High-touch brands and industries have led consumers to expect that they can interact with brands whenever they want, however they want. These omni-channel expectations have become especially difficult for insurers, many of whom were already lagging other industries in terms of digital and self-service capabilities. 

Every brand touchpoint that insurance carriers offer can serve as both an opportunity and a risk—while positive interactions will build customer relationships and build trust, a subpar experience can have the opposite effect. Journey mapping is often the first step insurers take in engineering these experiences. 

Journey maps identify, visualize and describe every single brand touchpoint, including getting a quote, filing a claim, making a policy change and paying a bill. In a sense, they serve as a guide for marketers to build out an omni-channel experience. They can help identify gaps in the experience as well as find critical moments for consumers, whether rational or emotional. Successful journey mapping can help drive customer engagement, loyalty and trust, which boosts an insurer’s image and the bottom line. 

Making Journey Maps That Matter

Journey maps can also allow insurers to visualize user experiences over a particular time period. While customers may be the group that come to mind for most marketers, insurance organizations should also be mindful of the agent and employee experience. Some journey maps focus on all three groups at once. 

As with any new project, the best journey maps require structure. Organizations need to establish a clear framework, set of goals and defined scope for journey maps. This is especially important as journey maps can serve as a common point of reference for teams all across an insurer, including product teams, underwriting, operations, data science and marketing. Each department has a unique view of the customer journey and can identify gaps that other teams might not notice. 

Companies that have successfully generated an outside-in journey map standardized guiding principles across the organization, got feedback from distribution partners and had executive sponsors offering governance. Journey mapping is an iterative process, so the more involvement from varying departments across an insurer, the better. 

See also: COVID: Agents’ Chance to Rethink Insurance

What Goes on a Journey Map?

Not every journey map will be composed of the same elements, just as not every insurer has the same customer touchpoints. The format of a journey map depends on what business problems an insurer needs to address and which teams are involved. There are some commonalities, however. 

Most journey maps include some of the following features:

• The journey’s stages
• The steps of each stage 
• Actors and personas 
• Triggers 
• List of challenges and perceived obstacles 
• Brand touchpoints 
• Data and analytics requirements

The team in charge of designing a journey map analyzes every stage of the journey from a customer perspective. What is the customer thinking, feeling or experiencing along the way? Pinpointing specific moments of excitement or frustration for customers is pivotal if an insurer wants to generate an outside-in picture of their customer journey. 

Above all, journey mapping should be founded on the principles noted earlier. There should be cross-departmental governance to ensure engagement and a customer focus. Insurers should also be sure to establish a measurement framework with stated key performance indicators (KPIs) describing success along the customer journey.

KPIs commonly include metrics such as customer satisfaction survey scores, behavior metrics like time to completion and call-center volume relative to digital. The scope of the project should remain fixed on the customer journey to ensure the story line feels realistic and to keep progress on track. 

Journey mapping alone cannot mitigate the challenges of creating an engaging customer experience, but they are a powerful tool insurers can use as part of a larger strategy. Often, the collaboration involved in creating a journey map is just as important as the map itself.

To learn more about the components of a journey map and how to launch a successful journey mapping project, read Novarica’s full report, Customer Journey Mapping: Key Issues and Best Practices.

As captive insurance agencies grapple with increasing online competition and growing product commoditization, they are constantly looking for any competitive edge they can get.

One advantage many captive insurance carriers overlook is connected to what may seem like a disadvantage —  consumer preference for online research. When a consumer searches for products or services, the consumer typically starts with an online search, and the insurance industry is no exception. In fact, research from PWC found that 71% of consumers use some form of digital research before buying insurance (e.g., price comparison or social media). 

Where the local captive agent wins is in physical proximity to nearby consumers. On Google and other popular search engines, this is the most important local SEO (search engine optimization) ranking factor. Therefore, in a search-driven world, carriers with a large network of local agents near millions of potential insurance buyers have a major advantage over online-only carriers, which cannot rank in local search. 

How Local SEO Drives Leads for Local Agents

The first thing most consumers see when performing searches, after a few paid ads, is the top three organic results from nearby businesses: referred to as the Google 3-Pack. Local agents should make every effort to show up in the Google 3-Pack as this coveted real estate drives the most traffic and calls. In fact, a recent study of billions of search results found that 55% of Google search users click on one of the first three organic search results. 

This being the case, the savviest insurance carriers focus on growing their share of voice for the proximity discovery keywords that matter most - i.e., "best car insurance" or "affordable car insurance." More specifically, they are focused on Google, which accounts for  94% of the mobile search market in the U.S.

