The inability to innovate is a death sentence for any company in the 21st century. This much is especially true in the case of life insurance providers, as they must cultivate exact conditions to continue growing in the modern age.
To get ahead of its competitors in this industry, a life insurance company must be able to attract new customers by empowering their agents and creating inventive new products that are also compliant with ever-evolving state, federal, and international regulations.
Unfortunately, many providers are still making use of antiquated legacy systems and outdated processes. These only bog them down in a world that is becoming more fast-paced and increasingly connected by the minute.
Embracing modern digital solutions and state-of-the-art life insurance software can help your enterprise accelerate product development, become more customer conscious, and meet even the most challenging market demands. However, the sheer variety of software products and suites available in the market for life insurers can make it difficult to determine which one is the right fit for your business. To help you in your search, here are three crucial features that you should look for in a competent life insurance software:
User-Friendly Customer Interface
Millennials are currently the largest, most educated, and most influential demographic in the United States. They are now beginning to move into their prime earning years and will soon be overtaking baby boomers as the world’s biggest spenders in just a few short years.
Unfortunately for the insurance industry, millennials are also the generation most likely to be actively disengaged from their primary insurance providers. According to an article from IBM, 20- and 30-somethings are purchasing smaller and fewer life insurance policies and annuities. In addition to not viewing insurance as a primary concern, many are confused about policy specifics and find the process of getting a policy to be too troublesome and complex. These are all challenges that the industry must overcome if they hope to capture the interest of this significant slice of the market.
Devising a life insurance solution that appeals to this particular demographic also involves taking a look at the average millennial and determining their consumer profile. More than 85 percent of them own smartphones and tend to interact with their devices more than they do with people. Values that guide their decisions primarily include those that have to do with freedom of choice and flexibility. They prefer to manage their own transactions and would rather seek information about new products and potential purchases on their own rather than seek the guidance of an advisor.
Knowing all of this, it’s in your business’ best interests to invest in a life insurance system that employs an easy-to-use customer interface. Putting all of the information at your customers’ fingertips allows them to do their own research about your products, put in their own applications, and receive instant feedback—all without the aid of an agent.
Rules-Driven Policy Administration
Life insurance innovation involves more than making an attractive app and calling it a day. An impressive user interface doesn’t offer much value by itself; it needs to be backed by digital processes that improve the customer experience while making it easier for insurers to provide your company’s services.
That said, you’ll want a rules-based system that consolidates all of the legacy IT system processes that your company uses to manage life, annuity, and group insurance into a single platform. This not only promises simplicity and efficiency but also a significant reduction in operational costs. It should employ a high-performance, the scalable rules engine that can combine and customize templates for common life insurance products with prebuilt insurance business components and life insurance features. All these characteristics will allow you to more quickly develop and bring new products to the market without sacrificing compliance.
Data Analytics
By now, it should be patently clear to companies that knowing how to collect, understand, and harness data in a meaningful way is an intrinsic part of doing business in the 21st century. Life insurance digital transformation also relies on data analytics. Indeed, the ability to spot emerging trends and uncover previously hidden patterns can prove invaluable to providers looking to edge ahead in the industry.
A system that allows your company to compile and analyze both structured and unstructured data will greatly improve your business decision making with reduced implementation times and near-instantaneous creation of company-specific insights. It will also allow you to keep an eye on both compliance and operations, thus helping to mitigate business risks. Finally, it can aggregate policy and claims data for better end-to-end analysis and visibility.
When choosing a life insurance software solution for your company, keep these factors in mind. That way, you can bring your business into the 21st century and become a competitive force in the industry. To ensure success, digitize it from the inside-out with a product that makes use of best-in-class technology while keeping the customer experience at the forefront of your efforts.