Why Insurance Carriers Should Leverage Data & Tech to Enhance the Consumer Experience

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As tech enhancements precipitate ever-increasing amounts of data collection, we ask how insurers can use data in a way which benefits policyholders, while still preserving their fundamental right to privacy. Originally featured in NAIFA in March 2023.

Insurance and financial advisors need to be aware that carriers are investing in wellness apps and reward programs to help engage policyholders. This can be leveraged as an added value when an advisor is quoting a carrier’s life insurance product. One of the most challenging issues in insurance is the transient nature of carriers’ relationships with policyholders. Traditionally, coverage is bought out of necessity and then forgotten about unless – or until – a payout is required.

Reimagining Insurance Starts with Rethinking the Consumer Journey

In a digital age, consumers are demanding more from businesses, and the insurance sector is in a perfect place to meet this need. We’re not talking about a revolution of the existing model here, but an evolution.

The long-established routine of purchase-to-claim is tried and tested. But only seeing insurance this way is limiting and stifles innovations that could improve consumers’ experience. Right now, interactions in insurance are fleeting and transactional. But some in the sector want to reimagine the consumer journey.

In the latest Global Consumer Study from ReMark (SCOR’s digital solutions provider) more than 70% of over 12,000 respondents said they were comfortable sharing health check-up data with insurers if it was used to identify certain illnesses. And almost 75% of the consumers who are willing to share additional data were motivated by potential discounts on their insurance premiums. So, how can the sector take action?

Health & Wellness: Engaging with Policyholders on Prevention

ReMark is actively applying insights like this to the newest version of its health and wellness engagement app Good Life. Good Life is designed to motivate people on their health and wellness journey. Synching with a smartwatch, the app utilises SCOR’s BAM technology to calculate a user’s biological age, based on metrics such as physical activity level, resting heart rate, BMI.

Users are then encouraged to reduce their biological age through a series of challenges tailored to their current activity level. To provide encouragement, you can even compete with friends via an activity leaderboard. Good Life V3 seeks to apply consumer insights from the Study, allowing insurers to:

  • Provide discounted premium renewals for healthy users
  • Provide rewards such as gift cards to reward healthy living

Prevention: A Win-Win Situation for Insurers and Policyholders

For users, the app is a convenient and fun way to stay informed of their current health level, based on their own biometric data. It also encourages them to develop regular health check-ins as part of their daily routine, as it only resyncs when the app is opened. Beyond this, the new version has the ability to alert users of their propensity to type two diabetes and some forms of cancer, based on changes in their health data over time.

For insurers, the app entices daily engagement with their customers, something missing from the traditional insurance model. It also provides up-to-date, user-generated data and opportunities to underwrite dynamically.

Of course, encouraging your policyholders to become healthier is in the interests of both the consumer, reducing their morbidity level, and the insurer, reducing life & health underwriting risk. With over 150k active Good Life users across seven countries, there is clearly consumer appetite for solutions like this, which enhance and improve the insurance experience. The question is: will the sector as a whole adapt to the demands of the modern consumer?