Digital Insurance spoke with
Plymouth Rock Home Assurance CEO, president: Focused on digital customer experience
March 8, 2023 6:30 AM
How do digital initiatives fit into overall growth strategies and does that include self-service tools and customer experience-related efficiencies?
It's a big part of it. I think it's proof that if you use technology for the consumer benefit , … when you do something that makes their lives easier and quicker, and gives them a lot more options a lot more easily, then I think you can attract people who aren't motivated 100% by savings. They're willing to spend an extra $5 to have a faster, easier process and maybe they'll spend more than that if there's coverage that they're willing to buy from a carrier they trust and it's easy.
When we initially brought our product out, we built around the experience of buying our product, meaning that we designed the work that gets done in the background, to make it easy to be onboarded with quote and bind. So, we introduced several technologies that made it very easy for a customer to get at our rate after the point of sale. Since then, we've added a lot of tech to allow customers to make, I'd say somewhere in the range of 70%, of changes on their own.
When we initially brought our product out, we built around the experience of buying our product, meaning that we designed the work that gets done in the background, to make it easy to be onboarded with quote and bind. So, we introduced several technologies that made it very easy for a customer to get at our rate after the point of sale. Since then, we've added a lot of tech to allow customers to make, I'd say somewhere in the range of 70%, of changes on their own.
How have internet of things initiatives fallen short in the home insurance line?
About six to eight years ago, there was a large amount of smart home providers trying to integrate with insurers on the promise that it could make the home more safe, have fewer losses, and it would tell you something about the customer, even if it's just in self-selection, that might influence the rate or the risk.
Lately, you don't hear that much about it. It leads somebody to speculate like maybe there just wasn't enough signal there. The most common claim we have in home insurance usually involves some sort of water damage. Thesmart home devices promised to tell you about where to shut off the water that is causing it. But they're still rare. So, we just have not gathered enough data that says somebody who uses this type of device, or like a water shutoff valve is a better customer or not.
So, the other side of this is where it actually prevents losses. Well, we found out that a smart home usually requires a lot of internet connections. Those break, they go down for five seconds, and all of a sudden the device doesn't work anymore and the customer doesn't know it until the leak happens or the pipe burst happens.
Essentially, we don't have enough data or the signal is not strong enough to know what sorts of data from smart home devices will predict future loss. It's better for us to have a home with a shutoff valve than one that doesn't. It will stop the water and it's worth a discount. The issue is whether the discount would be more than the cost to install, maintain and monitor the device.
Lately, you don't hear that much about it. It leads somebody to speculate like maybe there just wasn't enough signal there. The most common claim we have in home insurance usually involves some sort of water damage. The
So, the other side of this is where it actually prevents losses. Well, we found out that a smart home usually requires a lot of internet connections. Those break, they go down for five seconds, and all of a sudden the device doesn't work anymore and the customer doesn't know it until the leak happens or the pipe burst happens.
Essentially, we don't have enough data or the signal is not strong enough to know what sorts of data from smart home devices will predict future loss. It's better for us to have a home with a shutoff valve than one that doesn't. It will stop the water and it's worth a discount. The issue is whether the discount would be more than the cost to install, maintain and monitor the device.
Are there previous examples that are similar?
We've been giving discounts for burglar alarms to reduce your crime coverage for decades. But there are a couple problems: Ones that crime is not the biggest portion of your policy premiums. So if you cut crime in half with a burglar alarm, you might save half of half a percent. So, it isn't worth the cost of the burglar alarm.
The other thing is, you have to turn it on, it has got to work. And if the house is not being monitored in some way, like if the alarm goes off, you're getting a phone call, and somebody says: 'Hey, your alarms are going off, and we know you're not there,' then really the alarms are worthless.
The third, more minor is issue is that the longer the technology is out there, the more ways you find that it gets defeated, the burglar figures out how to get around the alarm, or there's a new development in the technology of piping and drainage that your sensor device doesn't work with or yourshutoff valve doesn't work with.
The world is a moving object and [though] so far, the smart home has not yet found its insurance connection, [the] technology holds a lot of potential. I hope people buy it, because it prevents leaks and stops fires and burglaries. We've seen many examples where it has, it's just that overall it's harder to separate the signal from the noise.
The other thing is, you have to turn it on, it has got to work. And if the house is not being monitored in some way, like if the alarm goes off, you're getting a phone call, and somebody says: 'Hey, your alarms are going off, and we know you're not there,' then really the alarms are worthless.
The third, more minor is issue is that the longer the technology is out there, the more ways you find that it gets defeated, the burglar figures out how to get around the alarm, or there's a new development in the technology of piping and drainage that your sensor device doesn't work with or your
The world is a moving object and [though] so far, the smart home has not yet found its insurance connection, [the] technology holds a lot of potential. I hope people buy it, because it prevents leaks and stops fires and burglaries. We've seen many examples where it has, it's just that overall it's harder to separate the signal from the noise.
So with that in mind, what are you focusing on from a tech perspective at Plymouth Rock?
Our big discovery here at Plymouth Rock is that making it easier and more accessible to quote and getting your cost per quote as close to zero as possible–we've discovered that creates a lot more business because people don't want to hassle getting insurance. They don't want 20 questions and a long process after getting the quote, they'd like their quote to be accurate, and they'd like to buy in. We've introduced things like the ability to get a findable rate within the answer to what's your name, and what's your address, and birthday. We've introduced APIs. So if the information is provided anywhere else, we can give a quote, and if one piece of that information is missing, we can give an indication.
We've done a lot of things to make it extremely easy with technology to get a quote and bind. And now we're making it really easy should you choose to make changes to your policy. And so there's a lot of self-serve that allows you to look at the status of a claim or look at the status of your policy and decide whether or not to buy more or less to increase your deductible or maybe add pet coverage or flood coverage.
I think embedding other services and offerings in the home insurance policy is where the future is. I think a lot of theseinsurtechs have got one big advantage and that isn't enough to bring profitable customers over from the incumbent carriers, but that they're going to maybe embed their one big advantage into larger carriers and then it would be one of the many advantages that the carrier offers to their customers.
We've had other discussions about adding travel insurance to our product. Many of us are adding warranty options to our product so that you can get some sort of maintenance and repair services for things that happen in your home.
We've done a lot of things to make it extremely easy with technology to get a quote and bind. And now we're making it really easy should you choose to make changes to your policy. And so there's a lot of self-serve that allows you to look at the status of a claim or look at the status of your policy and decide whether or not to buy more or less to increase your deductible or maybe add pet coverage or flood coverage.
I think embedding other services and offerings in the home insurance policy is where the future is. I think a lot of these
We've had other discussions about adding travel insurance to our product. Many of us are adding warranty options to our product so that you can get some sort of maintenance and repair services for things that happen in your home.