White Paper

Mobile Opportunities
for Insurers
Mobile adoption is not an option but a reality today as
most insurers have already rolled out consumer
facing, producer oriented and even enterprise
applications (apps) and are planning more.
The big questions are how to gain acceptance of
these apps from the target customers and keeping
them fresh by adding new features while maintaining
high user satisfaction. In this paper we review
potential opportunities for insurers and share ideas
from our Innovation Labs that can enable insurers
efforts in this increasingly critical space. We also share
our experience working with customers on the critical
factors that drive success in the mobility area.

About the Authors

Arunashish Majumdar
Arun heads the TCS Insurance Architecture & Technology Services
Practice in North America. Arun has lead large scale
transformation programs and strategic consulting engagements
in architecture and emerging technologies for the Insurance,
Financial Services, Manufacturing, and Telecom vertical industries.

Dennis Maroney
Dennis heads the TCS Insurance Practice. Dennis has held senior
executive roles (COO, CTO, MD) at insurers, start ups and major
vendors working to help clients improve productivity and
innovation across their enterprises on a global basis.

Shanmuga Venkatesh
Shanmuga is a Mobile Solution Architect. He has 10+ years of
experience on web technologies. Shanmuga is part of the TCS
Emerging Technology Group for insurance and is actively working
with customers on strategic initiatives to create frameworks for
mobile web and native apps.

Table of Contents
1.

Evolution of Insurance Mobile Solutions

2.

Insurance Opportunities

Use Cases to Consider

Solution Accelerators

3.

4.

Converging Trends

Social Media

Digital Marketing

10

Online Aggregators

10

Critical Success Factors

10

User Experience

10

Scalable Architecture

11

Sustainable Support Model

12

5.

Conclusion

13

6.

Acknowledgement

13

7.

References

13

Evolution of Insurance Mobile Solutions

As is obvious to all, the mobile smartphone and tablet markets have seen enormous growth and
innovation. The app market has been the principal driver in this adoption with the creation of tens of
thousands of new apps for both personal and business use. This growth has gained even more
momentum in the last few months. To validate this assumption we did a quick survey of the various app
markets. Figure1 shows our analysis of how the mobile apps market for various platforms has grown
rapidly over the last two years. Leading analyst firms predict this trend will continue through 2011 into
2012 and beyond.

Figure 1: Growth in Mobile App Space

Insurers have actively jumped on this mobile band-wagon. Most insurers have already rolled out various
consumer facing, producer oriented and even enterprise apps. We did an analysis of the insurance apps
available in the various app markets to find out the current adoption trend (refer to Figure 2).
Our analysis indicates that providing value added services (such as accident helper, financial planning,
etc.) are the highest priority among insurers. Marketing driven mobile apps to share product/service
information and promote a brand with customers and prospects is a close second. Quote/policy, making
payments and claims status are common capabilities supported through the mobile channel by most
leading P&C insurers. Financial calculators and recommendations on how much life insurance is needed
are the key focus areas of mobile apps rolled out by Life insurers. Apart from the insurers, agencies and
brokers also provide apps directly to consumers such as obtaining quotes from multiple carriers.

US Insurance Apps across Insurance Value Chain

0%
Product Development

20%

33%

Marketing

0%

Distribution

8%

19%

New Business &

Underwriting

20%

Account Management &

Service
Claims
Value Added Service

Figure 2: Insurance App Landscape

Insurance Opportunities
The insurance value chain provides significant opportunities for insurers to develop and deploy
innovative mobile apps. The figure below illustrates representative areas of interest. In addition to these,
there are various enterprise apps (such as access to HR data or competitive data) that leading edge
insurers are already enhancing for mobile enablement especially for executives.
Product
Development

Not very common

Collaboration in
product design

Analytics to help in
customer need
indentification

Product/service
Information
sharing

New
Business &
Underwriting

Sales &
Distribution

Marketing

Segment focused
promotions and/or
campaigns
n

Access to customer
information &
analytical insight
for sales
team/agents on
the go.

