These days, people expect their interactions with companies to be fast and easy. After all, consumers with smartphones can use sites like Amazon to order a book in minutes and have it delivered in a few days. From a tablet, they can access and view a century’s worth of films with a couple taps of a finger. And even notoriously time-consuming processes such as renewing passports, getting healthcare cards and using government portals are now easier than ever, thanks to emerging technologies designed to meet the ever-increasing consumer demand for an expedient lifestyle.
“The insurance industry is behind when it comes to this streamlining of the customer experience,” says Paul MacDonald, executive vice-president of personal insurance at Economical Insurance.
Tatjana Lalkovic, senior vice-president and chief information officer at Economical Insurance and a board member for the Centre for Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO), echoes his sentiment. “Consumers want to be engaged in the way they want, and it’s key for us to meet them there,” she says.
With a focus on providing simple and differentiated experiences, Economical Insurance is distinguishing itself with the latest digital insurance platforms. It’s a growing capability: The digital insurance platform market has an expected compound annual growth rate of 13.4% between 2020 and 2027, according to Data Bridge Market Research.
Economical has blazed new paths over the past few years with Sonnet and Vyne. Sonnet, the first totally online home and auto insurance provider in Canada, generates consumer quotes in as little as five minutes. Vyne offers brokers a similar user experience, enabling them to future-proof policy administration and billing processes. Both technologies have received globally recognized innovation awards and have proven their worth over the past year during some trying situations.
“Our prior investments in innovation and digitization, including Sonnet and Vyne and our digital pet insurance offerings, helped customers and brokers navigate their insurance needs and changes more easily throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as they had access to information from anywhere, at any time, during a truly disruptive period,” MacDonald says.
In addition, Economical was able to adapt to COVID-19 restrictions quickly by enabling 98% of its employees to work remotely within the first two weeks of the pandemic.
Economical has boosted its customer experience credentials further through partnerships with CSIO and Accident Support Services International (ASSI).
“Earlier this year, Economical shared that it has implemented CSIO’s My Proof of Insurance for digital delivery of policy documents to select regions of Canada [Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces],” Lalkovic says. “This means that customers can get their insurance policy information, including pink slips, securely via email.”
My Proof of Insurance launched in 2018 and was created through collaboration with insurers and brokers as a way to meet growing demand for digital solutions in the P&C environment. With it, insurance providers and brokers can instantly send documents across the country, saving the time and financial resources required for paper-based mail services, while getting the peace of mind of knowing that important documents are protected by bank-grade security.
“We continue to inspire confidence by listening and responding to feedback from customers and brokers, with the goal to make insurance simpler and more sustainable,” MacDonald says. “With our customer experience rapidly becoming more digital, we’re pleased to now offer the option for customers who prefer electronic documents instead of print. CSIO’s My Proof of Insurance helps us provide customers a convenient option to access their insurance documents digitally. This advancement reflects our commitment to drive innovation in the broker channel and to help our broker partners empower their customers with reliable and innovative service.”
Through its partnership with ASSI, Economical has provided consumers with a facilitated means of making claims through collision reporting centres.
“This partnership means that Economical policyholders will get a text notification with key information, including their claim number, the contact information of their claims adjuster and the status of their claim as it progresses,” MacDonald says.
This innovation mindset seems to be natural at Economical. “We have a diversely experienced leadership team, which together is focused on continuous purposeful innovation and thinking outside the box,” Lalkovic says. “I am a big supporter of agile delivery practices with close business collaboration and measurable incremental value. By keeping our ear to the ground, we can quickly identify pressure points and pivot to develop industry-leading solutions for our customers.”
Economical is dedicated to continuing to deliver easy-to-use products and services that brokers and customers demand. On the cutting edge of the latest trends, Economical partnered with Uber Canada earlier this year and is monitoring trends such as autonomous vehicles to see how the company can better leverage and service emerging technologies in the future.
Meanwhile, Lalkovic is thinking long-term and believes the insurance industry will remain focused on cloud, data, cybersecurity and insurtech solutions 10 years from now.
“Leveraging data is critical for success,” she says. “Businesses must consider augmenting their existing infrastructure with reusable frameworks and automation to enable agility. These models will allow you to continuously explore the data in different ways, create technology flexibly to enable the exploration, trust the data and have it secured – all critical for innovating with speed and purpose.”
MacDonald also looks forward to what the future might bring. “One of the great things about working in the P&C insurance industry is the constant change and evolution that happens here,” he says. “Economical is prioritizing this change and making smart decisions, alongside our valuable broker partners, that will ensure we are prepared to succeed in the long term.”
ABOUT ECONOMICAL INSURANCE
Economical Insurance has been insuring everything from businesses and farms to homes and cars for 150 years. The company is one of the leading property & casualty insurance providers in Canada, with a reputation for rolling out innovative new customer services. Economical places a premium on being there for customers in times of need. As a result, 89% of Economical customers are happy with the company’s services, according to post-claim surveys.
For more information, visit economical.com.
