Virtual Viewpoint: The Impact of Smartphones on Insurance 

Piyush Singh, CIO, Great American Insurance:

“Smartphones have become a convenience factor for a large segment of the population and are becoming a standard for all mobile phones. The ubiquitous nature and convenience of smartphones in the hands of consumers will force the personal and consumer lines of businesses to change their business model to simplify the interaction/interface with consumers. The industry will do this to leverage the power of connectivity and feature-sets of the smartphones. In individual cases, they will enrich the interaction (as an example, quicker reporting of claims, picture attachments, etc.) and reduce the time lag between the event and the reporting. The same principles will apply for loss adjusters and loss-prevention folks for quicker reporting to companies.”

(Want to be a part of Virtual Viewpoint? Contact Tech Decisions associate editor Robert Regis Hyle at rhyle@sbmedia.com)

• • 1/21/2010 2:56:55 PM
  • Stuart Tainsky, CIO, PURE Insurance
  • P&C Impact
  • Looking at what has come out recently by companies like Geico and Nationwide, it would be foolish for any insurance company to ignore mobile technology. Mobile technology provides the ability to service your customers when they need you the most (e.g., a crash). Your clients being able to send you immediate pictures of a loss is a tremendous asset to the P&C industry. It is the new generation of FNOL alerting and the pictures can be a great asset in dealing with potential fraudulent claims by a third party. All IT departments within the insurance industry should have some level of mobile strategy even if it is for delivery in the longer term.
• • 1/21/2010 3:04:30 PM
  • Amit Unde
  • Virtual Viewpoint: The Impact of Smartphones on Insurance
  • I completely agree with Piyush Singh that the Smartphones phenomenon is forcing Insurers to change ( or extend) their business model. We have seen evidence of that with many iPhone applications releases last year by Insurnace companies. Some companies, like Nationwide, are trying to get ahead of selling cycle and trying to become a part of consumer's Car Buying decisions, before selling auto insurance. There is not much action on supporting field employees (e.g. Loss adjustors) with Smartphones yet, however, there is certainly a huge potential. More @ http://amitunde.blogspot.com/search/label/Mobile%20Applications Amit Unde, Lead Architect, L&T Infotech
• • 1/22/2010 11:28:56 AM
  • David Vancina
  • The Impact of Smartphones on Insurance
  • The mobile, always online culture is going to present an important new challenge for businesses -- how to sort through the flood of real-time contacts and comments, find the signal in the noise, and respond in intelligent ways. It will be interesting to see how the convergence of business process technology, feed source management, and complex event processing rise to meet this need.