Going digital makes insurers more consumer-centric

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Going digital will help insurers improve their customer service as well as enhance their effectiveness with streamlined operations.

When companies embrace social media, mobile devices, cloud computing and other digital offerings, they take an "outside-in" approach, focusing on what their customers consciously want instead of what they can offer to their customers, reported Insurance & Technology.

UnitedHealth, for example, has implemented a more outside-in strategy to reach its overall goal of greater health outcomes and affordability. UnitedHealth has established a "very deliberate approach" of making sure it's "an outside-in organization," ensuring that the nation's largest insurer is "fitting into the life of the consumer, not making them fit into us," Tom Paul, chief consumer officer at UnitedHealth, told FierceHealthPayer in a previous interview.

Although few insurers have made the transition to digital, the insurance industry could benefit greatly from such a shift.

"As systemic capabilities emerge that enable the collection and mining of large, disparate, and often unstructured data elements, the insights gained in an environment enriched by big data can have a profound impact on risk models, pricing, underwriting and other core elements of the insurance value chain," Henna Karna, president of risk analytic company Verisk Digital Services, said in the Insurance & Technology article.

As insurers continue to improve their digital engagement with consumers, they must incorporate that approach throughout their entire organizations. "Paramount for digital success is a broad top-down mandate that spans marketing, sales, service, operations, finance and IT," Karna said.

Digital excellence also requires a workforce that has digital experience and training, as well as an organizational commitment to testing and analytics to ensure a measurable return on digital investments, FierceHealthPayer previously reported.

Insurers also must engage consumers more frequently and more personally across multiple digital platforms. Digital engagement, Karna added, should be a collaborative relationship in which consumers provide new ideas and products to help insurers better understand and predict their wants and needs.

To learn more:
- read the Insurance & Technology article

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