Factors That Drive Local SEO Ranking

To increase organic search rank for important keywords like "auto insurance" and improve how frequently local agents appear in the Google 3-Pack, carriers need to optimize for the five known controllable signals that determine local search rankings via a process called Proximity Search Optimization (PSO). Effective PSO requires managing the five known signals: 

1. Local Listing Accuracy — information accuracy and consistency across all networks not only improves proximity search rank, it also helps customers find businesses in the real world.
2. Local Profile Completeness — ensuring all applicable fields are filled out on each discovery network gives customers a more complete picture of your business, while improving proximity search rank.
3. Ratings and Reviews — maintaining high customer rating scores and being responsive to reviews not only affects proximity search rank, it also influences buyers’ decisions on which business to choose.
4. Local Facebook Publishing Activity — frequent posts containing important keywords can improve your proximity search rank and help brands drive local community connections.
5. On-Page Local SEO — alignment with Google’s assessment of webpage quality helps determine where those pages and the associated listings rank in local search.

See also: 5 Ways Tech Can Draw Young Talent

Best Practices to Win in Local Search

Recently, my company, MomentFeed, conducted an audit of the top six captive insurance carriers to see how they perform against the five known PSO signals. Given the industry’s marketing maturity, we were surprised to find unimpressive performance on these metrics. 

The good news: There is a huge opportunity for any captive insurance carrier willing to invest in a more comprehensive local search strategy. With even a small improvement, any carrier can dominate in local SEO. Here are some important tips for optimizing for proximity search: 

1. Make sure your listing data is accurate and up-to-date.

This may sound obvious, but with so many pandemic-driven office closures over the last few months, a surprising number of businesses across consumer industries have not kept their listings up to date. Local insurance offices are no exception. The average local insurance carrier was found to have inaccuracies on 55% of its data.

Best practice: Make sure to claim all listings and ensure local listing information is accurate and consistent across the internet. This includes summaries of the business, contact information, address, hours, photos and more. 

2. Make sure all applicable fields are filled out on each discovery network.

When analyzing Google and Facebook, two of the most prominent discovery networks, we found that captive insurance carriers failed to complete 3% to 15% of applicable fields, such as hours and photos. While this may not seem like much, even the slightest margin of error seems to knock carriers out of the Google 3-Pack. Both of the carriers that performed poorly in this category saw a lower number of locations appearing in the Google 3-Pack as compared with others in the study.

Best practice: Review all your Google My Business listings and Facebook pages, and ensure that all fields are filled out. 

3. Reply to most if not all of your reviews.

Over the last decade, online reviews have become a common part of the insurance buyer's journey. Now, reviews are also a major factor for online search ranking, as well; a poor response rate or lower star rating can bump a local agent out of the Google 3-Pack. This means less visibility for insurance agents not focused on this critical metric.

Best practice: Respond to all reviews, both positive and negative within 24 hours. Ideally, maintain a response rate higher than 90% and aim to achieve an average star rating of four or higher across all critical networks. 

4. Post to local social sites at least nine to 10 times a month.

Another way to ensure your agents are visible when local insurance buyers search is through local social media content. Agents who post more frequently to their social media pages are more likely to be successful at reaching local audiences.

Best practice: Local agents should create local social media pages on Facebook and Instagram and post at least nine to 10 times a month. These posts should include geo-tagging using location hashtags like #SantaMonica, #Seattle, #Boston, local photos (note - photos taken with a GPS-enabled device will embed the photo itself with geo-tagging information) and of course the named location tag. Agents should also include keywords that the agent is trying to rank for, i.e., “car insurance” or “affordable insurance.” 

See also: Are Insurers Ready for Voice Search?

5. Optimize your local agent website’s on-page signals in the categories graded by Google.

On-page signals refer to the characteristics of a location’s webpage that help search engines and consumers use the site. Three of the most important website categories that Google grades are: accessibility (ability of the page to be operated by literally anyone); best practices (overall code of health - security, page load time, load without errors, etc.); and SEO (factors that help search engines find and understand the page).

Best practice: You can run a website assessment on your pages through Lighthouse, a free Google plugin, to see how you are performing across the three categories. 

Now that the vast majority of consumers are going online to research insurance options, a comprehensive local SEO strategy is essential to make sure your local agents are showing up in the top three search results. The payoff for agents that get it right is substantial: improved  local marketing performance and a higher volume of interested and engaged prospects that can ultimately lead to more successful customer acquisition.

“It’s only a gimmick.” When I heard myself saying this a few years ago about voice-activated assistants such as Alexa and Google Home, I almost bit my tongue afterward. This was because such arguments were almost always a sure sign of the coming market maturity of a technology, and I was usually accustomed to hearing this from insurance company directors who were well-advanced in their years. That had been the case with PCs, modem-based internet, mobile internet, social media and attention hacking.  

However, despite the boom of useful and not-so-useful digitization initiatives, voice-activated technology is still in its early days. There are a whole series of voice skill products, for example by Aviva, LV and Travelers, but they were unable to appease the many critiques. Many people reacted as I did initially – seeing the products as gimmicks.

