Canadian insurers failing to meet customer expectations – new report

P&C insurers in Canada are missing the mark when it comes to meeting customer expectations for digital experiences and features, J.D. Power’s latest report has found.

The J.D. Power 2019 Canada Insurance Digital Experience Report assessed digital consumer experiences among P&C insurance shoppers, examining the functional aspects of insurance websites and mobile apps. The report was conducted in partnership with Centric Digital.

Some of the key takeaways of the report include:

• Insurance digital offerings lack maturity – Canadian P&C insurers come up short in areas such as digital self-service tools (which often lack basic features such as managing policies across product lines) and customer services channels (which lack omni-channel integration with mobile, web, social media, and email).
• Many insurance customers are open to the idea of alternative insurance providers – One-third of all Canadian P&C insurance customers are open to getting insurance from digital native companies such as Amazon (35%) and Google (35%). Additionally, one in four say they would be open to switching their auto policies to an auto manufacturer (28%) or Uber (24%), while 19% said they would consider insurance from Tesla.
• More insurance customers are using mobile apps – 67% of insurance customers said they used a mobile device or app for their most recent transaction. About 30% said they used their mobile device during their most recent auto insurance shopping experience.

“Today’s P&C insurance customer expects their provider to deliver an efficient, seamless experience across multiple offline and digital channels,” commented J.D. Power vice-president of property and casualty insurance intelligence Tom Super.

Super noted that while the 12 insurance carriers J.D. Power evaluated for the survey had a visible presence when it came to their digital offerings, they still do not make the grade when it comes to meeting expectations of core insurance digital functionality.