Online insurance no longer optional: MetLife
Online claim and underwriting systems are no longer an optional extra for Australian insurers, according to the chief executive officer of MetLife Insurance Limited, Marc Lieberman.
MetLife CEO Marc Lieberman (Credit: Luke Hopewell/ZDNet Australia)
Speaking at the Financial Services Technology Media conference in Sydney today, Lieberman told delegates how all insurers in Australia need to be online for their customers, or risk losing business and alienating partner relationships.
MetLife had carried out research with customers to find out what they wanted, with the result being that they wanted simpler processes that could be carried out online.
"Any insurer determined to compete successfully in the Australian insurance market must provide their customers with an online solution for underwriting and claims assessment," he said.
Following the research, MetLife decided to develop an e-toolkit that consists of four key components for queries, lodgement, applications and claims processes.
"We realised we needed ... a complete electronic service platform. It had to be a complete end-to-end process. We needed to do this to compete in the marketplace to deliver a positive customer experience," he said.
MetLife also streamlined its application process when it implemented the e-toolkit, analysing over 600 of its questions and eliminating 60 per cent in favour of an online yes-or-no-style form. Now MetLife is able to return a quote to a customer in seven minutes.
"We wanted to achieve operational efficiencies like make turnaround times shorter, how can we make our people more effective and how can we make our customers happier."
Lieberman understood, however, why some insurers are still late to the online claims system party, saying that a system overhaul is a tough decision to make.
"It's hard! It takes a lot of time and takes a lot of money [to develop]. We've been working on it for two years in terms of working on it and rolling it out," he said, adding that most would eventually catch up by developing their own specialist set of applications.
"You don't go to Harvey Norman and just buy [a system] off the shelf and toss it into the mainframe, you've got to develop it," he said.
"You've got to work it in with your system and you've got to get it working with your partner's systems and it's a hard decision for some companies to make that choice for what amounts to many millions of dollars and potentially many years of effort."