It is, of course, true that the number of daily users as well as the number of regularly used voice skills is still relatively low, although this was also true of smartphones 10 years ago. At that time, most people still used mobiles without a touchscreen. Many decision-makers also said that no customer would take out insurance using a mobile. They were wrong. Today, it's normal that insurance policies are taken out online via smartphones or with apps. Why therefore shouldn’t this development also repeat itself in voice technology?

Smartphones and voice-activated technologies do, after all, have one thing in common: They help make work processes easier and faster. It is simply quicker and more convenient to take out insurance with Getsafe or Lemonade by app or with DFV or Ergo using Alexa.

We think that the insurance industry also has to look at selling insurance products via digital language assistants, which is highlighted in the study “Digital Insurance 2018,” conducted by Adcubum. This revealed that almost one in five Germans under 35 years old could envisage taking out an insurance policy using a digital language assistant. Additionally, according to a Statista survey of 2018, the number of people using digital assistants has more than doubled in three years. An increasing number of industries are also discovering the strategic benefits of voice technology – for example, car manufacturers with their own language assistants. Encouraged by this development, insurance companies should incorporate Alexa into their information and contract completion process as quickly as possible.

Until now, very few companies in the sector really offer a fully digitized insurance completion and consultation process, for example with Alexa. These include the insurtech company Deutsche Familienversicherung (DFV). The Frankfurt-based business programmed a skill in 2018 that conducts the consultation dialogue and accesses it via an API interface on the actuarial calculation engine. The skill evaluates the questions and provides the relevant product content, including monthly payments, voice-activated and in real time. In this case, integration in Amazon Echo goes beyond insurance contract completion and includes contract updating and payment handling, reducing call center and back office costs.  

See also: 10 Tips for Moving Online in COVID World

Alongside information, branding and sales, voice skill developers are also working on applications for the use of language assistants in the office, which appeals to brokerage firms. Case workers only need say, “Alexa, please inform the assessor for the Meyer case,” and brokers only need say, “Check status of billing.” This is significantly easier than the tedious battle with painfully complex user interfaces.

Even in the early stages of voice-activated technology and assistant systems, those investing in their development can secure an edge over the competition. Wouldn’t it be good to be among those present at the start of this technology of the future and gain market share? Let us make the most of these opportunities and not miss out on them, as was the case with PC, the internet and social media.

The question of whether schools should reopen has launched a raging controversy around the country, with widely held opinions on both sides. 

Here, in my home state of New Jersey, which was in the epicenter of the pandemic back in April, Gov. Murphy announced that all schools should open with in-person classes capability, but quickly added the parent option for all-remote learning as part of local school flexibility for hybrid approaches. Despite the provision allowing parents to opt for on-line teaching only, several members in the state legislature and several, but not all, leading teacher unions want all schools to remain strictly on-line until at least Oct. 31.

New York’s Gov. Cuomo announced that all schools can reopen, but each school district must submit a reopening plan that includes mandatory masks, social distancing and testing protocols. All teachers are strongly recommended to get tested before school begins. If cases should surge in New York, the state plans will be revisited.    

At the same time, due to surging COVID-19 cases around the country, several other large school districts such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Atlanta and Houston have now announced plans to keep an all-remote choice and have postponed plans for any-in person classes. In addition, there have been large teacher union protests around the country, such as at the statehouse in Michigan. The largest teacher union in Florida has sought an injunction to keep schools closed. Elsewhere around the country, teacher unions are considering safety strikes, and there are widespread reports of veteran teachers retiring or quitting outright. In Georgia, video of high school students with crowded hallways and no masks went viral, resulting in six students and three staff members now testing positive for COVID-19. This certainly was not the way to start the school year.

Governors and state education and health officials must make anguishing decisions in the next few weeks, or even days, to address understandable fears that may or may not hold up to the facts. For example, a recent joint study by the Public Health Agency of Sweden and the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare found no measurable difference in the number of COVID-19 cases among children in Sweden, where schools remained open during the pandemic, and Finland, where the schools remained closed. In Japan, when schools reopened after the state of emergency was lifted in May, schools initially used a hybrid approach of alternating days, but now things are fairly back to normal, but with masks, social distancing, washing hands and daily temperature checks all in place.

Added support for opening schools safely includes the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine, who suggested school districts should prioritize opening schools safely, especially among K- 5 and special needs students. Dr. Anthony Fauci, widely considered to be among the top infection control experts in the world, recently said, “The unintended, ripple-effect, downstream consequences of keeping children out of school can be profound.”  

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also released Resources on Safely Reopening Schools, which emphasized the importance of a safe strategy. The CDC director said in a press release, “School closures have disrupted normal ways of life for you and your children, and they have had negative consequences on our youth.” However, the CDC said schools should employ strategies that best match local conditions that are both practical and workable with a motto of Communicate, Educate and Reinforce. The CDC goes on to say there needs to be an overall emphasis on the social, emotional and mental health needs of children, while carefully watching local community transmission rates. 

