By Brina Biggs
As businesses and consumers navigate the risk of financial loss amid an escalating economic crisis, there is a heightened need for easily accessible, comprehensive long-term insurance that protects financial wellbeing – be that for an entrepreneur or the average consumer.
However, the way in which this insurance is sold is changing and now, more than ever, there is an increased need for convenience and quick turnaround - especially in a fast-paced world where uncertainly and heightened financial risk is evident.
As a result, the insurance market has shifted substantially to meet the demand of unique needs and shrinking budgets and are using technological innovation to offer ease and convenience and ensure that consumers have access to insurance at the touch of a button on a platform of their choice.
In fact, digital enablement in insurance is at the forefront of the consideration set for insurers from claims processing and improved application management to delivering on-demand solutions and providing enhanced advisory services.
Today it is about ensuring that fully tailored comprehensive life, funeral and other long-term insurances, completely underwritten, in the shortest time possible is available to the consumers and we have witnessed that online purchasing enables this.
Smart technologies are driving the immediacy of product fulfilment that consumers are looking for.
For example, our own online product fulfilment enables consumers to simply select the product they want, how much cover they need – at the price that suits them.
To sweeten the deal, from there everything is automated - including underwriting of the policy and generating the policy documents.
There is no waiting, no paperwork and no call centre interaction needed – further supported by online client servicing offered through WhatsApp and other online channels.
Technology in this space is proving to be a catalyst for changing consumer behaviours where 1Life Insurance shows a 400% increase in online sales year on year and monthly these sales are increasing.
With easy access to products, through such automation and the more efficient servicing of clients, we are also able to ensure that consumers can start building generational wealth using long-term products that protect family’s finances in unforeseen circumstances and allow legacies to live on. In fact, in our recent 1Life generational wealth survey, 41% of South Africans indicated that they were creating generational wealth by owning life insurance policies. Technology makes 1Life’s generational wealth proposition more accessible and is integral to everything we (they) do – especially when it comes to catering for digital self-service such as online buying and WhatsApp servicing, as it empowers consumers with a straightforward process to deliver products and servicing that meet their specific budgets and needs to start growing wealth for their family at a pace and premium that suits them.
Digitisation is not new to the insurance industry, but it is growing at a rapid pace with new innovations emerging by the month. However, it is crucial to note the human role of insurance remains critical – even as we leverage robotic process automation which enables efficiencies, it does not replace the role of agents across the board. In fact, it elevates their role as strategic business support staff instead of employees that simply do the mundane everyday tasks - by automating these and allowing employees to focus on skilled work within the organisation we are creating new roles within insurance while better servicing our clients through process automation.
There is no doubt that those insurers that take heed of this shift and truly innovate to meet consumers where they are, will be the ones that win in the long run. It is up to us to make insurance accessible to the masses while offering value that makes sense for each individual and that truly encourages consumers to see the value in long-term insurance and what it can do for their family’s future generations.
Brina Biggs is a strategic consumer lead at 1Life insurance.
BUSINESS REPORT