When you compare the user experience of insurance to that of retail, insurance is miles behind. Nick Mercer, UK sales manager at Loqate outlines what the industry needs to do to master the user’s experience
Insurance and UX are not the most synonymous of terms.The online quote process is a notoriously lengthy one; understandable given the amount of personal information required in order for insurers to provide the relevant quote. However, this can often cause user frustration, which leads to form abandonment.
When it comes to user experience, there’s still a lot more that you could be doing to improve the quote process, especially when we compare insurance to sectors such as retail, which appear to have near perfected theirs. So, why do insurers struggle to keep up with retail counterparts, and what do you need to do to master your user experience?
According to form analytics experts Formisimo, on average, insurance forms consist of 56 form fields and take users approximately 246 seconds to complete. While it is necessary to retrieve essential information from the user in order to provide a quote, Formisimo believe that form length could actually be halved.
One way to reduce form friction and the amount of typing required of the user, while ensuring you are capturing only accurate data is to implement data verification tools such as address and email validation. By collecting accurate address and email data in your online forms, you’ll optimise UX, making the process quicker, as well as giving users more confidence that you have the correct details required.
An essential way to reduce the number of form fields and the amount of effort required of the user is to look for a data verification supplier that uses a combination of Open Data and commercial data to provide property intelligence - data about houses which can help homeowners acquire services more quickly and easily.
Property intelligence data provides insurers with a full picture of a property and its surrounding area, allowing you to assess risk, plan effectively, reduce costs and improve customer experience.
This information includes property type, age of the property, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and number of floors. Having access to this data ensures that you are able to provide an accurate quote without the need to ask further questions to the consumer directly.
Having quick access to essential information, without actually having to ask your customers each and every question, saves the user an incredible amount of time and effort, and means that the data you need in order to provide the correct quote is accurate.
In fact, home insurance company Homelyfe say they see an 80% conversion rate on their most popular policy type thanks to the ability to diminish question sets and pre-populate answers through property intelligence.
So, data verification tools and property intelligence data can be vital for insurers who want to provide the correct quote based on a specific property, and improve UX by reducing the amount of time and effort required of the customer.
Find out how your insurance forms fare with the Loqate quiz, and get expert advice on how you can improve your UX.