The CDC said that early reports and data appear to suggest that children are at a lower risk compared with adults from COVID-19, and if they do get sick they generally have less serious illness. The CDC reported that, as of July 21, children and adolescents have accounted for 6.6% of cases and fewer than 0.1% of deaths in the U.S. In addition, initial data suggests most exposed children were infected by a family member and unlikely to transmit to other students. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics just announced a 40% increase in COVID-19 cases among children the last two weeks of July, mainly due to the recent surge of cases in the West and South.

All these leading medical experts strongly note that schools will not be the same, and the only way to even consider reopening school is by using significant mitigation strategies such as: daily temperature checks of students, teachers and staff; daily symptom checks; requiring all sick students and staff to remain home; requiring masks, social distancing, hand hygiene, cleaning, disinfection and flexible hybrid reopening plans such as allowing parents the choice of all or partial online teaching. There is no shortage of other strategies such as ending lunch in the cafeteria, social distance requirements on school buses and the use of outdoor tents for classrooms when workable.

Various projections based on local school board surveys in New Jersey of how many parents will opt to keep their children home from school run between 20% and 70%. Such a hybrid approach will help to keep class size down to better allow for social distancing for those who do attend school. New Jersey announced that parents will have the choice for all online learning, and most schools are putting together various hybrid plans, such as alternating in school and online learning on a weekly basis. This hybrid plan was considered by many school officials as a game changer to allow schools to open more safely.

National surveys have reported one in five teachers do not plan to return to teaching and will quit or retire. This is beyond troubling, but at the same time completely understandable for teachers with underlying medical conditions that put them at much higher risk. However, I implore schools and teachers to be more creative and allow these high-risk teachers to teach the online classes only, until the infection rate in their area is low and while the world awaits a proven and safe COVID-19 vaccine that just may be available in early 2021 based on very promising research and clinical trials now fully underway. 

The CDC and all public health officials support mandating masks for teachers, administrators and staff and highly recommend that children in school must also be required to wear masks. This is going to be incredibly challenging, and the survey found nine out of 10 teachers agree because children will be children, and it will be difficult to constantly check that masks are on properly. The CDC highly recommends parents begin student mask training and mask endurance because many may be wearing masks now, but not for extended periods. A great idea to get children on board is to make their mask “cool.” That is, use stickers or other ways to make it fun to wear and emphasize that many superheroes wear masks. 

See also: What COVID and 43 Years Taught Me

The decision on when and how to reopen schools safely must be based on facts and local infection rates and other factors. A zero-risk world does not exist, but creative and hybrid strategies can greatly reduce risks for children and their families, along with the teachers, administrators and staff. I know some people will say that this is easy for me to say because they think I am not a teacher. In fact, I teach math to K-5 children, and I plan on returning to in-person teaching this fall when safeguards are all in place.

A very recent poll of parents here in New Jersey was conducted by Farleigh Dickinson University and showed how sharply divided parents currently are, with 46% open to returning their children if protective measure are in place and 42% planning on keeping their children at home until proven treatments and a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine becomes available. 

What I found deeply troubling in this poll is the continuing apprehension of vaccinations by parents even if one is approved after scientific, controlled studies prove successful. The survey found 50% of parents believe that, when a proven COVID-19 vaccine becomes widely available, it should be mandatory for children before they are allowed to go back to school, while 44% believe it should be a “personal choice.” This is a perfect example of the damage caused by the anti-vaccination movement, which the World Health Organization declared in 2019 as one of the top public health threats around the world. 

Before parents and schools can even consider various safe return-to-school protocols, a major hidden consequence of COVID-19 fears must be addressed. Due to the pandemic, many parents are avoiding going to doctors' offices and not getting their children wellness exams and routine vaccinations. Parents, schools and state public health officials, including governors, need to address this potential nightmare through a public education campaign. The need to protect children from COVID-19 does not eliminate the need to immunize them against serious childhood diseases like the measles, mumps, chicken pox and whooping cough

The National Foundation of Infectious Diseases has reported a 50% decline in well-child visits since the beginning of the pandemic. In response to this alarming trend, the World Health Organization just said, “The avoidable suffering and death caused by children missing out on routine immunizations could be far greater than COVID-19 itself.”

The local strategies required to open schools must be based on facts and science and include the verification that children have met the mandated requirement of what should be routine vaccinations before returning to school. In addition, now would also be the perfect time to require the flu shot for children, teachers and staff. Each year, the flu kills tens of thousands of people in the U.S.  The last thing in the world a child, staff member or teacher needs is to have the flu and COVID-19. The combined illness could be devastating, at best, if not outright deadly. The American Academy of Pediatrics noted that anything that taxes your immune system, such as the flu, would put a person at much higher risk.

