Matt Fisher, General Manager and EVP of Agent Division
Forrester recently reported that 56% of 697 US online insurance owners who filed a claim in the last 12 months used the phone to initiate the claim with their insurance providers. And 33% of those same 697 insurance owners used a phone to initiate a claim with their insurance agent.
Think about that. That’s more than 85% of people who had to file a First Notice Of Loss (FNOL) claim preferred to talk to a person! They grabbed the phone. Not for texting. Not for tweeting. For calling and filing because they wanted to talk to a live person.
Filing insurance claims after a personal loss is not an easy call to make. Adding to that pain is that the call should be made very quickly after the tragedy strikes. People deserve to talk to a contact center agent who is experienced, knowledgeable, calming, and empathetic.
And here we are only 17 days into the 2011 hurricane season. We have about 65 days left until this hurricane season is over. Eighteen named storms are predicted for the Atlantic alone. With any luck the predictors are wrong which would mean that the number of insurance claims filed will be down because all those storms won’t really happen.
The bottom line is that these are horrible unexpected events. For many people, their only preparation in addition to getting themselves and their families to safety is buying insurance. So it makes sense that if they ever have to file a claim, that being able to talk to a live person will always be preferred. It doesn’t matter how many different technologies are available. People prefer to talk to people; and I bet years from now this won’t change.
Now you know what I think. What do you think? Do you think talking to a live person will continue to be preferred when filing an insurance claim?
LiveOps, Inc.
Maynard Webb
Regan Parker
Tim Whipple
Paul Lang
Niall Browne
Matt, this is topic is very timely now that we are into hurricane season. Did you know that since LiveOps has been working with insurance providers specifically on First Notice of Loss (FNOL) claims, we’ve identified 3,000 agents who have identified themselves as having FNOL experience or who have a clear understanding of what it takes to handle these calls? They are all very interested and ready to working with these callers when the first storm strikes. And for the record I agree with you: after catastrophic events, people tend to want to talk to other live people when filing their insurance claims.