The Upside of Digitizing the Insurance Payment Experience

As an insurer, you know that there aren’t that many opportunities for you to connect with your customers. When you really think about it, payments are the most frequent interactions between you and your customers. They’re paying you and you’re paying them–that’s often the extent of your relationship. These interactions are your opportunity to shine, so you’ll want to get it right. To do this, you’ll need to offer innovative payment solutions so your customers can pay you easily and ditch legacy systems that force you to rely on costly payment methods, like issuing paper checks. Before you get overprotective of your status quo, here are some reasons why digitizing your payments is so critical.

A Superior Customer Experience

Asking your customers to rely on the post office to get their payments to you on time is, at best, inconvenient. At worst, they risk losing coverage if their checks are delayed. When you accept payments from credit/debit cards, mobile wallets, and pay-by-text, you give your customers the flexibility they’re looking for and help ensure timely payments. From a claims perspective, digital payments enable claims payments to be received within minutes after approval through real-time payment channels–a far superior experience to waiting for a check to arrive in the mail! This is key because research shows that real-time payment processing is increasingly important to insureds with over half stating they would be willing to change insurers to get access to instant claims payments. 

An Answer to Rising Expectations

Even before the pandemic, consumers were opening insurance accounts and interacting with insurance companies from their mobile devices and online channels much more frequently. Today, over a third of consumers say that they contact their insurer via mobile app or website at least once a month. COVID-19 has undeniably sped up the adoption of digital payments, and for good reasons. 37.5% of consumers say that their payment preferences changed during the pandemic. For those turning to digital payments, 70% of citizens like the convenience, 62% believe that paying online is easier, and 58% think it saves them time. 

A Sustainable Experience

Many insurance companies still rely heavily on paper, which leaves a pretty big environmental footprint. In addition to paper consumption, there are also CO2 emissions being generated when transporting checks to insureds and members around the country. Digitizing payments is a tangible step you can take to make a positive impact on the environment. Not only will you feel good about this green shift, focusing on sustainability is a major asset in the eyes of your Millennial and Gen Z customers. As consumers, these generations express greater interest in digital offerings that help them make safer, healthier, and more sustainable choices. Use our paperless adoption calculator to learn more about how going paperless can have a positive impact on the environment and your bottom line.

A Secure Experience

Though consumers are willing to share data in exchange for personalization and value, their level of trust has deteriorated. The insurance industry hasn’t been immune to this trend. Only 32% of consumers say they put a lot of trust in their insurers to look after their data. By digitizing payments, you have a greater ability to enhance security and compliance. Digital payment systems help reduce the potential for human error and fraud associated with policy claims disbursed via checks and eliminates the chance of payments getting lost in the mail. And, when you work with a PCI Level 1 Compliant service provider that employs stateless tokenization, sensitive cardholder information is removed from your systems, reducing the risk of data breaches. 

A Better Experience Than Your Competitors

Consumers are increasingly used to instant gratification which is raising their expectations around efficiency and timeliness from their insurance providers. Combine this with growing competition from the emerging InsurTech sector and the writing is on the wall for insurers. Adopt innovative payment technology or risk losing customers. When you leverage digital payments, you can better meet your customers’ demand for a fast and frictionless claims process. 

Digital Payments Are a Must-Have for Insurers

If you’re looking to improve the customer experience of your insureds, look no further than the insurance payment because it is their customer experience. With so few customer touchpoints, you need to step up where you can. Enabling digital payments allows you to improve customer experience, help the environment, and stand out from your competitors. Allow KUBRA to show you the difference a digital experience can have on your insureds. Learn more about KUBRA’s insurance solutions at https://www.kubra.com/industries/insurance.