The decision of how and when to reopen schools is a multifaceted dilemma and should be based on facts, science and the local situation. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical experts supports reopening schools for the overall wellbeing and learning experience for the children, they stress that a one- size-fits-all strategy is not appropriate. A hybrid approach is the leading strategy currently, with a combination of on-line and in-class curriculum, in conjunction with an array of safe practices, including mandating routine vaccinations for children and the flu shot for all, except in very rare medical cases, such as children with an underlying autoimmune disease certified by a physician.

A hospital in Boston is now supplying a mobile van to come to people’s homes to provide children their needed vaccinations. Now, that is what I am talking about. One thing for sure is politics should play zero role in opening schools on either side of this incredibly critical issue.

Disasters – such as pandemics – have a way of revealing the need for change. That’s why digital transformation has advanced five years in about eight weeks. Businesses of all sizes have embraced digital sales and service, and, due to lockdowns, just about everyone has experienced the increased need for digital engagement, with expectations only rising. 

For P&C insurance, the pandemic has brought digital strategies and investments into sharp focus and revealed, in real time, which digital investments are delivering high value, and which are not. It has also exposed our gaps and elevated capabilities that were once perceived as less important to higher levels of significance. 

SMA’s latest market pulse research on the impact of COVID-19 and our ongoing advisory work with insurers have revealed that this pandemic has reshaped and shifted digital investment priorities. 

Three “must have” investments have emerged as focus areas this year: Digital Platforms, Digital Payments and Digital Communications.

Given the shift in focus, SMA has just published reports on these three critical areas and completed the Insights to Solution Series, which are virtual events showcasing strategic insights, panel discussions and virtual tours by leading solution providers across all three areas.

Digital Platforms. It is essential to accelerate the digital enablement of sales and service capabilities for policyholders and agents/brokers with a modern platform and connections to core systems. These platforms enable new servicing, sales automation and straight-through processing (STP) by leveraging transformational technologies like AI, bots, IoT and wearables. 

Digital Payments. There is a renewed urgency to transform inbound and outbound payments by moving away from physical paper checks and payments and creating digital experiences and virtual digital payment capabilities. Digital payments are crucial to delivering a highly tailored customer experience as well as improved operational performance.

Digital Communications. Digital interaction and delivery for communications with prospects, agents and policyholders are increasingly essential. This includes digital communication tools like chatbots, voice and business texting, and the tools to capture, create and manage forms, documents, correspondence and messages to support interactions.

See also: Will COVID-19 Be Digital Tipping Point?

2021 may paint an entirely different picture, but, for now, P&C insurer plans are full steam ahead with digital transformation investments.

Many years ago, when I watched "Biloxi Blues," the Neil Simon play about a young draftee suffering through basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi, I laughed hard at the way actor Matthew Broderick whined the line, "Man, it's hot. It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot."

I'm not laughing now. I can't swear that Tarzan couldn't take the "kind of hot" we're experiencing in California, but I'm certainly struggling. The high temperatures in the Central Valley have exceeded 110 for several days now and are expected to be between 100 and 110 for as far as the eye can see on weather forecasts. Even in the Lake Tahoe area, where I've spent many a pleasant summer, temperatures are so high and wood so dry that four fires have produced the Reno, Nev., weather station's first report of fire tornados -- the fires literally produced tornados of flame and laid waste to tens of thousands of acres.

What's next? Sharknados? And what, if anything, can we do?

Well, there certainly doesn't seem to be a break coming any time soon, and not just in California. While I whine about highs of maybe 113 in Northern California and the rolling brownouts and blackouts, Death Valley recorded 130 degrees down south, thought to be the world's highest temperature since 1931, and forecasts are for the heat wave to be unrelenting. Meanwhile, in Iowa, a derecho -- a wide line of fast-moving storms characterized by winds that can reach hurricane force, by tornados and by heavy rains -- devastated 12.4 million acres of soybeans and corn early last week. A city council member in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said trees are piled six to 10 feet high along streets -- "It's like driving through a tunnel of green." The East Coast is facing its 11th named tropical storm so far this year, forming in the Atlantic, even though the 11th storm usually isn't named until well into October. (Storms are named when they reach a certain threat level.)

While the U.S. gets most of the focus just now, Siberia has had a crazy heat wave of its own. A town named Verkhoyansk just recorded a temperature of 100 degrees. That may not seem that extreme, but the town is in the Arctic Circle. It was previously known for tying the lowest temperature on record, at minus-90.

You can decide for yourself just how severe climate change will be and how quickly it will occur, but trend lines on heat certainly suggest to me that this won't be the last summer when I complain about Tarzan-level heat and when my friends on the East Coast have to batten down the hatches in the face of a string of hurricanes.

The only thing I know to suggest is to prepare. We had authors predicting a bad hurricane season last spring, such as in this article from May 10. We've also published extensively on better ways to understand wildfire risk, including in a three-part series whose first piece, dated July 6. The articles describe what seems to be a promising way to correlate various risks, even when the areas involved are not near each other.

