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Policyholders surveyed want more online services from insurers: Deloitte


July 19, 2013   by Canadian Underwriter


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Insurance policyholders in Ontario and Quebec want to be able to be able to change their billing information and conduct other transactions online, but respondents to a recent survey say very few insurers let them do this.

Insurers not providing online services customers want

Deloitte LLP of Toronto recently released a report titled “Serve them before you lose them.” It was based on a phone survey of 384 Quebec and 384 Ontario residents who had purchased home or auto insurance, or both, within the last five years.

Of respondents who were younger than 40 and had a post-secondary education, 28% reported they used an online service (such as a general web search, aggregator, insurance company website or social media) to select their insurer.

When post-secondary-educated respondents younger than 40 were asked what they want to do online, the top answer was managing billing and payment information.

This could include making payments and updating their payment schedule — such as switching from a monthly to a bi-monthly billing, said Mark Patterson, manager of technology for Deloitte.

Some respondents wanted to make policy changes and claim inquiries online.

Deloitte suggested in the report that insurance customers want online capabilities to handle “simple tasks” that do not require a live conversation with a representative of the carrier.

But “virtually none” of the respondents’ carriers provided the online services that the respondents wanted, Patterson said.

Deloitte broke out the results by whether the respondents bought their insurance direct, from broker or from an agent.

“The preferences did not vary as far as what people wanted based on their channel of purchase … meaning if you were a broker-based versus direct … it wasn’t statistically different, what you wanted from the carrier,” Patterson said.

He added insurance customers “are starting to get used to the type of online capabilities provided by banks — the insurers’ financial-sector peers … they are expecting the same level of capability, and it’s just not there.”

More than half – 52% – of respondents would switch insurance companies if they could get “greater online capability,” Patterson said, “which should be a frightening number to some of the carriers out there that have no strategy around how they are going to go online or how they are going to serve their policyholders. As the direct carriers get more prevalence, they will naturally provide these capabilities.”

Carriers “lag” in their online offerings and are not meeting the expectations of customers younger than 40 with post-secondary education, according to the report.

“We feel a lot of insurance carriers have looked the other way on providing some of these capabilities, on the assumption that the brokers are responsible for it but I think the overall theme of this survey shows that policyholders have an expectation of this capability,” Patterson said. “Brokers aren’t providing it therefore carriers need to find a way to provide it.”


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