Policy issuance

Mobile telematics

Agents locators

Convergent apps

Social
collaboration

Performance
dashboards

Performance
dashboards

Convergent apps

Agent locator

Quick quotes

Sales illustrations

Account
Management
& Service
n

Review policy and

other information
Bill due
notifications & Bill
pay

Self service

Coaching apps

Performance
dashboards

Claims

Report claims

Claims status

Claim adjudication

Repair monitor &

status

Locate preferred
repair partners

Figure 3: Mobile Opportunities in Insurance Value Chain

The opportunities can be broadly classified into three (3) user categories:
n

Consumer Apps: Consumer apps enabling self-service will continue to evolve. While most
organizations today already provide services like Quick Quote or Bill pay, the industry is going to see
more Convergent Applications with a single mobile app providing offerings such as auto buying
through insurance ID card issuance or home search through buying homeowners or renters
insurance. Telematics is also likely to gain popularity as consumers are open to allowing insurers to
collect dynamic driving data if it can help reduce accident severities, improve claims processing times
and let them qualify for a favorable rate.

Producer Apps: This channel will see the maximum development by insurers as well as producers on
their own. The greatest focus will be on using tablet based solutions to provide Sales Force
Automation Tools such as mobile CRM solutions, new business quotes and illustrations as well as
performance dashboards to optimize sales performance. Next in focus will be claims applications
(reporting, adjudication) and other customer servicing apps such as self service.

Internal Apps: This area will also see a rapid increase in volume. Typical examples will include realtime alerts (such as catastrophe alerts for impending coverage suspensions) and analytics dashboards
for better decision making. Also in this category will be an increasing number of mobile applications
providing access to transactional systems to support day-to-day activities for front line remote
employees as well as executives

Use Cases to Consider

Table 1 lists some of the indicative use cases that can be considered for extending an insurers mobile
apps portfolio. We recommend developing a similar checklist to define priorities in any mobile adoption
roadmap priorities. This roadmap should be a living document that can adapt to fast emerging advances
in mobile technology and competitive landscape. We recommend a quarterly or half-yearly review and
refresh of the roadmap to remain competitive in this space.
Use Case

Supported Features

Business Benefit

Brand
promotion

Improve the brand value by leveraging mobile

and social platforms

Social marketing apps Enable online

community forums to promote brand and
share new products/ services information in
a social way

Customer
acquisition,
growth and
retention

Leverage the growing mobile & social aspects to

know and connect with customers/prospects to
improve growth and retention

Social CRM apps Integration of enterprise

CRM and social networking applications
(such as Facebook and Twitter) to provide
3600 view of customer preferences

Sales
Illustration

Enable sales teams and agents to provide quotes

and/or sales illustrations based on individual
preferences and needs of a customer

Sales Illustration apps Benefit analysis and

illustration for variety of L&A products (such
as Level Term, Universal Life and Flexible
retirement annuity products).

Use Case

Supported Features

Business Benefit

Improving
wallet share

Encourage cross-sell and up-sell of various

product offerings

Financial calculators Provide customers

and prospects with tools for their financial
portfolio planning

Improving
wallet share

Retain loyal customers by helping them leverage

your full partner ecosystem

Convergent apps Auto buying or property

search through to financing, loss reporting
and emergency services

Customer
retention

Improve customer loyalty

Value added service apps Help customers

take advantage of services such as finding
vehicle comparison information, improving
driving skills, travel/move planning

Competitive
pricing

Promote pay-as-you-drive to provide pricing

based on driving habits

Pay-as-you-drive apps Provide indicative

savings information by tracking users
driving habits using smartphones to
promote enrollment in pay-as-you-drive
programs

Service cost
optimization

Reduce claims handling costs by encouraging

capture and share of right claims info at right
time

Insured portal app Use Near Field

Communication (NFC) based
ID/membership cards to enable better
integration with partner service providers,
enable faster and easier payments, billing
and renewal alerts

Claims cost
control

Retain loyal customers by helping them leverage

your full partner ecosystem

Claims reporting apps Wizard like

approach to claims reporting with clear
traceability of required loss/medical reports,
tips and preferred partner services
integration. Use of visual representation
and augmented reality to capture loss
details and context information. Geosensitive information can also help in
catastrophe monitoring.

