Life insurance has one of the lowest levels of “touch” with its customers across verticals in the financial services industries. Usually the only time life insurers contact their customers is if a payment has been missed, and these communications are often paper-based. Today’s digitally-savvy consumers, especially millennials (Generation Y), feel that life insurers aren’t offering a fully personalized and digital experience.

Life insurers often don’t know about major life events and miss opportunities to cross- or up-sell to their existing customers. It is far more expensive to add a new customer than to sell additional business to current customers.

“Consumer expectations have changed much faster than the industry. In most cases, expectations that stem from existing online and digital experiences in other industries are not fulfilled by insurers. Key insights from our global consumer survey, carried out in 12 countries, confirm that insurance consumers worldwide are ready for and expecting a very different digital experience,” according to a report from Morgan Stanley.shutterstock_417659983

Life insurers who don’t quickly engage with customers may get upstaged by aggressive new FinTech competitors. The challenges are very real, but is there also an opportunity?

The Opportunity

A tremendous opportunity exists for life insurers who maximize customer engagement and experience:

“This customer-centric route is a new pathway for the insurance industry, which for too long has focused on policies and price. With the customer experience long neglected, there are huge revenue-generation opportunities for those companies that leverage their data expertise to deliver a seamless and personalized offer to wow the connected customer,” wrote Marketforce in a research report.

Life insurers who engage more often and effectively with their customers will enjoy an in-depth and personal view of their customers and will expand their cross- and up-sell opportunities to sell the right product at the best time for the customer. This will lead to increased wallet share, reduced costs, improved customer loyalty and retention, and greater efficiency.

And don’t underestimate the value of possessing a treasure trove of customer data that was obtained through engagement. Analyzing daily lifestyle activities, such as the number of steps, sleep patterns and blood pressure, can drive future product development and the marketing phase of the life insurance value chain, according to Capgemini.

To learn more about customer engagement please click here for Sapiens’ new infographic, and stay tuned for my new eBook, which will be released shortly…

  • annuities and life insurance
  • consumer experience
  • customer engagement
  • customer-centric
  • digital
  • fintech
  • personalized
  • portal
Sigal Biran Nagar

Sigal Biran Nagar Sigal was VP Marketing at Sapiens during 2020-2021, responsible for driving Sapiens marketing team globally. She is an accomplished global marketing and communications executive. Her background includes senior roles at various international conglomerates including: SanDisk (now Western Digital), Strauss, ECI Telecom (now Ribbon) and more.