Innovation in the sale of life insurance
Digitization has long since found its way into insurers and has ensured that life insurance policies can now also be taken out online. What was unthinkable for many people until recently is now a reality. No customer advisor will come home anymore, even though the need for advice is significantly greater when buying life insurance than when buying household or car insurance.
But people are now less keen to bring a customer advisor into the house and prefer to gather the necessary information online. New forms of counseling are the order of the day, and it is mainly video chats that score points with customers.
The nationwide lockdown in spring 2020 meant that insurers had to break new ground, because selling life insurance policies purely online without prior advice is simply unrealistic. People who want to be bound by a contract for as long as they do with life insurance want good advice with comprehensive information.
This in turn meant that new methods of counseling had to be developed or the already established methods had to be made more accessible. The willingness to also take advantage of online advice has recently increased significantly among older customers too. At the same time, the inhibition threshold that had previously prevented many people from selling insurance online has fallen.
New procedure with the greatest possible security
Within just a few weeks, many insurers like Zurich Versicherung started up again and developed the technical requirements further. These had to be given for the online sale of life insurance and other insurance products. At the same time, new interfaces were needed through which the insurance can be sold.
The necessary infrastructure, on the other hand, was already available in most cases and could be used accordingly.
However, the insurers were still unsure about the right time to launch digital sales for insurance companies. The customer potential is great and goes far beyond the previous target group of people who were born between 1981 and 1996.
An important aspect of online life insurance sales: security must be guaranteed in any case. Each customer must confirm their identity before a deal can be booked as such. This is only possible if the insurer has an official ID document. In turn, this has so far only been possible if the person concerned has appeared in person at the insurance agency.
However, insurance companies can replace this procedure and rely on digital identification, which complies with the strict requirements of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority.
The customers of the insurers can do an ID check before taking out the insurance by following an identification process on the smartphone. Regardless of agency opening times, it is possible to be identified, the process is done in a few minutes. The person and ID are photographed via an app, the document and the information it contains are checked via a video.
The new ID check is already being celebrated as a digital breakthrough and represents the last link in digital identification. Customers can still get personal advice from a broker and then carry out the ID check in order to take out life insurance.
Conclusion: Digital offers are giving life insurance a boost
While many insurers have to complain about a decline in the sale of life insurance thanks to Corona, other providers are breaking new ground and taking advantage of the opportunities offered by digitization. They offer a new way of online identification and combine this with video chats for advice.
Customers no longer have to come to the insurance agency or greet a broker in their own four walls. Distance is maintained, but advice does not fall by the wayside. The result: More life insurance policies are being taken out again.
