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If your daily work involves selling life insurance policies to people, you already know the insurance industry is one of the toughest industries to operate within. Especially in an ecosystem like India that is considered a late adopter of technology. Evidence of this is in the fact that the vast majority of Indians are uninsured. The total insurance penetration in India standing at just 3.49%, according to the 2018 Economic Survey. Of that amount, 2.72% can be attributed to life insurance. However, the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) reports that the life insurance industry will grow by 12% — 15% annually over the next five years.
This marks good news for agents and marketers of life insurance policies. But, while there is light at the end of the tunnel, there’s still a lot of digging required. In this case, it refers to automation.
Selling Life Insurance Is Really Hard Because…
There are a number of difficulties facing life insurance brokers and it is not so rare to find a lot of professionals switching teams later in their career. With this in mind, here are specific reasons why it’s become really difficult for you to hit those targets.
Customers aren’t exactly thinking about their death
Getting new customers for life insurance policies is often like a long walk in the desert. And that’s more psychological than anything else. Because let’s face it, not everyone is going about thinking about the aftermath of their deaths. Especially when they belong to a certain income bracket.
While they may jump at other insurance policies like health insurance, vehicle insurance, house insurance, they may take a minute longer to consider your life insurance offer. This is why your sales team has to be top-of-mind, something that won’t happen without automation.
You’ve got a tardy acquisition process
There’s a lot of traditional technology involved with lots of insurance companies, which you can mostly attribute to the regulations that abound in the industry. However, this is no excuse for lack of innovation, especially in the area of customer acquisition.
Some agents rely on the stressful — and sometimes redundant — strategy of cold-calling and house visitations. This is not to discard the effectiveness of these marketing methods but to stress the fact that it can be almost useless when it isn’t backed by technology. You also need to stop and consider the likelihood that your competitor has probably reached out too. So, what do you do differently? How do you get ahead?
On the other hand, life insurers who adopt online acquisition models often experience certain shortcomings. For example, customer experience becoming relatively impersonal and generic.
A lack of automation
Feeding off the last point, an automated CRM software can be the final cog in your wheel. It provides you with a holistic path to executing your sales strategy. A lack of it thereof means lower policy sales and renewals. It also deprives your sales team the opportunity to fully engage prospects, upsell, and cross-sell via automated and personalized communication.
An Integrated CRM Solution Is The Way Forward
Of India’s 57 insurance companies, 24 of them are focused on life insurance. This means there’s a lot of competition for customers who are already hard to get. Adopting a fully automated insurance software will help make selling life insurance a lot easier.
Get leads from different channels
An automated insurance CRM software allows you to capture leads from both online and offline channels for access in one place. These include your regular insurance aggregators like PolicyBazaar and MyInsuranceClub. You can also harness policy inquiries from prospects on your digital assets like website, blog, social media channels, and PPC campaigns.
With this, you have an idea of where your leads are coming from. You also know the ideal rules of engagement, and what strategy is best for following up to ultimately close the prospect.
Also read: how to find exclusive life insurance leads?
Assign leads to relevant departments automatically
As your prospects pass through your digital acquisition funnel, it is only ideal to adopt an automatic means of distributing leads. For one, it helps to avoid ambiguity and foster clarity of tasks, such that you can save ample time in reaching out to prospects.
On the other hand, you can reduce the communication gap between insurance agents and the prospect as everyone knows who they’re responsible for. According to the EY Global Consumer Insurance Survey, 44% of customers had no interactions with their insurers in 18 months.
(Source: https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-the-EY-global-consumer-insurance-survey-2014/$FILE/EY-the-EY-global-consumer-insurance-survey-2014.pdf)
Track customer activity in real-time
An ideal insurance CRM software enables you to integrate with important marketing and sales tools such as Google Adwords, Facebook, IVR tools, etc. From the moment a prospect lands on any of your digital assets, you’re able to track their other activities. A 360-degree view of some sorts. As a result, beyond providing your insurance salespeople with contextual information about your leads, you’re also able to give them live-action details.
For instance, you can notify agents when leads visit certain pages on your website. For example, when they click a link to the FAQ section of your Life Insurance web page. You get a faint idea that they’re definitely interested in the specifics of your life insurance policies, perhaps in comparison with your competitor(s). Simultaneously, you can assign the next task to the concerned agent, so that the process can remain hot.
Up-sell and Cross-sell
There’s a really great chance that your insurance company does more than sell life insurance policies. So, why not kill two birds with one stone by cross-selling or up-selling your products. Someone who just bought a life insurance policy could also be interested in getting a health policy. With an automated platform, you can achieve this. Since you already have all their details and transaction history in one place.
It’s only hard when it isn’t automated
Automation, as with a lot of things, is proving a lifeline for many businesses. The same goes for the insurance industry. It is the fastest, if not the only way insurance companies can penetrate this market. Adopting an automated insurance CRM and sales execution platform ensures that you’re staying ahead of the competition.
In this vein, what you need to get started isn’t far away. Leadsquared’s robust insurance tool offers you all the features required for turning your life insurance policy sales around, from bespoke customizations to third-party integrations with your most important business tools. You can enjoy the platform’s powerful features for 15 days at zero cost here.
