A relatively recent survey of CIOs and IT architects at leading, global insurance companies by The Boston Consulting Group painted a somewhat disappointing picture of insurers’ overall digital readiness and their consequent ability to facilitate relevant customer engagement.

Only 36% of insurers use a central customer-data repository or CRM application to engage with clients, and only 64% have mobile apps. Such shortcomings limit insurers’ ability to gain a full view of client needs and to provide omni-channel interactions. The average age of core insurance systems in the companies we interviewed and benchmarked was 13 years.

Insurers need a comprehensive digital suite to keep up with their competitors and evolve for the future. Today’s savvy consumers expect a digital experience like the one they enjoy from Amazon or Google. Far too many millennials (also known as “Generation Y”) are either under-insured or uninsured. Convincing young adults with financial debts (in many cases) to purchase insurance is difficult enough, but it becomes nearly impossible if insurance providers don’t fully cater to these “digital natives” – users of digital technology as toddlers – by speaking their language and offering flexible and innovative products (both digital and traditional).

Meanwhile, insurance (particularly life insurance) has one of the lowest levels of relevant “touch” with customers across verticals in the financial services industries. Insurers often contact their customers only if a payment has been missed and these communications are mostly paper-based. Insurers frequently don’t know about their customers’ major life events and miss opportunities to cross- or up-sell. This is a lost opportunity, because it is far more expensive to add a new customer than to retain one.

This low level of contact prevents insurers from obtaining a 360-degree view of their customers. But even with such a view, many carriers wouldn’t be able to fully utilize it because they are lacking a quality business intelligence solution to effectively analyze the information they collect.

The imperatives and business benefits of an innovative digital suite are clear, but why is it important for such a suite to be fully pre-integrated?

To learn the answer to that question, and much more, please download our white paper, A Pre-Integrated Suite is Key for Establishing a Digital Business.

  • business intelligence solution
  • customer touch
  • digital experience
  • digital suite
  • insurers
  • Pre-integrated
  • The Boston Consulting Group
Alex Zukerman

Alex Zukerman Alex Zukerman is Sapiens' Chief Strategy Officer. He rejoined Sapiens in April 2020 with responsibility for formulating overall product, business, and growth strategies. In the past decade, he has fulfilled various management roles at Sapiens, in the areas of product management, product strategy, business development and corporate strategy, with also some time spent at Novidea, a leading Insurtech company, as Chief Revenue Officer. Alex has significant experience in sales, marketing, business development, product management and corporate strategy, with a passion for building growth, developing markets, and propositions, and leading business engagements in complex enterprise software domains, specializing in the insurance and financial services industries.