Insurance Self-Service Portal: The Future of Customer Experience

Customer care service plays a vital role in every business system, and it is also a crucial part of the insurance industry. Technological advancements have brought about positive changes, replacing human services with self-service portals. AI has further enhanced these portals.

Customer requirements are becoming more tech-savvy, and individuals now prefer to address their policy or claims-related issues through computerized systems. In traditional human support services, handling an increasing number of customers with a limited number of agents becomes challenging. In contrast, self-service portals can handle more clients simultaneously. The online trend during the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated, making customer care more automated.

Managing these portals is less expensive than handling live chat channels. According to research conducted by Gartner, the expense of managing a single piece of content through an insurance self-service portal is $0.10, whereas managing a single live chat channel costs $8.11. The cost difference is evident.

What is an Insurance Self-Service Portal?

An insurance self-service portal is an online system designed to provide flawless services and a state-of-the-art experience for clients to register and resolve their problems. All stakeholders in the insurance industry, including customers, agents, employees, and suppliers, have secure and fast access to relevant data and records.

For companies, an insurance self-service portal enhances operational efficiency, resulting in higher levels of customer satisfaction and an improved customer retention ratio. Investing in designing an insurance portal is always beneficial and can improve ROI up to 190% within the early years of implementation.

Types of Insurance Portals

Insurance self-service portals are available for all partners in the insurance procedure. The main types of portals include:

Customer Portal

Enables end users to search for products and address policy and claim-related issues on their own. According to Harvard Business Review, 81% of clients attempt to resolve issues before seeking help.

Agent Portal

Enhances agents’ performance, allowing them to make the best use of their abilities in managing tasks and achieving goals.

Supplier Portal

Develops a self-managed system to engage multiple service and insurance providers in a productive ecosystem.

Other portals may exist for managing various aspects of an insurance company, such as an HR portal for handling HR department and employee-related issues, an Employee Self-Service portal, and eLearning Portals for managing employee issues and online training, respectively.

All these portals can be integrated systems for more productive insurance portals. An effective insurance portal integrates various underlying systems such as CRM, communication channels, internal systems of suppliers, accounting systems, policy administration systems, payment gateways, claim management software, and underwriting systems.

The Role of Insurance Self-Service Portal in Enhancing User Experience

In this tech-savvy age, the insurance self-service portal significantly reduces problems for end users. Benefits include:

1. Enabling users to easily access and read FAQs for common problems without exploring multiple pages.
2. Communicating with AI-based chatbots for minor issue resolution, avoiding long waiting times for live-chat connections.
3. Easy tracking and checking of the status of claims and queries using a centralized dashboard without involving a live agent.
4. Instant and productive responses from intelligent systems enhance customer retention.

Most customers expect a self-service portal and prefer organizations or companies offering such portals for quick problem resolution.

Mandatory Features of Insurance Self-Service Portal

The insurance self-service portal is a multi-aspect software facilitating all stakeholders in the system. It must have the following characteristics:

1. Easy Navigation: User-friendly systems are highly appreciated by end users, requiring easy navigation for different customer levels.
2. Secured Accessibility: Implementing the latest security protocols to secure user data and avoid cyber attacks is crucial.
3. Policy Management: Facilitating users to manage and maintain their policies, including reading policy information, altering packages, renewing service packages, and integrating payment gateways for easy premium payments.
4. Claims Management: Facilitating users in filing claims using the online portal and tracking progress. Uploading relevant documents for speedy claims processing streamlines operations.
5. Round-the-Clock Customer Support: Online portals should be available 24/7, served via AI-based chatbots to resolve complaints. Knowledge base sections should answer users’ FAQs.

Facts and Figures Show Demand for Self-Service Portal

Various studies and analyses have been conducted to calculate the response for self-service portals. According to these researches:

1. 70% of the age group 25 to 40 demands a self-service portal for various policy activities.
2. 81% of customers try to resolve their queries through self-service portals before contacting live agents.
3. 91% of customers expect self-service portals in organizations, while 60% prefer to access these portals from their mobiles.

Representations of Self-service Portals

In today’s digital world, self-service portals have become mandatory, with various examples available in different industries:

1. Amazon: The largest online selling and buying platform streamlines operations and provides online support through a self-service portal.
2. Babylon Health System: Patients quickly get their queries answered through CheckBot on the self-service portal.
3. Google Support Community: Another example of a self-service portal.
4. Big hotels and lodges offer self-service portals for bookings and controlling stays for customers.

Final Words

In every system, customer experience has become more significant, necessitating investments in technologies that enhance user experience and effectively compete in the market. For insurance providers, self-service portals offer numerous benefits, bringing a good deal of advantages and allowing them to capture a greater market share.

Author

Olga Vinichuk, Business Analyst, and Insurance IT Consultant

Olga has built a vibrant career at ScienceSoft as a business analyst and insurance IT consultant. She participated in ScienceSoft’s 11 major insurance projects, guiding 8 of them as a leading business analyst. As an insurance IT consultant, Olga shapes the unique solutions that digitally transform underwriting, claim settlement, policy management, and compliance monitoring workflows. Olga is also involved in ScienceSoft’s outsourced product development projects, where she helps SaaS insurance companies turn their high-level product concepts into fully-functional solutions.