J.D. Power data shows insurer apps aren’t rapidly taking off among policyholders filing for payments.
Mobile insurance claims aren’t very popular among policyholders, says J.D. Power data. Even though auto insurance companies across the country have launched massive advertising campaigns, consumers are still slow to adopt the tech.
As much as mobile insurance apps are being used more frequently, that isn’t the case for making claims.
J.D. Power released its 2017 U.S. Auto Claims Satisfaction Study. Within it, the firm indicated that the slow adoption of mobile insurance claims technology among consumers is significant. The reason is that insurance companies have not only been marketing heavily to promote the use of the technology, but the frequency and size of losses has been rising. Auto insurance companies want to use mobile apps to help control costs. However, policyholders don’t seem to be following that suggestion even when many of them are already using the applications in the first place.
Insurers have made significant investments into mobile insurance claims technology and hope they will catch on.
“U.S. auto insurers have invested heavily in technology that will help them gain efficiencies in claims handling, but there are still certain areas of the claims process where the human touch is proving difficult to replace,” said J.D. Power Property & Casualty Insurance Practice Lead, David Pieffer. He added that as insurance companies keep moving in that direction, it will be very important for them to avoid harm to the communication they maintain with their customers.
Some of the J.D. Power study findings showed that not many customers are using mobile or other forms of digital first notice of loss (FNOL) options such as the ability to fill in a claim form online. Over one in five (22 percent) auto insurance policyholders started their claim interaction online. However, only 9 percent actually chose to make their claim report from a website or mobile app.
This was even the case among Millennials (born between 1982 and 2004) who are traditionally the demographic most likely to use mobile insurance claims and other digital communications options and smartphone based features.