The past few weeks have introduced an unprecedented black swan event for insurance carriers to contend with, distinct from any they have experienced before. COVID-19 emerged with remarkable speed and has exposed gaps in existing business continuity plans. Companies across financial services have moved aggressively to adapt.
Preserving Communication Channels
A critical set of capabilities to address now is how to maintain appropriate communication channels with customers. One of the striking things many banks and P/C carriers have done is expand and expose digital capabilities to improve the lives of customers and, by extension, solidify the value of these relationships. The value of these moves may be magnified through retention and “halo effect” metrics long into the future even though it may involve some increase in operational risk.
Novarica has seen P/C carriers reach out to customers with notices on how to use websites, links to mobile apps, and reminders of how to gain rapid access to services in uncertain times. Capabilities and messages originally conceived for hurricane and winter storm responses have been repurposed effectively.
Banks have also had strong outbound messaging and have changed business rules to deal with the current circumstances. Wells Fargo, for example, included a sharp increase in the limits for check deposits with their mobile app. Helping customers grapple with routine challenges is vital.
One notable exception to the outbound communication trend comes from life carriers, where outbound messages may include little more than well-worded messages of concern and phone numbers. We are still early in the COVID-19 response, but now would be an excellent time to consider the best approaches for near- term responses. For example, deploying digital resources to come up with appropriate service transactions (e.g., policy loans, other post issue transactions, claims) could be a way to establish connection pathways, even before transaction demand builds to the point of overwhelming remote office staff.
Rethinking the Problem
This digital push applies to many lines of business, if not all. Rethinking the problem as one of electronically capturing requests for transactions can provide the appearance of responsiveness, even if organizations can’t automate transactions fully, while allowing carriers to triage the requests on the back end to even out the flow of work into constrained home office functions.
Many functional areas may find themselves working slowly due to technology or network constraints. They may also find it necessary to spread things out over a longer than traditional, shifted workday to address (for example) residential network brownouts.
Even paper-bound processes could be reconsidered now. Could images (pictures) of documents be submitted by email now to avoid solution constraints (e.g., physical mail, fax machines) that may be disabled by a world of social distancing?
This is an opportunity for carrier IT organizations to demonstrate the ability to create rapid response options to deal with new and emerging problems. If auto factories can be repurposed to manufacture medical devices, then Agile deployment models and strategic partnerships can surely help carriers reimagine how to deliver high-quality service in changed circumstances and heightened customer expectations.
We may all need to think like MacGyver now!
Novarica’s Weekly Virtual Town Hall series offers an important new channel for exchanging ideas and hearing/seeing industry best practices going forward. Registration for the series is now open here.
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