A Marketforce survey found that personalized experience (84 percent of respondents) and delivering a seamless journey across channels (85 percent of those surveyed) will be important to retaining market share, which is especially critical for millennial customers (Generation Y).

There are some additional and perhaps unexpected benefits.

Affinity Marketing/Joining an Ecosystem

There are many big names in the world of wearable and IoT technology. Life insurers can benefit from “affinity marketing,” meaning they can join a prominent brand to draw attention to their products and services.

For instance, John Hancock Financial is offering customers who sign up for a new life policy a Fitbit (a bracelet that can track activity, exercise, sleep, etc.). The more these new customers exercise, the bigger discount they can receive on their insurance premium (up to 15 percent).

By combining insurance solutions and services with wearable devices and integrated digital transformation platforms, life insurers can become part of a strong ecosystem that magnifies their reach and appeal. In some ways, the sky is the limit when it comes to ecosystems.

Sixty-one (61) percent of insurers are exploring the possibility of offering non-insurance products and services via ecosystems.

Stronger Brand and Customer Retention1600_1066_72

Increased (and of course improved) customer engagement unsurprisingly leads to customer referrals. What may be surprising is the percentage by which they increase. According to KBM Group, as the level of engagement increases from “weak” to “strong,” the chance of a life insurance customer recommending his insurer to someone he knows increases by 89 percent.

Customer brand-building works similarly. When engagement increases from a “weak” to a “strong” level, life insurance customers are 85 percent more likely to defend their insurance company.

In terms of retention, sometimes customer engagement prevents simple forgetfulness. Deloitte notes that among lapsed customers, sometimes they “forgot they owned the policy or received incomplete billing information due to limited interaction with the company after purchase. This forgetfulness suggests that simple and understandable follow-up communication underscoring the benefit of life insurance might prevent lapse.”

To learn more about customer engagement for life insurers, including an exciting new partnership that can help you boost engagement, please check out my NEW eBook.

  • affinity marketing
  • customer engagement
  • Customer Experience
  • digitalization
  • insurance ecosystem
  • life insurers
  • millenials
  • personalization
  • retention
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.