Insurance Carriers Focusing on Digital Enablement for Small Businesses

By Heath Fellows.
Updated Oct 24, 2022

WILMINGTON, Del. (PRWEB) October 24, 2022 - Keynova Group, the principal competitive intelligence source for digital financial services firms, today announced the results of the 2022 edition of its Small Commercial Insurance Scorecard. The Hartford attained top honors for its digital user experiences catering to small businesses, ranking first in overall score in Keynova Groups evaluation of the desktop and mobile offerings of the 10 largest U.S. small business insurers. The annual Scorecard highlights how carriers are advancing digital product information, policy acquisition, support and servicing to meet the unique needs of small firms.

'The digital experience for small businesses acquiring and servicing insurance policies remains widely disparate across carriers and even within various aspects of a single carriers prospect and policyholder journey, said Beth Robertson, managing director of Keynova Group. Leading carriers are creating an integrated, full-service digital experience that supports small firms with the content and tools they need to make informed coverage decisions.

Decision Support Emerging in the Small Business Digital Quote and Bind Experience Digital quoting and binding are becoming more prevalent for small businesses shopping for policies, driving the need for online educational information and decision support tools. Among the reviewed small commercial insurance carriers, 70% offer digital quoting for business insurance and 50% now support quoting for four or more small commercial policy types directly on their web or mobile sites. More than half (60%) of the carriers also enable digital binding for small business policies. To help business owners with their many decisions about coverage, 70% of the reviewed carriers provide coverage assessment tools on their sites, and one-third offer estimator tools that summarize coverage options and highlight anticipated premiums. Another 40% now offer industry-specific insurance videos and/or podcasts, while both Hiscox and The Hartford offer live chat support for small businesses as they review policy-related content on the public site.

Carriers Evolving to Enable Full-Service Digital Policy Management Though still less prevalent than for personal lines policyholders or for small businesses using banking services, small commercial insurance carriers are moving to provide a more comprehensive digital policy management experience to small business users. Currently, 50% of the reviewed carriers enable small business policyholders to report or track claims within the same interface they use to manage policies. 40% support online workers compensation audits, while 30% offer single sign-on for both personal and small business policies. The Hartford stands out by enabling business or workers compensation policyholders to make online changes to their coverage, and Progressive enables online changes to some aspects of its commercial auto policies. Additionally, 30% of carriers now facilitate digital adoption by automatically enrolling new small business policyholders in digital account management.

Finding the Right Blend of Self-Service and Agent Support is Crucial To realize customer experience gains from their investments in digital servicing and claims management, carriers can do more to help prospective and current small business customers tap into the digital resources available to them, while still feeling supported by live agents. As innovators in this area, State Farm and The Hartford provide demos highlighting key aspects of digital policy management, although features of this nature could benefit from expanded availability. Interactive customer service that is accessible through digital channels is also valuable: Hiscox offers co-browsing and public site chat, The Hartford provides live chat and callback in both public and authenticated areas, and Travelers offers secure chat for claims. Language accessibility is another important part of optimized self-service, and 70% of reviewed carriers now offer Spanish-language educational content for small firms while just 30% offer Spanish-speaking support agents.

About the Small Commercial Insurance Scorecard Keynova Groups annual fact-based Small Commercial Insurance Scorecard evaluates the online and mobile offerings of 10 of the leading U.S. small business insurers including Allstate, Chubb, GEICO, Hiscox, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Progressive, State Farm, The Hartford, and Travelers. Evaluating approximately 300 objective criteria and measuring competitive digital capabilities and user experience elements, the Scorecard identifies evolving trends and actionable insights that influence digital strategies for carriers serving small firms.

For more information about Keynova Groups 2022 Small Commercial Insurance Scorecard, please visit https://www.keynovagroup.com/scorecards/#insurance.

About Keynova Group Keynova Group is the leading competitive intelligence firm providing trusted benchmarking insights and analysis of consumer and small business digital financial services, including banking, credit card, home lending, and insurance. Keynova Groups Scorecards have served as the go-to source for leading financial services firms to obtain reliable competitive intelligence and actionable insights since 1999. The firms proven methodology and highly detailed results help its clients maximize the value of their digital channels to deliver a premier experience to customers and prospects.