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

Newly discovered virus takes more lives spreads

Newly discovered virus takes more lives spreads

A new SARS-like virus recently found in humans continues to spread -- with the worldwide total now at 49, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. Of the 49 known infections with the MERS-CoV virus, 27 have resulted in death, the organization said. The latest deaths were reported in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi health ministry said Wednesday that three people died from their infections in the country's eastern region. Health workers infected with coronavirus How is dangerous new virus spreading? WHO tracks new virus to Middle East The virus is "a threat to the entire world," the WHO's general director said Monday. 5 things to know about the coronavirus It "is not a problem that any single affected country can keep to itself or manage all by itself," Margaret Chan said Monday in her closing remarks at the 66th World Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. Although many of the cases have occurred on the Arabian Peninsula, people have died of the infection elsewhere. However, "all of the European cases have had a direct or indirect connection to the Middle East," the WHO said earlier this month. But "in France and the United Kingdom, there has been limited local transmission among close contacts who had not been to the Middle East but had been in contact with a traveler recently returned from the Middle East." On Tuesday, a patient died in France after having contracted the virus during a trip to the Middle East, the WHO reported. Coronaviruses cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, as well as a variety of animal diseases. However, the new virus is not SARS. The WHO recently gave it a more specific name: Middle East respiratory symptom coronavirus, or MERS-CoV. It acts like a cold virus and attacks the respiratory system, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. But symptoms, which include fever and a cough, are severe and can lead to pneumonia and kidney failure. Health officials do not yet know much about how the virus spreads, which makes it hard for scientists to prevent infections, Chan said. The WHO is calling for the world to pull together its resources to study and tackle the virus. New virus is a 'threat to the entire world'

News Source : www.edition.cnn.com