I'd love to be able to offer ways to head off the sort of devastation that, say, Iowans are facing, but I don't imagine it'd do much good for me to tell the sun not to shine and the winds not to blow. So, better preparation is about all we can do for now.

The sorts of improvements in modeling described in those articles on hurricanes and wildfires can help. So can better sensors. Tiny, inexpensive weather stations dotting the countryside might pick up the signs of a derecho or other major storm faster than we can now.

Technology is also starting to help us react faster once tragedy strikes. Reports from the devastation in Iowa came in quickly, thanks to aerial surveys by drones, so recovery can started promptly. Parametric insurance policies or provisions written into standard policies can make a certain percentage of a claim available almost immediately, helping the insured get back on his or her feet faster.

There are even the beginnings of hope on prevention. Strings of small satellites that various companies are launching will monitor the Earth in real time and spot blazes when they are far smaller than most are when identified now. But that's mostly theory at this point. It'll take some time to implement.

This will be a slog. We'll do our best to keep you updated on promising developments and hope you'll pass along any ideas you have.

In the meantime, stay cool, stay dry and stay away from those fire tornados.

Paul

P.S. Here are the six articles I'd like to highlight from the past week:

COVID: Chance to Rethink Workers Comp

As insurers worry that the pandemic is depressing premiums, here is a way to rethink workers' comp -- plus two entirely new product ideas.

Why COVID-19 Must Accelerate Change

According to a survey, insurers are 50% behind consumer demand for service via online chat and 25% behind on service via website.

COVID-19 Sparks Revolution in Claims

The pandemic has pushed workers' comp toward telehealth, which is revolutionizing the claims process in four key ways.

5 Hurdles to Insurtech Success

Here are five things that stand between insurtechs and success -- but, please note, your mileage may vary.

Watch for This 1 Word on Customer Needs

Use this simple technique to uncover customer needs, drive innovation in customer experience and keep your business ahead of the curve.

An Inconvenient Sales Truth

It is no longer enough to show up with a fancy spreadsheet, promises of better service and a capabilities presentation.

Some of the most brilliant insights about your customers’ unmet needs can be found right under your “no’s.”

That’s a key lesson to be learned from companies that excel in customer experience (CX), a hallmark of which is that they’re really good at understanding the people they serve. Not just basic demographic details and personal preferences (though they're important). These companies also possess keen insight into their customers’ needs, wants and aspirations.

That insight helps drive smart, customer-centric innovation, which enables these firms to regularly deploy small improvements in the customer experience, as well as bigger, game-changing advancements. They have a skill that is particularly valuable during disruptive periods (such as recessions and pandemics), when customer needs are quickly evolving.

Many of these growth-fueling innovations are triggered when companies uncover unmet customer needs, which is essentially the holy grail of market research. Figure out how to address a customer need that others have yet to identify, and you’ll be in a market-leading position.

Organizations collectively spend tens of billions of dollars each year on market research, much of it focused on revealing overt and latent customer needs. While such investments can be valuable, they deserve to be supplemented with other intelligence-gathering techniques, some of which are decidedly low-cost.

One such example is an approach that your organization can employ any day of the week. All it involves is listening for one simple word whenever you, or anyone on your team, is interacting with prospects and customers. That word is “no.”

When someone in your organization has to utter the word “no” in response to a customer request (or uses any similar, more diplomatic term), it’s a signal that the customer might have a legitimate need that your business cannot currently satisfy.

Imagine all the questions that your sales representatives, service staff, billing specialists or any other employee fields where they have to tell the customer “no.”

Can your product do [x]? Can I fill out those forms electronically? Can I schedule an appointment online? Do you offer contactless pick-up and return? Can I switch to a different payment schedule? Can I control that device with my phone? Does it come in a smaller size? Is there a way I can track this order? Can you text me when the technician is on his way? Is there a trial so I can test out your service before buying?

At a lot of companies, customer questions that can’t be answered in the affirmative basically turn into “shoulder shrug” moments. Employees say “no” to the customer, resign themselves to being somewhat unhelpful and then move on to the next inquiry.

But imagine if employees took careful note of every time they had to say “no” to the customer, every time they had to acknowledge that they (or the product they were selling/servicing) couldn’t accommodate the customer’s need.

And then imagine that employees had a regular forum where those “stories of no” could be shared with management, where themes could be spotted, where unmet customer needs could be identified and where remedial innovation could be spurred.

See also: COVID: Agents’ Chance to Rethink Insurance

In practice, this could be as simple as a supervisor periodically asking staff at the end of the day to describe situations where they had to say “no” to a customer. Or it could be more sophisticated, with employees actually recording that information in a centralized database that management then reviews.

