Travel, real estate, transportation, health – most areas of our lives require insurance. At&T Insurance, like many other areas, is actively moving to smartphones – it is more convenient for both insurers and users. Now having an app is a competitive advantage, but soon it will become a necessity, as, for example, in the banking industry. In this article, we will tell you about the mobile insurance market and our experience in this area, so that you can approach the development of such a product with knowledge of the case and take care of users.
Why do insurance companies need apps?
The advantage of using a mobile app is that it helps most businesses operate much more successfully. According to Market Research Future, the average annual growth rate of the mobile applications market is already 14%, and will grow even more in the future. People use the mobile Internet and mobile applications more and more often:
Source: Statista
The insurance industry can also benefit greatly from interaction with mobile phone users. Using the mobile application, insurance agents can:
- Establish contact with the client. Through a mobile application, it will be easier for you to reach users: send a message, offer a share, find out about debts, sign insurance contracts, change the sum insured, track the history of insurance premiums, insurance payments, etc.
- Examine user data. Mobile applications display personal data of clients and information about their certificates – with their consent, of course. With a transaction history and a list of clients in hand, you can predict and increase profits with the help of recommender systems. By studying user behavior, you will be able to understand what they need, offer a choice among new insurance products in time, and immediately complete the purchase of a policy.
- Automate business processes . You can apply for a policy using a mobile application in two clicks. Clients receive policies online, which eliminates the need for them to come to the offices of insurance companies and fill out documents or search for the necessary information among the websites of the insurer. For insurance agents, the application functions as a task tracker and CRM system.
- Reduce the amount spent on operating activities. A chatbot can replace the support department, and it’s easier for customers to download the application and fill out a couple of fields to apply for a policy. The money you save can be spent on development to attract even more customers.
- Increase customer loyalty. Brand loyalty will grow if it is convenient for users to receive information about insurance services – this way they will turn to the application more often. Moreover, you can conveniently set up cross-selling, increasing the average check or customer lifetime value.
Of course, the presence of an application in an insurance company is also useful for customers. Applications such as AlfaStrakhovanie allow users to perform dozens of actions in a jiffy: from issuing an electronic policy and purchasing additional services to consulting on complex issues and integrating with a bank. This simplifies the life of users who can quickly perform the desired action and get the desired result from interacting with the insurance company.
One of the important areas of insurance is transport. Here, applications also come to the rescue: car owners need easy ways to file an accident, purchase CASCO policies, etc. A classic example of an application that allows you to do this is VSK Insurance. It gives customers access to insurance information, making it easier to receive information on the OSAGO contract, undergo technical inspections and track the timing of an insured event. The more quality insurance services users receive, the more they are disposed towards the insurer that provides them.
Overview of the mobile insurance market
What’s going on with the insurance mobile app market? According to cognizant, only 28 of the top 100 insurance companies in the US have mobile apps. Others use websites, but they are far less convenient than apps, which can be used in almost any situation. In Russia, the situation on the insurance market is similar, although many companies already allow you to conveniently receive OSAGO policies and insure your home online. According to research by the Department of Insurance and Social Economics of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, 37% of insurance companies estimate their digitalization at 30%, and 57% work with big data. At the same time, the audience requires convenient products. Here are some of the most popular and promising areas of mobile insurance:
Feature rich applications
Many modern programs and applications allow customers to use the widest possible range of services so that people can choose what they need with only a smartphone with Internet access. The insurance industry is no exception. So, for example, in the MyAmFam application, you can insure health, life, vehicle, real estate and business. The functionality is not limited to the purchase of electronic policies – users can set up auto payments, track payments made, file an accident, find out the amount of insurance claims, file a complaint and receive support in case of an accident.
Medical Applications
One of the key needs of modern people is the preservation and maintenance of health. Therefore, applications for health and life insurance are in demand and valuable. A good example of such an application is Oscar Health. Its features include finding symptoms and doctors, online consultations, life insurance, and personal data management. The breadth of functionality makes the application one of the most popular in the US. Services like Blue Shield of California allow customers to choose any suitable service from anywhere. The advantage is round-the-clock service and a variety of functions: from information about the insurance plan to finding emergency care.
One of the important factors in choosing an insurance application is personalization. The myCigna app allows you to comfortably work with and organize your health information. You can choose one of the available certifications and customize the application depending on the chosen plan: vision, dentistry, disability, accidents, etc.
Applications for solving insured events
In some cases, insurance applications do not allow you to quickly resolve questions or problems related to insurance. However, this can be important in emergency situations, such as an accident. The Reliance Self-i app specializes in the fast processing of claims and claims. One of their advantages is the storage of electronic documents, which allows users to work with data securely.
How we develop insurance applications
We at Azoft have been working on mobile insurance applications for over 14 years. In a separate article, we talked about the stages of mobile application development . And now we want to share with you examples of our projects in this area. We hope that we will help you to better understand what products are and what you may encounter in the course of working on them.
Insurance certificate management system for a large US insurance company
We have been engaged in mobile development for insurance companies since 2006. One of our first clients is Certificate Exchange . They have developed a CRM system for certificate holders, insurance agents, brokers, insurance companies and policyholders. This platform allows you to issue and manage insurance certificates.
The old version of the application used K/KSQL/KDB technologies. They are rare and impose great restrictions on products. It is difficult to maintain and develop a system using them, because there are few specialists in the world who are well versed in them. Thus, our main task was to port the outdated certificate management system to new technologies and transfer data without loss.
We chose the Java language and the Postgres database – popular, productive and free technologies. However, there were difficulties:
- the complex structure of the original system;
- lack of project documentation;
- business logic that defines architecture and performance.
We analyzed the original system, created a prototype, developed a new product, performed a data migration, and went through several cycles of tuning and performance optimization. The result is an updated system for managing insurance certificates and a new contract for the development and support of an online insurance system.