WhatsApp Taking Insurance Business to the Next Frontier

On a lazy Sunday morning, Akshit woke up to enjoy his relaxing cup of morning tea with his family. He had promised his family to take them for a movie. He swiped his phone to book movie tickets for his family. It was then when it struck him that he had to get his travel insurance ready for his family holiday trip next month. He thought for a while that It would have been wonderful if he had done that from his home itself instead of going through a tedious process of running to the right insurer and getting a perfect policy.

However, Akshit would be glad to know that his problem could be solved now with just a touch of his smartphone. He will be delighted to discover that WhatsApp is now at his service to solve all his insurance-related problems. So, instead of delaying your urgent insurance policies because of difficulties in finding some time in between your busy schedule, you can now responsibly make a hassle-free purchase of your insurance at your own comfort.

What is WhatsApp?

WhatsApp is a communication channel that is highly used by nearly all smartphone users in India for exchanging free calling, text, video, audio, image, location facilities. This instant messaging app has almost 400 million users in India. WhatsApp has also set many new avenues for the improvement of businesses. The WhatsApp Business for small businesses and WhatsApp Business API for medium and large businesses have created a two-sided communication platform for the businesses and their customers. Another big contribution of WhatsApp towards direct payment services for goods and services provided is WhatsApp Pay. Banks and mutual funds have also started providing services through this instant messaging channel. Finally, the insurers after realizing the importance of such a real-time messaging platform have also opted to offer services through WhatsApp.

Role of WhatsApp in insurance:

WhatsApp is no more used to just text messages to family and friends. Using this communication channel customers can avail of a range of benefits in an easy, fast and convenient way just at the touch of their fingertips sitting at any corner of the world. With an intention to provide quick and prompt service and with an effort to stay always in touch with the customers in order to understand their requirements better, insurers have now resorted to WhatsApp for channelizing their service in the best possible manner. Insurance companies, like

Bharti AXA General Insurance

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance

Bajaj Allianz General Insurance

Aditya Birla Health Insurance

are all started providing its services of policy purchase, renewal, and premium payment through WhatsApp.

Why are insurers resorting to WhatsApp?

Insurers have taken a wise decision of using WhatsApp as one of their sales-platform because of the following advantages of WhatsApp insurance:

1. Indian customers need to be pushed to buy insurance policies. WhatsApp has made this work of insurers very easy as the insurers can stay in touch with the customers always and make them realize their needs in a closer way.
2. Indian customers are almost always busy on their WhatsApp for personal as well as professional needs. Insurers want to take advantage of this situation to make their customers easily reachable.
3. Insurers can easily sell their policy to the customers as policy documents can be sent and all required documents and proofs from the customers can be received through WhatsApp.
4. Customers can very conveniently submit their claim documents through WhatsApp.
5. Relevant products can be easily sold through WhatsApp as there is no DO not Disturb service problem in WhatsApp which would otherwise have barred the messages for the promotion of different products.
6. Customers can use the official WhatsApp accounts of the companies to get any policy-related query.
7. With the help of this channel customers can take care of any policy-related processes like claim status, renewal information and time, change of nominee, name change, change in the mode of payment, address change.
8. WhatsApp has solved the problem of insurance company’s call rejection, using true caller, by customers. Thus, the loss of prospective customers is no longer suffered.

Disadvantages of WhatsApp insurance:

1. Smartphones have a chance of getting hacked. So, the policy documents and other relevant documents are not very secured in such cases.
2. With different sets of employees of the insurer working on a policy, you cannot be sure as to which set of employees will have access to your personal information shared on WhatsApp chat.
3. Elderly customers who are new or irregular users of WhatsApp might not find it very convenient to access the required information related to the policy like renewal policies and date, claim intimation, policy terms. All this may result in wrong policy purchase or even claim rejection.
4. Many customers do not like too much intrusion of insurance salespersons and instead would like to maintain a distance in WhatsApp.

However, like the advantages we get on consuming certain medicines overpower their side effects, similarly, the advantages that the insurance companies experience through usage of WhatsApp overpower the few disadvantages related to WhatsApp usage in Insurance.

Conclusion:

On today’s date, there is a lot of competition in the insurance sector. In order to survive by attracting and retaining sufficient customers, the insurers need to entertain more queries about claims, renewal, policy terms without long waiting times. The insurers need to stop their prospective customers from switching to their competitors. All these issues can get solved through one decision of the insurers and that is incorporating WhatsApp chat channels into their business to give an improved insurance service experience to their customers.