The point is that with every no, there’s a chance to dive a bit deeper – to not just deliver the customer experience, but to improve it. To not just help one customer, but all customers. To question the status quo, and re-imagine how the experience could be wholly redesigned, or even just tweaked, to better accommodate an apparent customer need.

Instill the discipline in your organization to take this extra step, and over time it will help reveal unmet customer needs that can drive meaningful CX improvements and innovations. All without the expense of a big market research project.

It can be quite a challenge to create and maintain a competitively differentiated customer experience. To make that endeavor a little easier, however, just remember to “follow your no’s.”

This article can originally be found here.

When I closed my agency offices at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, right away my independent agency team (now working remotely) got an influx of calls, emails and texts from clients about their coverages and concerns related to the lockdown. The team also began to contact customers with group emails through our agency management system as well as one-on-one phone calls, emails and texts.

The first call I got was from the owner of a private day care center in Texas asking what coverage would pay for the center’s loss of income. After quickly reviewing the policy coverages and exclusions, I was able to explain how business interruption coverage would and would not apply in light of a pandemic. I was able to refer my client to the exclusions on the policy forms.

Sounds routine. But it would never have been possible without the education and experience I’ve had over the 43 years of my insurance career. I never sought education specifically to help my agency survive a pandemic, that’s for sure! But I’ve always wanted to educate myself as much as possible on product knowledge, sales, customer service and agency management to be prepared for whatever happens.

This crisis is proof positive of the value of professional education. Knowledge matters. It can only be acquired by experience and education — nothing else. And the lockdown shows, every day, how flexibility is so vital. The business “reflexes” that came out during coronavirus are only possible through “reps” during not-quite-so-hectic times. 

I feel like 43 years in the industry prepared me to thrive during the crisis — and also helped me better position my agency for the future. 

Learn From What Just Happened

This year has shown us that things can change in a hurry. We as insurance professionals are responsible for helping people adapt, respond and recover. 

Even though I had a lot of industry experience going into the pandemic, I soon realized I had to apply what I know in new ways — and keep learning. That’s my biggest takeaway for the future: How can I best blend my experience “B.C.” (before crisis) with what happened “D.C.” (during crisis) so my agency is better off “A.D.” (after disruption)? My safety and comfort depend on getting this right, as do my family, my agency team and my clients.

Help Is a Two-Way Street

My agency is centered in the small town of White House, Tenn., with about 18,000 population. You might expect it’s an ultra-local business with little interest in serving customers outside our geographic area. Not so. 

In fact, once the first rush of pandemic client communications was under our belt, my agency team started fielding queries from the customers of other agencies that weren’t answering their calls. We obliged, but it left me wondering why agency owners would let their customers and their business flounder.

See also: Step 1 to Your After-COVID Future

During the health crisis, some areas have fared poorly while others have had no shortages of supplies, masks and so on. People in one area look to those in another for help.

The same is true for insurance knowledge. Insurance professionals must step up no matter where help is needed. It’s not good enough to hunker down and hope the trouble passes over your agency’s neighborhood. A crisis is a growth opportunity, one where the most knowledgeable, responsive and flexible insurance professionals win the day.

Using Technology to Serve the Customer and Ourselves

Much is said about how technology has changed the industry. I’ve seen my share of changes, some of which were hard.

Technology by itself should not be the driver of change. Leaders’ attention to customer experience and customer value must be the driver. And these kinds of changes are just starting.

As an example, I believe that insurance professionals should be prepared to use whatever communication channel a client or prospect prefers. Our experience throughout the pandemic has confirmed that text messaging is only going to grow in importance for customers. Other communication channels may ebb and flow.

Technology also enables independent agencies to close or reduce office space in favor of remote work over the long term, not just through this crisis. Tools like video calls have been a key part of that transition, but I’m keenly interested of how the entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity in the insurance industry and technology sector will give us even more impressive tools in one, five or 10 years.

Long-Term Rewards of Sales Training

The pandemic has highlighted the value of sales training for client retention at my firm. I’m gratified that my team’s education — from numerous industry groups, including carriers as well as AIMS Society, an educational organization led by agent volunteers — is carrying us through the pandemic.

Case in point: As the effects of the pandemic hit home with our clients, we realized again that empathy, listening and understanding aren’t just nice words. They’re valuable business skills. AIMS Society courses for the Certified Professional Insurance Agent (CPIA) designation include the topic, “how to deliver the bad news.” That comes to the forefront in response to our clients’ questions, when our team was able to provide deep product knowledge while also delivering bad news in sensitive and helpful ways. 

Think of it this way: If a doctor didn't keep updating her knowledge, how would she know how to treat a new symptom? It should be the same for us as agency owners: Prepare for the future through education.

Sales education teaches us what type of salesperson we are. It also teaches us how to determine the individual personalities and work styles of our prospects and clients and the best ways to reach them. I can’t remain in my own comfort zone and work only with people like me (“huggy, huggy people," I call us, "who love to be with people and talk”). My delivery of information should be tailored for the individual client.

