Discussions of mobile and wireless technology in the insurance industry usually come down to two points: Yes, the technology is cool, but do we really need it? There’s little to argue about the first point. Being connected anywhere, any time gives agents and claims adjusters freedom they never imagined a decade ago. The second point, though, has been the defining issue regarding mobile/wireless strategies: Companies may be able to survive without such technology today, but without a mobile/wireless strategy, are they limiting the effectiveness of their operations in the future? Industry observers say yes.
Companies are waking up to the fact what they’ve been doing in the past has been too random, believes Karen Pauli, a senior insurance analyst for TowerGroup. The call to action for wireless, she maintains, translates into exploring the kinds of applications agents and claims people should have on their mobile device to allow them to gather data—information that then can be uploaded directly to the home office.
Celent senior analyst Chad Hersh thinks wireless is still on the cusp. “The technology actually has been a little slow in getting where it needs to be,” he says. “The promise of ubiquitous connectivity has not panned out. It’s here, but it took a long time to get here, and it’s still pretty darn expensive.”
From a consumer perspective, wireless connectivity has taken off, but Hersh asserts that’s a far cry from what he expected to see on the business side. In 2004, he wrote a report for Celent asking whether wireless was ready for prime time. It turns out the adoption rates he predicted for 2007 (60 percent of P&C carriers with projects in production) are more in line with the numbers he estimated for 2005 (30 percent). “If you think about the capabilities since even last year of wireless modem cards and the lack of WiMAX, there was no compelling reason to switch to significant wireless projects,” he says. “I would say from a claims perspective, I think you will see about a two-year delay [from his earlier predictions]. I think the 2007 numbers will be pushed back until at least 2009 because of the delays in mobile WiMAX.”
There have been improvements in the design of wireless devices, according to Rod Travers, senior vice president, Robert E. Nolan Co., but he credits this to evolution more than innovation. He’s not ready to call wireless/mobile use mainstream in the insurance arena, but he feels it is headed in that direction. “That’s going to help with costs because the more people adopt the technology, the easier it is going to be to afford, since it’s reaching a broader base of adopters,” says Travers.
The adoption of wireless strategies is beginning to filter down to midtier insurers, suggests Shane Hughes, CEO of Pyxis Mobile, because there are more people carrying hand-held devices. “That begins to drive interest in what else they can get on these devices besides e-mail or local contacts,” he says. The other driver is home offices want to increase the adoption of the systems they’ve already purchased, such as CRM or reporting systems, adds Hughes, noting, at the same time, companies are putting in a single repository they want to use to support their sales professionals in the field.
ESTIMATES AND APPRAISALS
The most obvious application for wireless in the property/casualty field continues to be claims and damage appraisal, indicates Travers. “Beyond those well-known applications, where you have some innovation going on is in the correlation of information related to location intelligence, so you are doing more pinpointing about CAT information and using location intelligence to put your people in the right place faster than what might have been before,” he says.
Cincinnati Insurance contracted with Symbility Solutions in 2006 to arm the carrier’s field claims representatives with the vendor’s estimating software for property claims. The solution is used with Cincinnati’s tablet PCs. David Rice, assistant secretary, headquarters, field claims, for the insurer, reports the company selected the tablets first before searching for the estimating software, but it found a good match. “Symbility was specifically designed for tablet technology,” he says.
Prior to purchasing the new solution, Rice continues, the carrier used a different estimating solution on a license basis. “Quite a few in the field had [access to the earlier solution], but it was designed more for desktops,” he says. “One of the biggest advantages with Symbility is it is available to everybody on a per-use basis.”
FACE TO FACE
In Rice’s view, the advantage for insurers with mobile technology is it allows claims reps to be face to face with the customer. “More than half of anyone’s ability to communicate effectively rests with those interactions,” he says. “Mobile technology has made good service even better.”
He uses an analogy to explain the difference between good and better: At 211 degrees, w