Equisoft study finds 75% of life insurers say high maintenance and staffing cost hinder CX

PHILADELPHIA/CNW/ - In a recent research study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Equisoft, findings reveal that life insurance companies are struggling to support manual processes in their policy administration infrastructure. Despite significant digital transformation, 64% of respondents say that manual data collection is still decreasing the speed of processes and reducing profit.¹

Companies are heavily reliant upon people to support manual processes, which results in wasted time and effort correcting paperwork. Respondents cited the biggest CX challenge of their firms' platforms being maintenance and staffing cost (75%).

In the next 6-12 months, insurers are shifting their focus towards modernizing back-end processes that support optimal digital front-end experiences. This includes capabilities such as a 360-degree view of the customer, access to new CX data sources, and automated underwriting functionality.

"True digital transformation of an insurer's CX cannot be accomplished just by implementing an eApp solution or self-service portal. Those things are important, but it's critical that old core systems that don't support APIs and struggle to deliver data in real-time are replaced with more modern platforms," said Equisoft's Senior Director, Insurance Industry Principal, Brian Carey. "To catch up to elevated CX expectations, we have to get paper and multi-day batch processes out of the system. In addition to technical limitations, there are also legal hurdles to overcome to authenticate users against the operations they are allowed to perform autonomously."

This was made evident by respondents, as 52% of them agree that their company's legacy technology is restrictive and hinders employees from working efficiently and 71% of respondents reported that their company's insurance platform would not easily integrate with other IT systems. By making an investment to update these fundamental capabilities, life insurance companies can provide better services to their clients, advisors, and employees.

Click here for the full Forrester report on "Life Insurance Digitalized".

¹ Respondents consisted of 207 U.S. and Canadian life insurance carriers