Continuing Education, the Underused Resource

There’s a whole realm of valuable education available to the IA channel. But it’s underused. As agency owners, we strive to run better businesses. Everything from human resources to legal to managing people to systems is dynamic. So why aren’t we business owners taking optimum advantage of education? 

Here are the big mountains I need to climb as an agency owner. What are yours?

• Never miss the chance to use change to create new sales opportunities. Education will be the biggest contributor to my future understanding.
• Be able to identify threats. Leaders need to understand and evaluate coming threats and assess how others are adapting.
• Minimize disruption and manage a crisis. There’s nothing that bothers me more than disruption or crisis on the HR side, including employee turnover, so I need better preparation.
• Manage employees effectively. When my agency switched to remote work, team interactions changed in ways I didn’t expect. For example, I realized that face-to-face video meetings had to allow time for some of the casual conversations and catch-up that happened in the office. I’m curious, again, as to what new and emerging opportunities we’ll be able to find.

See also: COVID-19: The Long Slog Ahead

The Critical Question

Will we as independent agents use all our experience (no matter how difficult) going forward? Will we push ourselves to keep our education current and learn to adapt to our customers’ and prospects’ changing needs? If we do, we’ll find a payoff in future situations.

Or are we going to try to forget that this business crisis brought on by the pandemic happened? Hoping it doesn’t happen again isn’t a strategy. Use all you’ve learned, in the past and in the present.

While the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic downturn have prompted consumers to curb their spending, consumers are increasingly mindful of risk and therefore more inclined to purchase insurance. 

A recent survey conducted by Lightico and Sapiens found that a fifth of consumers are exploring purchasing new auto, home and life insurance products amid the pandemic. Those directly affected by the coronavirus – meaning they or someone they knew tested positive – were even more likely to be considering more spending on insurance products. These consumers were 2.3 times as likely to plan on spending more on property and life insurance and 1.8 times as likely to say they would spend more on healthcare and health insurance.

Given that nearly half of consumers in the survey reported that their incomes had plunged by at least 20% since the pandemic started, those figures are remarkable – but for insurers to truly meet the needs of these consumers and stand out from the competition, they must deliver streamlined digital experiences, powered by strong core systems.

Here’s what today’s consumers expect from insurers, and what insurers can do to provide the quality digital journeys that customers crave:

See also: Strategic Planning in the COVID-19 Era

Living in a Digital World

Long before the novel coronavirus outbreak began, consumers were living in a world digitally transformed. Thanks to innovations in e-commerce, content streaming, mobility and beyond, people now enjoy rapid access to consumer goods, groceries, movies, music, car services and much more, all available at their fingertips. 

After months of widespread remote work, millions more now have first-hand experience with a virtually overnight shift in workflows, collaboration and company culture, enabled by innovations in cloud computing, information technology and business software. 

Not surprisingly, 68% of consumers surveyed in the Lightico-Sapiens study indicated that they expect businesses, including insurers, to enhance their capabilities for serving customers remotely. When it comes to purchasing new products and policies, today’s consumers have little patience for analog practices: Three in five consumers surveyed said that they now have less patience for filling out and sending paperwork, and 51% had already e-signed documents within the previous month. 

What Insurers and Carriers Should Do

How satisfied are consumers with insurers’ track record of meeting their expectations for seamless digital experiences? In key areas, insurers are falling well short. According to the survey, insurers are 50% behind consumer demand for online chat servicing and 25% behind demand for website servicing.

The takeaway? While it’s vital for insurers to digitize their business processes and strengthen their core systems, these steps alone won’t suffice to meet the market’s needs. Ramping up online communication capabilities is an absolute must, and insurers can boost the effectiveness of that outreach by getting smart about data.

Robust customer data collection – supported by efficient core systems – yields critical insights for understanding customer behavior, diversifying product offerings and unlocking revenue opportunities. This is especially important amid the pandemic, with the public set to continue practicing some degree of social distancing for the foreseeable future and predictions that COVID-19 will permanently alter consumer behavior. 

Accenture consultancy points to much greater use of digital commerce as one of the most consequential of these changes. While face-to-face sales and customer interactions aren’t going the way of the dinosaurs, insurers seeking to thrive in this new normal must make room for a more prominent role for AI-powered chatbots, personalization and cloud-powered services. Each of these is only possible with a granular understanding of how customers behave, what they want and how insurers can make their offerings meet customers’ needs and expectations.

Necessity, the pandemic has harshly reminded the world, is the mother of invention. For insurers, the crisis has driven home the reality that innovation is a fundamental matter of survival. Through creative partnerships, investments in technology and a commitment to improving customer service, insurers and carriers will propel lasting industry changes and position themselves to meet evolving consumer demands.