According to Genpact, 87% of insurance companies invest more than $5 million annually in AI-related technologies. Gone are the days when artificial intelligence was a buzzword or even something that was «nice to use» – now, it’s just a «must use». A key strategic area that insurers have bet heavily on is improving customer service. The AI technology best suited to this end is conversational AI, in the form of a chatbot or intelligent virtual assistant.
Main insurance bot benefits
Chatbot for insurance is beneficial for both insurance companies and customers. On the one hand, bots allow support teams to provide more proactive and personalized customer service. They certainly make life easier:
- Simplifying complex procedures: insurance processes can be complicated and full of hefty paperwork. It’s safe to say customers don’t mind receiving real-time support throughout the journey.
- 24/7 customer support: insurance documents are a complex maze of clauses, terms, and conditions. It’s due to strict regulations in the industry. Companies ensure that the documents are comprehensive and cover all their grounds in case of a significant claim or lawsuit. These documents are complicated to read, and customers have many questions. Intelligent chatbots using natural language processing (NLP) will not only be available 24/7 but will solve 80% of queries without human intervention.
- Improving agent performance: most of the requests that customer support teams receive daily are repetitive. An AI bot can quickly resolve such issues, and help desk agents may free up their precious time to deal with more pressing customer issues. In this way, the insurance company serves more customers daily and increases customer satisfaction and team productivity.
- Improving relationships with clients: according to HubSpot, most millennials who have interacted with a business chatbot say the experience has positively impacted their perception of the organization.
When customers interact with a bot, they can be expected to enter basic contact information such as name and email address. It’s a simple and convenient way for insurers to attract potential customers.
Key features of an insurance chatbot
Many companies in the insurance industry use bots, but not all of them meet the standards. They have limited features and can be tedious to use. After all, customers are talking to a live agent anyway.
The most experienced virtual assistants give advice and go beyond the functions of the FAQ chatbot. To do this, they must know what customers want, fully understand the services the business provides, and learn from actual data to interact with customers the way a human would.
They must have the following characteristics:
Conversational
Speech is the main form of human communication. It may be done in different languages, formally or colloquially, and these factors must be considered when interacting with humans and bots.
If a damage claim is being filed, the bot cannot understand the phrase «the neighbor broke my window» should be no reason. Virtual assistants must be able to recognize the context. If an insurance consultant can understand this, then so can a chatbot.
Transactional
A chatbot for insurance that cannot perform operations is of little use. When we talk to an insurance consultant, we are not just looking for information; we expect actions to be taken, quotes to be given, claims to be signed, and accounts to be opened.
The virtual assistant should be able to perform the same operations. They can do this by integrating with the company’s back office systems using robotic process automation (RPA).
Not all solutions on the market use these complex integrations, so you must find bot platforms you can integrate with external and internal systems.
Reliable
Insurance companies must be reliable to gain their customers’ trust. It goes beyond the technology they use. Errors in interpretation or transactions are unacceptable and result in the loss of a customer.
AI conversational chatbots need to be able to prove you can trust them.
Multichannel
Chatbots can be deployed across multiple channels. In doing so, customers can choose their preferred channel to complete processes:
- a phone call,
- a mobile app,
- a smart home device,
- a messaging platform such as WhatsApp or Facebook.
The best conversational AI platforms should be able to port the application to multiple channels.
Secure
Customers value their data and privacy. 40% say government data protection is integral to their insurers’ trust.
Therefore, conversational data must be integrated into a centralized authentication system and not be available to third parties.
The technology must also comply with regulatory requirements such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) to allow conversations to be viewed, retrieved, anonymized, encrypted, or deleted as needed.
Choosing the right development bot platform that delivers optimal conversational performance, reliability, and scalability is critical to success in the insurance sector.
Chatbot use cases in the insurance industry
Insurance is a specialized product; what works in one case may not work in another. Under these conditions, clear communication is vital. If you may explain your plans faster and more clearly than your competitors through personalized communication, your business will gain an edge. Below, we have collected some practical use cases of bots in insurance:
- Ask questions to help choose insurance solutions: A proactive chatbot for insurance can greet your customers and answer any questions about claims, coverage, rules, and more. Similarly, it asks your clients questions about their lifestyle to help determine the right plan, such as age, occupation, travel frequency, and any risk factors.
- Explain insurance plans in simple terms: a bot is a great tool to explain your insurance plans. You may use the bot to ask clarifying questions to get to know the client’s needs before recommending plans. You may create scripts for each program, so your bot may do a full-price breakdown. It would be a transparent way to show customers what they are getting for the price and how much is covered based on need or chance.
- Automatically process claims: in insurance, clients value speed. A chatbot can quickly reduce the time-consuming process of filing and processing claims or applying for insurance. According to Statista, only five percent of insurance organizations used AI in their claims handling process, and 70% have not even considered it.
- Policy details and FAQs: customers may have specific policy requirements or want to compare what your business offers against competitors. For insurance and legal jargon, you may use buttons or keyword recognition to help customers learn more about complex topics and terms.
- Collect more applications and qualify clients: visitors will likely compare your insurance with other companies, so you need to get their attention. It’s where live chats and chatbots thrive; you may actively reach out to more leads right on your website to generate leads.
Insurance customers demand more control and value, and insurers need to increase revenue and improve efficiency while reducing costs. AI-powered bots may respond to the needs of policyholders while delivering many significant business benefits.
By 2024, global spending on AI platform insurance will reach $3.4 billion, so now is the time to take the lead. Insurers who understand how to use new technologies – in the right place, at the right time – to do more and faster for insurers will be the winners in the race for an unrivaled customer experience.