Agent
Managing performance and faster commissions
payment
for agents to improve motivation
management

Agent management apps Ability to

monitor performance of agents in near realtime as well as using innovative techniques
to make commissions payments to agents

Decision
support

Executive dashboard apps Providing nearreal-time access to analytics info, sales

performance and customer info to
executives

Improve analytics lead decision making and

management oversight

Table 1: Insurance Mobile Use Cases

Solution Accelerators
Table 2 presents a representative set of mobile solutions accelerators that have been prototyped in our
Innovation Labs. These prototypes have been taken to the next level and are in use by our early adapter
customers. This further illustrates the point that an insurer can get started today on rolling out
sophisticated but sustainable apps to drive customer awareness and loyalty.
{Implications}
TCS Solution
Accelerators

Supported Features

Digital
Marketing
Platfor
(Cubuzz)

Mobile Sales
Force App

Mobile Life
Illustrations

n
n

Risk Analyzer
App

n
n

Market
Information
App

DriveSafe App
(Patent filed in
Indian Patent
Office on 28th
April, 2011)

n
n
n

Business Benefit

Integration with social network sites

Intuitive & innovative platform to enable sharing
and searching of product information
Customer sentiment and interest monitoring

Quick quote and Life Insurance Calculators

Integration of social networking sites such as
Facebook, Twitter
Sending proactive alerts to agents (such as new
products, renewal notices)
Taking notes and maintaining work list

Provide comprehensive view of cash value and

interest rates for Level Term, Universal Life and
Flexible retirement annuity products
Display benefits using interactive graphs
Perform what-if-analysis on products

Assess investor risk tolerance

Scores the questions based on the options
selected by the investor
Identifies one of the portfolios/products based on
the investors risk tolerance score

Agents/brokers can create and manage a

portfolio of insurers
Outlooks from all three major credit rating
agencies AM Best, S&P, and Moodys
Solution uses self-contained transactional
database which is synchronized between offline
database and enterprise server

Detection of driving patterns and scoring

Weather and traffic alerts integration
Integration with social networking sites to
promote safe driving

Mobile digital marketing

Improved customer connect

Increased productivity of agents

Effective cross-sell/up-sell

Improved customer experience

Builds customer confidence in
product offering leading to
improved sell ratio

Right set of products based on

customers risk profile leading to
higher customer satisfaction
Improved agents/sales team
performance
Real-time access to current, top
quality data and insight into the
financials of insurers to
agents/brokers
Create personalized portfolios that
enable quick access to the relevant
data and analysis
Promote adoption of pay-as-you
drive insurance

TCS Solution
Accelerators
Loss
Notification
App

Supported Features
n

Catastrophic
Event Mgmt
App

n
n

Business Benefit

3600customer interaction which enables real-time

loss reporting acknowledgement
Location aware system doing preliminary
coverage verification before loss reporting
Present coverage and policy information in an
understandable manner
Location services to integrate preferred partner
service providers

Geo-grouping of claims resulting in optimized

assignment of claims to Adjusters
Digitization papers required in claims
Ability of the Claims Managers to review the work
of all Field Adjusters in near real-time
Ability of Claims Managers to send weather alerts
to policyholders proactively

n
n

Reduced time to acknowledge the

receipt of the loss report
Minimize coverage issue related
claim rejection rate
Improved customer satisfaction
Provide value added services to
claimants ( Garage, Towing,
Medical Care Service Provider)
Reduced claims processing cost
Improved customer experience

Table 2: TCS' Innovation Lab Solution Accelerators

Converging Trends
At this point, we would like to highlight three converging trends that will have a significant impact on the
future of overall IT and specifically the mobile roadmap strategy of insurers.
n

Social Media

Digital Marketing

Online Aggregators

Social Media
Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. have attracted millions of users since their
inception. Within insurance, the major influence has been in areas of marketing, customer
communication and distribution management. There are three distinct models of adoption
n

Public Social Networking Sites: Most insurers have a Facebook wall and are also active on some
other sites. Some of the insurers have also identified themselves with specific social causes and
triggered community forums around such topics.

Hosted Community Sites: Many large insurers have also created and hosted communities on their
own sites to cater to specific needs of their customers segments.

Consumer Hosted Community Sites: This model is not yet common within insurance space, but is
picking up momentum among other industry verticals. The IKEA community site, which is run by IKEA
consumers, is a great example of this.

