Improving insurance customers’ experiences in policy management

84% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services, according to a Salesforce report. Over the past decade, the insurance market has become saturated with endless products and options. Buyers have adjusted and evolved in response to the buffet of insurance options, becoming more sophisticated and specific in what they need and want. 

To keep these sophisticated buyers at your insurance smorgasbord rather than the other guys’, it’s essential to understand their new and improved expectations. New insurance seekers expect a smooth, personalized, and efficient purchase experience. 

Today’s technology makes these expectations possible, but without accurate address data, customer service reps and insurance sales agents will flounder when faced with flawed information for filing adequate claims. It might make the process more arduous and time consuming that it has to be. Without real-time accuracy, they might flounder for an uncomfortably long time.

Just as any noteworthy buffet must include the always-popular mashed potatoes as a side dish, precise geocodes and property data are vital in enhancing your insurance customer experiences. All address data gathered from your customers during purchasing, renewals, and/or claims processing should be verified through rooftop geocoding and persistent unique identifiers (PUIDs). This way, you know you’re providing your customers with the most accurate quotes and recommending the right services for their area and needs.

Implementing rooftop-accurate geocoding systems

Key considerations for implementing geocoding

Insurance companies have plenty of choices regarding geocoding and property data providers. Still, each service has pros and cons. Here are a few key things to consider before implementing address intelligence services.

• On-premise vs. cloud hosting
  • On-premise solutions are often seen as providing greater control and security, but this is mostly false. Cloud-based geocoding providers offer faster implementation, less red tape, and low maintenance costs with just as much control as on-premise solutions.
• Speed
  • Historically, limited server capacity has hindered many address data and geocoding APIs from delivering the speed a large-scale business requires. Ask about processing speed and uptime rates.  Learn more about processing speeds.

• Price
  • Pricing typically depends on the number of monthly lookups needed, the data storage policy, the desired level of accuracy, and speed. A realistic estimate of needs will help determine the right provider and plan. 
• Data sources
  • Ask about the data sources and how often they’re updated. Address data can change significantly over a short period, so a good API is tied to a tidy, up-to-date database that’s hands-off and remains running in the background for your organization. 
• Acceptable use and data storage policies
  • Does the provider allow their geocodes to be used with other mapping or GIS platforms, such as ArcGIS, QGIS, BatchGeo, or OpenStreetMaps? This is essential in insurance.
• Customer service
  • A responsive address geocode provider with good support, documentation, and insurance industry knowledge can help you implement address intelligence tools successfully and efficiently.

Integration with existing systems and workflows

Integrating an address validation API into your business’s existing systems and workflows enables automatic address validation whenever needed. This capability is the most important factor for adaptability in your organization and enhancing insurance customer experiences. (That’s why we gave integration it’s own special section). 

Using an address autocomplete to provide only verified addresses for your customers to select is the #1 (and easiest) way to improve your user experience. Easily integrated into your user or internal registration forms, US Address Autocomplete and International Address Autocomplete predict and suggest validated, standardized addresses to your customers in real-time. Adding autocomplete helps reduce data entry time, errors, and friction, leading to more money in your pocket. Cha-ching!

Address data best practices

According to McKinsey & Company, “Data is fast becoming one of the most—if not the most—valuable asset for any organization.” This applies especially to the insurance industry, which works primarily with data. 

How carriers identify, quantify, place, and manage risk depends on the volume and quality of data acquired during a policy’s life cycle. Best practices should be followed to ensure that data is accurate and up-to-date, such as:

Data quality and validation standards

Data validation is the process of ensuring that data has undergone cleaning to verify that it’s accurate, consistent, has integrity, and adheres to certain predefined rules or standards before being used for business operations

As insurance companies deal with vast amounts of data from various sources, data validation is essential for integrating and consolidating all that data to make it usable. 

Common types of data validation checks include:

• Custom business rules
• Data type
• Completeness
• Code
• Format
• Consistency
• Uniqueness
• Referential integrity
• Range

For example, submitting ZIP Codes through accurate for an address would be considered a code check.

Maintaining data privacy and compliance with regulations to protect your customers

Another major part of keeping your customers happy is keeping them safe. No one wants to go to a buffet if there’s even a whiff of food poisoning, or if they don’t have glass barriers protecting the food… think of all the sneezing! Similarly, customers are very wary of giving their information to untested and unverified sources, let alone an insurance company that needs to know the exact material used to build their roof.

Insurance companies face two unique challenges when collecting and handling customers' and prospects’ data.

1. The sheer volume of data collected
2. The sensitive and personal nature of that data

A recent study from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) lists the data types that must be protected via risk management and classifies such data as “nonpublic” information.

These include:

• Social Security number
• Driver’s license number or non-driver ID number
• Account number, credit card, or debit card number
• Information obtained from a healthcare provider regarding:
  • A customer’s or customer’s family member’s physical, mental, or behavioral health or condition
  • Care provided to the customer
  • Payment for the provided care

Almost all the information an insurance company uses to determine the premium for a consumer’s insurance policy is considered “nonpublic, protected” data. Criminals are like honey badgers in this sense. They don’t care that it’s protected. This data is exactly what cybercriminals leverage to commit fraud and other crimes. 

Low data privacy and accountability may result in reputational damage, while failure to adequately protect insurance data could lead to costly and time-consuming legal battles. News flash: There are no all-you-can-eat buffets in prison.

To prevent damaging compliance violations or data breaches, the NAIC recommends designing an information security program and choosing appropriate security controls—including creating authentication and access controls, restricting physical access, using at-rest and in-transit encryption, testing and monitoring systems frequently, and more.

Dessert: The conclusion you’ve been waiting for

Maybe you scrolled right to dessert. That's ok. We won't tell your moms.

Meeting customer expectations is paramount for success in today’s competitive insurance market. As buyers become more sophisticated, they demand seamless, personalized, and efficient experiences. Ensuring accurate address customer service through robust verification systems is essential to fulfilling these expectations. Address geocoding enhances customer satisfaction by providing precise quotes and tailored services while streamlining internal processes and reducing errors and inefficiencies.

The sweetest part of all of this? Smarty offers the products you need to become more successful in keeping your customers satisfied. You can stay ahead of the curve, delivering and enhancing insurance customer experiences worth a second helping. Wanna sample the buffet? Try our US and International address validation products here, or chat with an address intelligence expert to see which pairing they recommend.