Agile insurers are transforming the industry with prioritizedinitiatives to streamline entire business processes and improve thecustomer experience, directly increasing their top line.

For instance, insurers implementing robust eSignature platformsare seeing efficiencies that directly impact revenue growth andcustomer retention within the first year. One auto insurer saw amore than 15 percent increase in sales and a five percent increasein customer retention within one year of implementing eSignaturesto transact their policies.

Such immediate results demonstrate the necessity for CIOs to beaware of prioritized initiatives among top P&C insurers.Traditionally, top P&C insurer State Farm is especially popularin small towns. Now?

“State Farm is sitting at the crossroads of the internet andMain Street,” according to Michael Boyle, former SVP and CIO ofAllstate Financial and Aflac.

Without customer-focused initiatives to improve operations in2013, some insurers may not have a place in the 2014 market. Thefollowing insights detail why.

1) Top Insurers are Investing in Customer ExperienceInitiatives

Traditionally behind other industries with regards to customerexperience, top P&C insurers are prioritizing customerexperience initiatives to change this perception.

Overall, however, insurers continue the tradition of poorcustomer experience ratings, as confirmed in the 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings in which the industry scoredpoorly relative to other industries. No insurance company was amongthe top-25 ranked companies, which included grocery stores andonline retailers.

Poor performance relative to other industries is important tonote because insurance customers are not just comparing theirexperience across insurers. They expect the same ease to completetransactions they find when purchasing shoes online withZappos.

A significant opportunity therefore exists for insurers todifferentiate their offerings around an improved customerexperience, particularly with regards to claims.

Traditionally, a time-consuming, labor-intensive process, claimsoperations involve multiple systems, outdated technologies, anddistributed business units. The resulting slow turnaround time isan average 13.9 day lapse between first notice of loss and paymentto auto claimants in fourth quarter 2012, according to a study.

A claim is a customer's moment of need, an opportunity forinsurers to validate years of premium payments and crucial tocustomer retention. Further, the Geico and Progressive-drivenmodels of instant online quotes make it easier to switch upon apoor claims experience.

Right now there is a huge push in the insurance industry forweb- and mobile-enablement to replace antiquated, legacysystems.

2) Breaking Down Technology SilosImproves Customer Retention

Poor customer experience can be partly attributed to productsilos within the insurance industry. Different technologies areoften used for home, car, and boat policies. This lack of anintegrated system across products means agents do not have a goodview of their customers.

Hindering an agent's ability to cross sell products, the lack ofa comprehensive customer view is detrimental to retention. Customerretention increases with each additional policy from a singleinsurer. Effective cross selling requires access to all relevantcustomer data. Traditionally, requirements related to dataownership have been a roadblock to mobile accessibility.

The most enlightened in the industry are no longer concernedwith a need to have possession of the data, just accessibility toit, according to Ed Higgins, vice president of Thousand IslandsAgency. Moving the data to the cloud was the first step, now agentsneed easy accessibility to the data from their mobile devices.

3) Mobility is the Glue that Holds the Agent-CustomerEcosystem Together

A significant driver for eSignature implementation in theinsurance industry with impressive metrics—and a direct impact oncustomer experience—is improving the mobile agent workflow.Innovative insurance companies are leveraging legally-bindingeSignatures to make it easier and faster for their agents to dobusiness with carriers and customers while on the go.

It is important to note the necessity for agent workflows to beoptimized for mobile devices. Field agents are not sitting at theirdesk; they are on the road and working from clients' homes oroffices.

“Agents need to be able to put the agency in their back pocketand leave the office with it,” according to Higgins.

Walking into an initial meeting toting a printer and fax machineis not putting their best foot forward. Instead, walking into suchenvironments with a tablet containing all necessary documentationand the ability to complete the entire transaction during thatinitial conversation has been proven to increase the signingrate.

Further, mobilizing a paperless agent workflow requires less ofthe agent's time to complete internal agent/carrier processes. Thisnot only increases top line revenue for the carrier, but also meansan increased hourly rate for the agent. Think about it. Less timespent processing paperwork means a shortened time to transactbusiness, creating speed to coverage for the customer, and speed tosale for the agent.