The insurance industry has one of the highest customer acquisition costs of any industry.
So if you work in insurance and have a good customer base, you know the work it took to get there. Weeks and months of prospecting, alleviating prospects' fears, and finally getting them to sign up.
You did not do all that work just to have them churn or drop off after a couple of months or after their first insurance premium expires.
The painful part will be losing them to a competitor that doesn’t offer as much as you do, but not to fear, we are here to help. We will be breaking down some strategies you can use as an insurance or insurtech company to improve your customer retention in 2022.
1. Meet your customer’s expectations.
This sounds very basic, but often times companies in the insurance industry fall short of this. They promise heaven and earth, especially when it comes to claims and processing time, and then under-deliver or don’t deliver at all.
Do not claim to do something you can not because the day customers come calling, and you can not deliver, the chances that you are going to lose them are very high. Also, when making sales calls, do not exaggerate the extent of your services, instead, ensure that you manage expectations.
Under-promising and overdelivering should essentially be your mission statement, this way you keep them impressed.
2. Keep in touch with your customers and communicate often.
If you constantly keep in touch with your customers, you can easily tell when they are having a problem, or they are about to churn. This way, you can take care of the root cause before it is too late.
A good way to communicate frequently will be to develop a proper follow-up schedule, especially for new clients. Depending on how long their insurance policies last, you can develop a schedule that checks things like how easy they found the onboarding process, are they having any issues with what was insured, and if they plan to continue using you as their insurance provider.
Another good way to communicate is to regularly keep your customer updated on any changes like price increases, changes in claims processes, and any applicable discounts that they might find useful.
Talking with your customers regularly will give you an opportunity to know and understand them and over time properly tailor insurance solutions to them.
3. Implement longevity benefits.
Insurance and insurtech payments are not one-offs, so to ensure your existing customers keep renewing their premiums, make sure to implement longevity benefits.
Offer discounts when they have renewed their insurance premiums for a couple of years, or send a gift. Whatever it is, let it be something that lets your customers know you see them and appreciate their loyalty/longevity,
Offering longevity benefits also help add a human touch to your interaction with your customers.
4. Automate as much as you can.
Insurtech companies probably have this on lock, especially when it comes to payments, but insurance companies need to get on this. A lot of customers are lost because they forgot to pay for their renewal. Having simple payment processes that are also automated can greatly reduce this problem.
If customers are sceptical about automating their payments, you can offer an incentive like discounts when they use the process.
Another thing to consider automating is your marketing process, like sending automated reminder messages for renewals, you can do this with Lumen.
5. Provide added value to your customers
You can offer things like free BP checks, or free mammograms as an add-on to your customers. The health insurance industry already does this a lot, but it does not have to be limited to them. If you offer car insurance, you can provide free oil checks for your customers or any other creative add-on you know your customers might be interested in.
Offering these add-ons gives you an edge over your competitors and ensures that your customers are not easily lured away.
What happens when you don’t take improving customer retention seriously?
You help your competitors with their acquisition process!
There are many insurance agencies, and if you don’t give customers what they want. Someone else will, you don’t want your customers to find out who someone else, is. Use the strategies listed above, good customer service, communication, and discounts to keep them from looking outside.
How can Lumen help?
A big part of hacking customer retention as an insurance company or insurtech is understanding your customer's behaviour, Lumen helps with that.
After breaking down your customer’s behaviour, it then allows you to send personalized and automated messages to your customers.
These messages can help remind customers when their policies are about to expire or send something as simple as a birthday message, so customers know you care.
Get started on using Lumen by clicking here.