DigiSure Blog

Humanizing & Personalizing the Claims Journey

Written by Clark Thyng | Jul 25, 2022 12:30:00 PM

Insurance is a business, so it’s easy to focus on numbers. Behind these numbers, however, are people – and these people are often going through an incredibly challenging and emotional experience. By humanizing and personalizing the claims journey, businesses can improve the claims experience and help boost retention. 

Customer Churn After a Claim

The claim process can be frustrating for claimants. In fact, it’s often the most frustrating aspect of the entire insurance experience. 

To uncover the issues that annoy policyholders the most, Value Penguin examined complaint data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Around two out of three complaints were about claims handling. The top complaint was about unsatisfactory claim settlement offers, while the second most common complaint was about delays in the claims process.

Claims experiences are often negative, and research has shown that one bad experience can spoil an otherwise positive customer relationship. According to the Future of Customer Experience Survey from PwC, 32% of global customers would stop doing business with a brand they love after just one bad experience. In the U.S., 59% of people say they’ll walk away from a company after several bad experiences.

 

Your Platform's Reputation is at Stake

You work hard to make your platform beneficial for both renters and owners. Normally, you succeed in delivering positive experiences, and your platform has earned a good reputation and word-of-mouth advertising as a result.

All of this could change in an instant if claims aren’t managed well.

Let’s say your platform allows people to rent cars from vehicle owners. One of the users has an accident while renting a car. Hey, it’s bound to happen occasionally – what matters is what happens next. If the claim is resolved quickly, your customers will know that they’re in good hands. If the claim is managed badly, your customers might not ever return to your platform. 

They might also spread the word. Thanks to the rise of social media and online reviews, it’s easier than ever for customers to voice their dissatisfaction. According to Review Trackers, reviews can play a big role in shaping consumer behavior, and many customers don’t trust companies with anything less than a four-star rating.

 

Improving the Claims Journey

In a perfect world, claims just wouldn’t happen, and you wouldn’t have to worry about claims handling. Unfortunately, the real world isn’t perfect. Claims happen. Cars get stolen. Accidents happen. Things break. Good screening can help you reduce some of these risks, but you still need insurance coverage for the losses that occur. To prevent these losses from triggering customer churn, you also need to make sure the insurance coverage offers a positive claims journey.

McKinsey & Company dug through claims data to uncover the key factors that drive claimant satisfaction. It probably won’t come as a surprise that claim settlement speed was a top factor. The faster you can resolve a claim, the better. But claimants also cared about employee courtesy, knowledge and professionalism, as well as the ease of communicating and a transparent process. 

 

A Personalized Approach to Claims

Automation can speed up the claims process, and that’s good for everyone involved, but claimants still want to be treated like people, not numbers.

DigiSure understands this. That’s why we give our claims handlers the discretion needed to make human decisions. 

Here are some examples:

  • Our file handlers are trained to speak in the claimant’s voice. Whether the claimant is leans towards formal or casual, we adapt our style to match. We also work in the channel they prefer – we are happy to converse by phone, email or text message.
  • If it makes more sense for a platform to pay a small (yet questionable) claim rather than risk ruining a key relationship, we reach out to our platform partner and involve them in the decision.  
  • If we have to deny the claim, it’s never a hard NO. We simply tell them that based on the facts available today, we’re unable to pay this, and here’s why. If different facts emerge tomorrow, we’re happy to reconsider. We’ve found that explaining decisions can help protect customer relationships.
  • In other cases, we might even be able to provide the information that our investigation uncovered in order to help the claimant figure out their next steps. This is what happened in one claim that was caused by mechanical failure. We shared the service bulletin from manufacturer with instructions for maintenance with the owner. 

Do you want to provide your customers with a personalized claims journey? DigiSure is the partner you need. Let’s chat.