{"id":23347,"date":"2013-10-24T14:27:19","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T04:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=23347"},"modified":"2013-10-29T15:05:21","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T05:05:21","slug":"insurers-must-embrace-digital-to-retain-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2013\/10\/24\/insurers-must-embrace-digital-to-retain-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Insurers Must Embrace Digital Age to Retain Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australia\u2019s insurers need to act fast to improve their digital capabilities if they want to retain customers, a new report has warned.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Ernst &amp; Young (EY) has released the findings of a global study called \u2018Insurance in a digital world\u2019, which show that insurers are failing to engage with digital consumers. According to the survey, 80% of insurers globally reported they don\u2019t view themselves as digital leaders, believing instead that they \u2018only play the digital game\u2019 or are still learning to use digital capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>The study also found that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Only 43% of insurers globally are currently providing mobile quotes, compared to 72% who provide these online<\/li>\n<li>89% of insurance companies admit they do not leverage past interactions when recommending products or services to online customers<\/li>\n<li>Just 1% of insurers currently offer online rewards, discounts, apps or \u2018live\u2019 website assistance<\/li>\n<li>68% of respondents said they spend less than 10% of their business and IT development budget on digital<\/li>\n<li>80% of insurers cited legacy technology constraints as a major impediment to growth<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Despite this, the majority of insurers (81%) believe they could lose competitive advantage if they fail to embrace digital, and 74% feel it may affect their ability to innovate.<\/p>\n<p>Locally, EY said insurance companies were lagging well behind other Australian businesses in terms of digital service.<\/p>\n<h6>Digital is a massive market force dramatically altering consumer expectations<\/h6>\n<p>\u201cWe know that Australians are strong adopters of digital and mobile technology,\u201d explained EY Partner, <strong>Andrew Taggart<\/strong>. \u201cIn fact, EY\u2019s 2012 Global Insurance Customer Survey found Australian customers expected their use of online resources to research insurance products would increase dramatically over the next few years, more than doubling across both general and life insurance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn this environment, the winners will be those insurers who can integrate digital with their existing channels to deliver truly differentiated customer experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report warned that the trend of increasing lapses in the Australian life insurance market was likely to continue if insurers did not improve customer communication and engagement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDigital is a massive market force dramatically altering consumer expectations across all sectors, and insurers cannot afford to be left behind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile many Australian insurers are using digital processes to reduce cost and drive efficiency, they still are missing out on opportunities to have a richer, more meaningful engagement with customers. Customer communication and engagement could be greatly enhanced through better use of social media, digital content, loyalty programs and analytics,\u201d Mr Taggart said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australia\u2019s insurers need to act fast to improve their digital capabilities if they want to retain customers, a new report has warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-general","7":"category-services","8":"category-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}