Insurers Face Uphill Battle in Delivering Seamless Digital Customer Journeys, Report Shows

Deficits influencing the level of satisfaction reported by customers

According to a new survey by J.D. Power, many insurers are still facing challenges in providing a smooth digital experience to their consumers. This is despite the growing importance of digital channels in maintaining customer happiness.

In the last two years, customers have seen an increase in the average time it takes to fix their cars—now more than 23 days—and noticed an increase in the average time it takes to fix their homes. According to J.D. Power’s 2023 U.S. Claims Digital Experience Study, insurers should make more efforts to manage client expectations.

The study did find that overall customer satisfaction dropped three points from 2022 to 854 (on a 1,000-point scale), suggesting that many insurers are still struggling to provide smooth digital experiences.

According to Mark Garrett, director of global insurance intelligence at J.D. Power, “despite longer repair cycle times than ever before, customers become more satisfied the more insurers can do to manage expectations, keep customers updated, and make it easy for them to manage the claims process without a lot of effort.” This finding is consistent across all of J.D. Power’s insurance claims experience studies.

Many insurers fail to live up to their customers’ expectations that digital solutions will streamline processes and keep them informed every step of the way during their claim. Among consumers, just 41% “fully agree” that both expectations were satisfied. There are still some hiccups on the digital path, whether you’re filing a claim, uploading images, or corresponding with claims staff. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that a mere 35% of clients rated the estimating procedure as “extremely easy.”

When these things went well, the study showed that customers were much happier as a result.

“Insurers can greatly enhance that experience without significantly raising customer service costs through digital communications such as personalised text messages, status updates via mobile apps, and reading estimate guides,” J.D. Power stated. Nevertheless, a significant number of consumers insist on calling in order to obtain a status update, which frequently leads to them having to repeat themselves to a representative. The entire client experience is badly impacted by this.
The digital experiences of P&C insurance clients during the claims process were reviewed in the survey, which is currently in its fourth year. It looked at the practical features of desktop websites, mobile web pages, and mobile apps from the perspectives of aesthetics, information clarity, navigation, and service range.

The study’s main takeaways are:

Even after receiving a digital update, one-third of claimants still felt the need to contact their insurer: When claimants got a comprehensive update through email, text, or mobile app, J.D. Power found that customer satisfaction with the digital claims experience was at its peak. Nonetheless, a third of people who took the study felt the need to get in touch with their insurance for further clarification. Their overall happiness dropped by 78 points because of this. Customers who found the claim reporting, estimating, and settlement processes to be “very easy” were the most satisfied (948 out of 1000), and 86% of those customers said they will renew their policy without hesitation. Out of 799 people who felt the processes were difficult, 41% expressed pleasure and 41% indicated they would renew their policy without hesitation.
Almost no insurance companies provided customers with a fully digital experience: Although the majority of respondents expressed satisfaction with their insurer’s digital tools offering some kind of digital experience, a small percentage of respondents (35%) stated that their insurer is fulfilling the benchmark in three areas: claims process efficiency, customer information retention, and phone call reduction.
Customers are less satisfied as a result of repeated requests for photos and information: Out of 875 customers, 58% were satisfied because they only had to submit images of their damaged stuff once. But when they had to submit twice, their score plummeted to 837, and when they had to submit three times or more, their score plummeted to 806.
Home and vehicle insurance policyholders who made a claim during the past year provided the data for the study, which drew from 3,184 replies.

Customer satisfaction with vehicle insurers hit new lows, according to a J.D. Power report published this summer.

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