the digital insurer: unleashing the potential of social media in insurance

The Digital Insurer

Unleashing the Potential of Social Media in Insurance

Option 2

Social media: a natural ally for helping insurance companies

improve their business and connect with customers

2 Copyright © 2014 Accenture All rights reserved.

Social media offers: Fit for insurers capitalizing on:

More convenient, faster and simpler

way for insurance consumers to

obtain and share advice about the

best insurance products or carriers

Word of mouth that is increasingly

occurring within

social media

Rich, expanding set of data on

consumers, their life events and

increasingly the “things” they own

or use on a daily basis

• Information advantage to better price

risks, avoid adverse selection

• Insight to play a more active role

as a risk management advisor

for customers

• More immediate news on life triggers

that support more personalized and

relevant experiences and offers

Despite the natural fit of social media to the entire insurance

business, the industry’s social media use focuses largely

on marketing

Copyright © 2014 Accenture All rights reserved.

Accenture research shows

that the clear majority of insurer

brand posts relate either to

marketing/sales or customer

experience.

Within customer experience,

the majority of posts pertain

to claims and billing/pricing

issues. News sharing and

philanthropy round out the

categories of social

media posts.

Figure 1. Types of social media posts that mention a specific insurance brand,

November 2013

Source: Accenture Insurance 2014 North America Social Media Benchmark Study,

and Accenture analysis

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Marketing/Sales Customer News Sharing Philanthropy

and Other

Jobs

Policy

admin

Other

Claims

Billing,

Pricing

4

Applying social media to insurance marketing marketing, public

relations and servicing is field tested, and carriers continue

working to:


Build trust in and rejuvenate their brands For example, Farmers Insurance’s FarmvilleTM Facebook game creates brand awareness

among young consumers and injects a dose of dynamism and innovation into the brand

Extend their brands beyond insurance through social communities New York Life’s childhood bereavement chats on Twitter and USAA’s community for

spouses of military personnel deployed overseas are good examples

Design and execute marketing campaigns Brand icons and passion pages, such as Progressive’s Flo, Allstate’s Mayhem and New

York Life’s Keep Good Going, demonstrate highly efficient use of social media to keep

target audiences engaged

5

Applying social media to insurance marketing marketing, public

relations and servicing is field tested, and carriers continue

working to:


Generate leads Social listening tools and analytics techniques can identify emerging needs for both

prospects and existing customers, and help insurers present relevant offers

Protect their brands through sentiment analysis Many carriers actively listen to and analyze consumer comments on social media

networks, enabling them to timely address potentially damaging comments from

unhappy, disgruntled customers.

Where else along the value chain can social media be utilized?

Beyond marketing activities, insurers can effectively apply social media across every aspect

of the insurance value chain to help improve the way they conduct and grow business.

Figure 2. Social media applications across the insurance value chain

Claims

Management Policy Servicing

Pricing and

Underwriting

Distribution

management

Marketing

and PR

Product

Development

!

Social crowd

sourcing for

product innovation

Listening for new

insurance needs

(e.g.,wedding

insurance)

Identifying

emerging risks for

commercial

customers (e.g.,

protests)

Brand building

Marketing

campaign design

and execution

Social

communities

development

Lead generation

Life event

identification

Customer profile

enrichment

Marketing

campaign

monitoring

Sentiment analysis

Gaming

Extending agents’

offline marketing

efforts

Disseminating

advice and tips

Private and open

communities

Pricing

implications from

the new “sharing

economy”

Risk profile

enrichment

Servicing through

social channels

(Twitter)

Self-help

communities

Identification/

response to

catastrophic

events

Advanced fraud

detection

Servicing through

social channels

(Twitter)

7

Some players in the industry are going even further to use

social media for disruptive advantage


• Consumer-created individual insurance networks of friends and relatives who share in portion of claims

• The more friends who join, the lower the risk for the carrier and the lower the premiums for the consumer

• Individual consumer liability is limited to his/her own premium

• Low potential for fraud and frivolous claims

Examples of new business models and new ways for consumers to buy insurance

• Consumer-organized, self-regulated group risk pool (a “float”) to self insure automobiles

• Of the premiums, 80 percent goes to the float’s pool and 20 percent goes to a re-insurer

• Claims under a certain threshold are paid out of the pool; others are settled by the reinsurer

• Risk exposure more in line with a member’s risk profile; transparency into the insurance process; incentive for members to make reasonable claims; lower fraud, sales costs and member premiums

• Consumer groups with niche insurance needs join together to buy policies at a lower cost or that better suit their needs

• Bought By Many, acting as intermediary, negotiates with carriers to obtain deals for the “buying collective”

8

To stay competitive, carriers must draw on their strengths and

work to mature their social media approach to turn potential

disruption into an advantage—in effect, changing the game


The social media maturity curve, an evolutionary process to social media maturity which

takes place in four phases

Listen

Complexity

Engage

Optimize

Transform

Social Media

Monitoring

Social Media

Analysis

Engagement

Management

Customer

Service

On/Off-board

Social Media

Multi-channel

Integration

CRM

Integration

Value Chain

Integration

New Services

New Products

New Business Models

Functional. Mostly Marketing and PR. Enterprise. IT Enabled.

Value

9

Five key elements of a framework for capitalizing on social

media’s full potential in insurance


Executive support for enterprise-wide social media Appropriate executive support and attention to social media efforts that apply to and are

coordinated across the insurance value chain

Social media strategy Strategic vision for how social media can be incorporated into the fabric of the business

along with prioritized list of programs and clear direction to the organization.

Social media innovation lab A laboratory where new technologies are tested and their business application is

explored in a fast, efficient and safe fashion

10

Five key elements of a framework for capitalizing on social

media’s full potential in insurance


Resource commitment Full-time commitment and dedicated resources (the organization’s social media change

agents and evangelists) to create and maintain focus on

social media programs, and to make consistent and measureable progress on social

media initiatives

Willingness to experiment quickly and inexpensively Test-and-learn philosophy ‒ where the outcome of an unsuccessful experiment is not

penalized but accepted as a learning, helping to push the limits of what’s possible

and challenging conventional wisdom.

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