Technology Can Help Insurers Snag Potential Buyers Who Remain ‘Stuck’

New calendars might mean it’s tax time, but they also mean we have a new column of data to learn from. Here are a few facts gathered from 2021:

-During the first half of 2021, Americans bought life insurance at a pace unmatched in nearly 40 years, since 1983.

-Nearly half of Americans (48%) would be more likely to purchase life insurance if simplified underwriting were available.

-Traditionally under-represented groups such as millennials and minorities are buying life insurance today at rates previously unseen.

These takeaways from the most recent Insurance Barometer study conducted by LIMRA and Life Happens signify the opportunity taking place around us. Our world remains in constant states of flux; year-end reports and metadata exist for us to leverage their messages and improve our environment.

Here’s another relevant snippet:

• Every year, more than 17 million life insurance policy applications die on the vine - each one a “stuck shopper” who begins an application but does not complete the process.

This means there are still barriers preventing more policies from being sold. Even while life insurance carriers face potential boom times, there are still snags in the system that keep consumers out. Choosing the right technology partner has never been more crucial.

Today, decades of working with businesses, third-party providers and their policyholders have informed our design teams on what best practice and industry-leading technology look like. Clients want a platform that has intuitiveness, ease-of-use, and low maintenance costs. Their customers want technology that provides immediacy and uninterrupted reliability that come from cloud-based solutions and cutting-edge automation.

During an era where there is a potential to sell more policies, don’t leave yourself out of the game with stuck shoppers and money left on the table. Use top-grade technology that offers the efficiency and reliability that your clients and their customer’s demand.

How fast is technology changing our world?  Can you even measure something like that? The contraptions we use do not answer the question so much as what they do: process data at a certain speed. Moore’s Law is the observation from a pioneering computer expert who noticed computer processing speed capabilities doubled every two years. This has mostly held true for half a century now, although it may be slowing down as transistors and microchips cannot keep getting smaller. Small is finite.

Big, on the other hand, is infinite. If there are boundaries for how big data and information could grow, we have yet to realize them. When it comes to data, one undeniable rule governs the growth chart.

Remember the classic horror movie, “The Blob”? A less ominous version of the science-fiction consumption monster makes for a fair metaphor. Data insists on itself, feeds itself, requires more of itself, becomes more powerful as it grows, etc. Here are a few blob-like nuggets to digest: All the data in the world was 33 zettabytes (ZB) in 2018. (That’s 33 trillion gigabytes.) At the time, 90% the world’s data was less than two years old. Last year, we hit 59 ZB. By 2025, most experts agree it will be 175 ZB or more.

Currently, we only ever use about 12% of the data we generate. Could this change? Within three years, experts predict there will be 75 billion devices online and generating data - the IoT (Internet of Things) where inanimate objects whir in the background collecting, transmitting and receiving. Ten connected devices for every living human on earth.

Across the insurance realm, the implications of a world bent on immediacy, cost efficiency and convenience are already clear. Insurers leverage more complex data sets to refine their practices. Data collected by vehicles about driving habits could be used alongside driving records to set rates in the future. Imagine the possible implications of big-data sharing on health insurance rates - could purchases deemed “unhealthy” like alcohol and cigarettes be used to justify higher health premiums? Could buying a chainsaw on a credit card immediately impact your risk rating for homeowners insurance liability considerations? Sounds Orwellian, although perhaps not too far off. Suffice it to say, insurance companies will continue to leverage whatever data they can.

Likewise, insurance customers use the same data structures to inform their insurance purchases. It has never been easier for consumers to build insurance portfolios tailored to their wants and needs.

Jesse Gospodarek is an independent sales and marketing consultant with Management Research Services, Milwaukee. He may be contacted at [email protected].

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