Bain "survey of more than 172,000 retail insurance customers in 20 countries shows that insurers are making progress in delighting customers through digital, but customers using only digital channels still give their insurers lower loyalty scores than those using both digital and traditional channels."

That's a lesson proved by insurers that have embraced digitalisation to automate the trivial and let claims handlers spend more time on enhancing customer relationship. The result is higher satisfaction as measured by NPS with 

  • faster settlement
  • more choice (change cover on the fly, mitigate risk and when required choose between cash, repair/replace with top call suppliers or use their own supplier) 
  • more engagement (self-serve).

Even if the policy did not cover the claim, the insurer can offer a service and take the opportunity to add the missing cover. That's why pure automation is a red herring- it suits a minimal service/no customer relationship model. Not a long-term customer relationship.

This is what customers want in a connected world increasingly dominated by products as a service.

Cover for the individual holiday or flight, the individual drone flight, the airbnb stay, the autonomous car trip, taking personal belongings on new activities.

To be able to offer these new products alongside traditional products, insurers must take advantage of real-time data. They need more than just ecosystems covering connected customers, homes, drones, vehicles, pets etc.

They need digitalisation of the complete value chain from Policy to Settlement across all products, services and regions.

How to achieve this? See "How to make insurance sexy?"