Customer experience is a shared broker-insurer responsibility
Long before artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and satellites were all the rage, non-life insurance business was concluded based on commonsense, enterprise, human relationships and trust. Apologies for the comma-separated lists in this opening sentence, dear reader, but that was just how the words flowed.
The roots of non-life insurance
This introduction was inspired by a customer experience (CX) webinar which invited readers back to the very roots of short-term insurance, through the deals concluded in the London coffee shops some 330 years ago. “Our industry was founded in a coffee shop where people gathered to build on trust and relationships,” said Kgomotso Makola, Customer Experience Manager at Sasria SOC Limited, before lamenting that the fast-paced nature of modern insurance often left stakeholders feeling less connected.
“We have become exceptionally good at managing transactions while sometimes losing sight of the relationships that make those transactions meaningful,” she said, during a 30-minute talk to the popular Insure Talk webinar. The challenge is to revisit insurance through its foundational lens of customers buying confidence or reassurance in the event that when life takes an unexpected turn, an insurer will step in to make good on their loss. To do so, insurers must deliver on their promise and meet customers’ expectations at every step along the value chain.
A universal truth that applies to brokerages, insurers, reinsurers and underwriting management agencies (UMAs) is that the customer experience does not sit entirely in the customer service area. Why? Because customers do not see your internal workings. Rather, they experience one organisation, your brand; one journey, being their own pathway from sales to onboarding to claim; and one promise, that your organisation will fulfil its part in the broader promise contained in the policy wording and schedule.
Brokers extend insurers’ CX
Additional thought is needed in a traditional broker-led distribution model, where the customer’s experience of the insurer is filtered through an intermediary lens. The insurer still ‘owns’ the product and the policy promise; but the broker plays a big part in explaining this promise, thereby influencing customer expectations. In a world where the broker is the first point of customer contact for the sale, onboarding, renewal and claims functions, CX is a shared obligation.
Low trust is a perennial issue in insurance. And despite the benefits of digital platforms and other emerging technologies, insurers still face claims dissatisfaction and high complaint volumes. The solution was couched in the ‘find your why’ framing popularised by marketing guru Simon Sinek. The argument goes that firms that define and understand their purpose, by knowing the why of what they do, will see significant improvements in both customer retention and employee loyalty.
The presenter retold the apocryphal story of US President John F. Kennedy meeting a janitor during a visit to NASA. When Kennedy asked the janitor what he was doing, the janitor reportedly replied: “I am helping put a man on the moon.” The point was that he did not see himself as cleaning floors, but as contributing to NASA’s larger mission. To frame this in customer experience terms, just imagine every employee, in every department across your business, working towards a ‘put the customer on the moon’ vision.
Stop fixing the problem…
“Every role is a customer experience role,” Makola said, calling for corporate culture to evolve from a reactionary ‘fix the problem’ posture to one in which the customer is part of the strategic make-up. One way to test whether your firm is achieving this is to become a mystery shopper of your product or service. The audience was challenged to expand their roles beyond delivering on KPIs and attending strategy sessions to actually sampling their wares as an end consumer, thereby getting a taste for onboarding, premium collection, claiming etc.
The presenter commented on persistently low insurance penetration in Africa, suggesting that a combination of customer experience and trusted relationships might chip away at the cynicism caused by complex policy terms and conditions. According to Sigma 2/2025, published by Swiss Re Institute, South Africa’s non-life insurance penetration, measured as a percentage of GDP was 2.4% in 2024. This is ahead of most of our African peers, but lags the US (9.4%) and world average (4.3%). SA’s life penetration (9.6%) is well ahead of the global average.
Success in the CX world requires a brokerage or insurer to elevate customer centricity from front-office to the leadership level, ensuring that someone takes ownership of the function and making it a governance rather than a service issue. It is also important that the budget allows for execution. Pro-customer slogans and positioning documents count for nothing if the customer is the first compromise when budgets are tight or processes become too complicated. “When you sit around the boardroom making strategic decisions, it cannot be that CX becomes a trade-off because it is too costly,” Makola said.
An intangible promise, sold on trust
There is also a basic insurance theory point worth making here. Insurance is an intangible promise sold long before a risk event occurs, if at all. This creates a natural trust gap, which is only partly addressed by the broker or insurer explaining the cover and exclusions in plain language. Poor explanations during the sales and onboarding process heighten the risk of a negative customer experience at claims stage, even where the policy is technically sound and responsibly underwritten.
Data has long been recognised as a differentiator in insurance underwriting and risk management; but it has a place in CX too. Unfortunately, there is a massive gap between firms collecting customer feedback and integrating this information back into the business. Insurance industry stakeholders were reminded that the data gathered through complaints and survey processes was only useful when it prompted organisational change. Your writer reckons gathering past-sales feedback merely to prop up some or other marketing metric is equally pointless.
You cannot have a CX discussion without considering the impact of AI and digitalisation on products and processes. Digital tools were lauded for improving access, consistency and speed; but they also strip away human contact at moments when your clients need empathy most. “The winners will be organisations that use technology to enhance humanity rather than to replace it,” Makola said. Your business might secure a competitive advantage through a human-first approach at critical points in the customer journey, perhaps at claims, complaints and repudiation stage.
An eight-part solution
The presenter shared an eight-part insurance value chain that included awareness, quotation, purchase, onboarding, service, claims, renewal and advocacy. She then warned that poor performance during any of these functions risked undermining the entire customer relationship. “Customers do not separate these stages; to them it is one continuous relationship … a breakdown at any point affects trust everywhere,” Makola concluded. It is an observation that brokers, insurers, reinsurers and UMAs should take onboard.
Writer’s thoughts:
The aha moments from today’s newsletter are that brokers and insurers share responsibility for customer experience, and that customers experience a multi-part value chain as one continuous relationship. Do you agree? Please comment below, interact with us on X at @fanews_online or email us your thoughts [email protected].
