The User Experience Advantage

Clearly, the Internet and all of the new devices associated with it have highlighted the importance of consumers and agents being able to communicate with their carriers as quickly, clearly and directly as possible. But before insurers embark on or continue down the path of creating agency portals to communicate with agents or consumers, they should first take a step back and investigate what some are calling the latest disruptive technology — user experience platform (UXP) technologies.

Upon considering a UXP, insurers may find themselves at a different decision point. That is, rather than deciding between building or buying an agency portal, they may find themselves making a choice between the new UXP approach versus the traditional agency portal. Whatever the ultimate decision, it’s worth the due diligence to explore the options.

The Demand for UXP

For years insurers have focused their technology efforts on systems supporting the core insurance process — quote, policy, billing, claims, etc. As insurers diversify their markets and products, and as their requirements change, they have found that a single vendor or custom application rarely, if ever, satisfies all their needs. As a result, insurers have typically been driven to acquire many different systems to implement and support.  Commonly referred to as “silos on the back end,” this arsenal of disparate technological investments has turned into a maintenance nightmare for most insurers.

In many instances, these investments serve as reliable workhorses behind the scenes, doing the day-to-day and minute-to-minute job of processing the insurer’s business. Existing systems continue to provide trustworthy calculations and outputs. New and shiny systems may be tempting, but most insurers are hesitant to fix what isn’t broken. And yet, time marches on; the evolution of insurance dictates more requirements for products and services.  Given that the next generation of employees, agents, brokers and insureds expect easy and immediate access to information and capabilities, the array of systems and subsequent supporting needs will only grow.

When the Internet was still in its infancy and the insurance industry was still learning its potential, insurers were most interested in using this new medium to reach their agents through Web applications. Thus the agency portal was born. As insurers developed the software to reach the agent channel, technology vendors recognized and capitalized on a new niche market for agency portals. Since that time, however, demand has progressed well beyond what agency portals have to offer.

The Web has become a central source of information and processing for all industries, with the result that potential Internet insurance buyers began to demand a pleasant user experience — including an intuitive look and feel, ease of accessing information and speed. Thus the race was on for insurers to provide an optimal user experience.

But for the insurance industry, it is already challenging enough to maintain multiple back end systems. Now there is a demand for an ideal user experience regardless of the user (buyer, agent, employee, adjuster, vendor, etc.). Insurers were and are still having difficulty keeping up with the functional needs, never mind providing unique experiences to match each user’s preferences.  In addition, new devices such as smart phones and tablets have been embraced, translating to the need to support new browsers. And what about different languages?  

The traditional approach to supporting these needs has been custom development and/or vendor application purchases. But whether an insurer builds or buys a front-end application, it will most likely support only a set of outward-facing distribution requirements such as agency portal or a few browsers — and most often only in English. This approach will not even satisfy the current, much less the future, demands of an insurer’s distribution channel. By the time an insurer gets the solution to market, the requirements have likely already changed. When it comes to the user experience, one can’t work around the technology with manual processing as is often done on the back end. There is a better way to deliver and manage the user experience.

What UXP Can Do

Enter UXP technologies.  This “presentation platform” approach has been available and maturing in the European market for years and is now gaining momentum in North America. Industry analysts are talking more about UXP and the necessity of considering this approach for delivering customized user experiences to distribution channels.  

UXP solutions focus solely on presentation, enabling any core offering to support the latest Web technologies, including Ajax and Widgets. Since the UXP extends and exposes the back office systems to the users, insurers need only worry about the processing portion of their insurance products. UXPs also provide an added level of security by protecting the back end systems from hacking.  Because UXP solutions are the first point of entry for the agent or customer, the solution also needs to be sophisticated enough to ensure protection beyond a simple sign-on.

At the highest level, UXPs should effectively manage the delivery of the user experience regardless of device (Web, tablet, PDA), browser and language. The UXP should also enable delivery of these experiences to multiple user types or groups, giving the insurer the opportunity to keep the process consistent while providing a different look and feel for as many unique sets of users needed. It should be able to ‘white label,’ which describes a process in which a product or service is offered under the brand of one company (a distributor) while a separate company (the producer) actually makes the product or provides the service. For example, if the insurer is interested in finding revenue within a white-label channel, such as selling home insurance through a mortgage broker, the UXP provides the look and feel of the channel, while keeping the functional and back-end connections intact.  

UXPs can be used for modern technology solutions, but they are ideal for extending back-end systems, no matter how old they are. Yes, there are some requirements for integration to occur, but the integration layer of the technology allows for a multitude of ways to access an insurer’s existing environment. UXPs not only access data in existing databases, but they can leverage existing workflow and rules engines such that logic does not have to be recreated or managed in multiple places.

Distribution channels are continually expanding. Last year, the industry focused on developing technology in aid of industry agents and brokers. This year, the industry is bringing insureds into the equation. In time, the industry will want to reach third party administrators and white labels.

It would help customer service representatives (CSRs) to have a single view into the insurers’ disparate back-end systems to better serve their customer. Today CSRs have to enter a policy number repeatedly into a number of front-end applications to gather all the data they need for a customer call. UXPs can provide a single view of the customer and enhance the process of providing better service. Underwriters and brokers also need a single view to service the customer, but they may have additional requirements such as a book of business dashboard, also supported by a UXP.