After this year’s hurricane season in the US, it’s important to reflect on the entire catastrophic events (CAT) season — and how that affects the insurance Customer Experience? claims experience for many of those impacted. During these extremely stressful and emotional events, how — and when — property and casualty (P&C) insurance companies reach out to those affected can make a significant difference. Simply providing a standard experience is one accurate cleaned numbers list from frist database approach. But delivering an exceptional customer experience can build long-term loyalty. And one key ingredient in the latter is empathy.
As a Floridian,
I’ve come to accept the hurricane season as part of the tradeoff for living in a tropical climate near the coast. I’ve repeated the phrase, “It comes email and message support with the territory…” more times than I can count since moving to Florida in 2021. And I’ve joked about not needing to “shovel sunshine” living here. However, when a couple of hurricanes make landfall close to your home and you must navigate evacuations, you get serious.
Having worked in and around the insurance industry for almost 20 years,
I was interested to see what sort of response and customer experience
I would see from my insurance companies Customer Experience? during the recent storm season. In the past, I’ve sold property and casualty insurance; worked in operations;
been a developer; provided financial analysis; whatsapp number handled project, program and portfolio management; and managed omnichannel applications. The idea of CAT and claims support —
and what that means to a customer — has been fundamental to my job.
CAT readiness, weekend support,
inventory, testing, huddles and emergency changes have been constants during the hurricane season. So, I was surprised with the varied responses I’ve received from all the companies I do business with, especially compared to other industries like utilities and banking.
My utilities companies reached out to me via phone,
email and text message in the days leading up Customer Experience? to each hurricane with simple messaging: We are here for you. The messaging was informative but empathetic, focusing on topics, such as what they were doing to prepare for the hurricane (adding resources),
how I could lessen my impact during storm season (consultative measures and options to receive proactive status updates). The messaging continued throughout the hurricane and
the following days until services in my area were restored.
The financial institutions
I use for banking, loans and credit cards all had a similar approach of reaching out through proactive outreach and focused on acknowledging that my family and home were most likely going have some impact with the storm. They also shared information on options and programs available to me in the event that I needed assistance. And they sent follow-up messaging to make sure that I was OK.
Knowing that I had options and assistance was comforting, especially in the days before the storm made landfall — when any slight change to the storm track could mean evacuation and potential devastation of my property.
