March 2021 – Agent and customer self-service and digital premium payments are growing, but are not yet ubiquitous in insurance, especially in complex lines. A majority of personal lines and small commercial insurers report that most of their agent new business transactions happen via self-service. Adoption rates in other lines are much lower. Meanwhile, digital payments are on the rise across the industry.

This report tracks self-service and digital premium payment adoption rates for agents and policyholders across seven different property/casualty and life/annuity lines of business.

Key Points and Findings

• Individually focused lines of business have the highest self-service rates. Transaction efficiency and individual policyholder experience are key for lines with low premium values.
• Specialty, large commercial, and workers’ comp have higher post-issue self-service rates. It’s still common to send applications via email, but portals are increasingly used for service.
• Digital premium payments have the potential to be a differentiator. Most insurers have digitized payments to some extent, but many only do so in some cases.