What role does the mobile phone play in the insurance industry? It has certainly come of age for auto insurers who quickly discovered a key and even useful application – crash claims. There has been an unseemly rush to deliver, albeit with a few extra bells and whistles, here and there, as the bar is raised. The list of insurers on board include State Farm, USAA, Nationwide, Travelers, GEICO, Allstate and so on. The preferred platform to date is, by far, Apple’s iPhone.
The application is perfect and despite the cost of anywhere between $250,000 and $500,000 plus continuous maintenance, no company seem to feel they can be without:
• It uses the GPS to register the exact location
• It can allow the customer to take pictures of the scene
• It can guide the customer through the key steps at a time of stress
• It can provide the customer with the telephone number of their agent
It can also provide significant savings to the company by initiating the process at the crash site:
• The insurer can take control over the tow
• The insurer can control the receiving garage
Other iPhone applications are trickling out of the auto industry, but none, so far, as compelling as the claims app. Agent locators, ride sharing, and even vehicle crash-data comparisons are in the list and soon Android versions will be delivered with Progressive and USAA are already there.
But what about life insurance, what is the perfect application? Bottom line there is no equivalent to the auto claims application and consequently no rush to deliver. New York Life has delivered a range of services including an agent locator, latest articles and FAQs. American Family have a similar range of features and also include account management and bill pay. AXA deliver life insurance calculator aimed at women customers. So far, these applications have not needed or used smart phone features as much and it is smartphone customer that has the insatiable appetite.
What does the consumer want in the Life segment? To date there have been no “must-have” mobile applications, but inevitably we will see growth but nowhere near the pace of the auto insurers.
