Insurance Chatbots in the field
Our ways of communication are slowly but surely changing. Especially younger generations are moving away from the old phone call, towards chat based communication as the most natural and preferred way. Even typing can seem tedious sometimes, thus the voice based conversational UIs are enjoying great popularity.
Though chat-bots might have some issues, e.g. they seldom are as “intelligent” as expected, the advantages of chat-bots are undeniable: the bot is available 24/7, if it is connected to some service it can save you the hassle of form filling, and maybe most importantly, the user defines the pace of the communication. Simply put, a much better customer experience.
Insurtechs have already taken that path and many have developed a conversational UI, some displaying more intelligence, some less.
Recently, however, insurers have also identified the need for such bots and have now started to bring their own creations alive.
Sales
ARAG has implemented a chat-bot for travel insurance. The bot is based on the Facebook messenger and you can book travel insurance or a travel health insurance through this interface.
WÜSTENROT has implemented a chat-bot for its Austrian customers to inquire about car insurance policies in a conversational way. It can be used as a web version or on your phone.
Corporate Communication
Allie is a Facebook based chat-bot by Allianz who you can contact to inquire about job opportunities within Allianz. The plans are to widen the scope to other areas and to develop bots for other purposes in the future. The bot can be contacted on the Facebook page at AllianzCareers.
Indian life insurer HDFC life launched a bot that can read, understand, categorise, prioritise and respond to customers emails. The bot will act as a guide to help users choose the most suitable life insurance plans.
Tokio marine life insurance Singapore introduced Tomi, an artificial intelligence powered chat-bot that is available 24/7 on Facebook Messenger. It gives explanations to terms and coverage and thereby aims at making life insurance easier to understand.
And there are more:
Polish Magda a Chatbot for Link4, motor insurance policy sold online, Arbiefor RBC Insurance in Canada, dutch Nienke talking to customers about insurance, and Marc from Credit Agricole’s for health insurance offerings, among others.
Claims Handling and Underwriting
Another major area where bots are used or planned to be used is in claims processing and management. Here the advantage of letting the user define the pace of communication and be available whenever the customer is ready, plays to its full strength. A lot of insurtechs chose to make a chat their channel of choice in this area, e.g. Lemonade or Spiixi, and it is not far fetched to say that insurers are going to go down that road as well.
Summing up, chat-bots are a very promising way to shape the corporate communication and the face towards the customer and should be seen as a huge opportunity for a corporate to (finally) be able to get in touch with the customer.
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