability, he or she is less likely to undergo surgery." While the researchers believe there is a bias regarding these patients, two-thirds of all people treated for subarachnoid hemorrhage do not receive surgical treatment to repair the aneurysm. One contributing factor is the small percentage of patients who bleed without having an aneurysm, but this alone does not explain the substantial number of people who go without surgical treatment, Bihorac said. She believes that one reason for this is a lack of standard of care for subarachnoid hemorrhage. "A lot of things are left up to the subjective assessment of the provider who first sees the patient," Bihorac said. "Each provider has his or her own biases. They can be rational, they can be made from past experience - but these biases do interfere." This bias is of particular concern if a patient seeks treatment at a hospital that only sees a few subarachnoid hemorrhage cases each year or is without the necessary diagnostic tests or specialists in place, she said. Indeed, the study found that patients treated at teaching hospitals, as well as hospitals that see a high volume of subarachnoid hemorrhage patients, were more likely to undergo surgical treatment. A potential solution for the discrepancy would be for state government to enforce regionalized care for subarachnoid hemorrhage, as is currently standard for certain trauma and neonatal issues, Hobson said. "Despite the improvements in care over the last 10 years in subarachnoid hemorrhage, the percent of people not receiving surgery is unchanged - which is another argument for dealing with this issue on a systemic level, not an individual provider level," he said. "With regionalized care, life insurance the moment an ER doc sees a bleed, it would trigger a system - 'OK, this patient needs to go to a place where the experts can decide whether or not he needs surgery.' The clock is ticking." 

News Source :  www.medicalnewstoday.com