The convergence of mobile and social media has provided insurers with an opportunity to stay
connected with their consumer community learn their personal preferences and react to their sentiments
in near real time. The location sensitivity that is enabled by mobile devices is going to make a social
presence more context-aware and even more critical. We recommend reviewing your CRM, mobile and
social networking strategies in unison. This will allow you to derive an integrated strategy that helps
direct sales and/or producers get a 3600 view of the customer or prospect. By moving toward a context
aware perspective, affinity toward the insurer will be strengthened and personalized offers and services
can be provided.

Digital Marketing
Today, social presence is a key part of insurers digital marketing strategy. Mobile marketing is also
gaining in prominence. The convergence of the two presents real opportunities for insurers. But mobile
advertising has to be very different from the website ads we are all used to. Insurers have to look for
innovative digital ways of sharing marketing info with customers and prospects that capture the target
consumers imaginations. Many insurers have adopted the rollout of focused marketing apps and some
have adopted the strategy of rolling out gaming apps to improve brand awareness. We also recommend
blending mobile analytics into marketing strategy to continuously measure and improve the
effectiveness of your mobile digital marketing initiatives.

Online Aggregators
Analysts predict that online aggregators are going to play a major role in the future of online insurance.
Keeping this in mind the mobile strategy of insurers has to take into consideration the need to integrate
with and also compete with such aggregator sites. We recommend designing the backend services to
support your own mobile apps in such a way that they can be reused in delivering content to such
aggregator sites. This will help ensure uniform customer experience across various communication touch
points.

Critical Success Factors

The following are the top criteria based on our analysis of successful mobile initiatives among our
customers across industry domains.
n

User Experience

Scalable Architecture

Sustainable Support Model

User Experience
User experience is the single deciding factor in adoption of mobile apps. With a high number of app
options available to the consumer, the producers of the App (insurers) are faced with a real challenge of
finding ways to ensure high consumer adoption. We did a quick survey of customer feedback on existing
insurance apps in the various app markets. Figure 4 shows our findings of the recent user ratings.

10

Figure 4: User Ratings of Insurance Apps

The most popular apps on the Apple AppStore have ratings of 4 and above. Thus, the vast majority of
existing insurance apps have room for improvement. In a space where benchmarks are established by
cool gaming apps such as Angry Bird, the insurers have to adopt a strategy of leveraging the native
device capabilities to provide rich user experience. The TCS mobility group has a dedicated usability
design team which focuses on all aspects of user oriented design and works closely with leading edge
external design firms to create device specific user interface design best practices. A simple but rich user
interface design which avoids complex user interactions while leveraging native capabilities are key
components of best design practices.
To keep consumers engaged, insurers need to excite them about their apps through regular refresh of
content, continually adding more innovative features and constantly improving their experience.
Emerging capabilities such as augmented reality, NFC, location services, etc. can be used to provide
innovative context aware solutions in both the sales and servicing spaces.

Scalable Architecture
With usability as the top focus for better adoption and multi-device strategy a must have to cater to a
fragmented consumer base are agile ways of enabling core functionalities on multiple device platforms.
The current app market is dominated by Android, iOS and RIM OS with analysts predicting that Windows
based phones will join the leaders soon. The tablet market is also likely to see more innovations and
changes at a rapid pace. Other emerging technologies such as Kinnect XBox may play a role in motion
driven apps. This ever changing landscape has given rise to two common trends (a) mobile web apps
and (b) platform (Mobile Consumer Application Platform and Mobile Enterprise Application Platform)
solutions.
Mobile web solutions lack the sophistication and richness a native app can provide and hence score low
on usability. This is not to say that focusing on mobile web development is not an appropriate strategy.
For example, consumers looking for an insurance quote are unlikely to download apps from multiple
insurers on their devices to obtain quotes and compare. Having a mobile web solution that allows
11

prospects to obtain a quote with only a few clicks still can be a worthwhile approach. We recommend
limiting mobile web functionalities to only those capabilities that require availability to a wider user base
targeted at mass market (non smart phones) and not strictly limited to affluent (smart phone) markets.
The TCS mobility team has developed a Proxy Client Architecture model for mobile development that
follows the core architecture principle of separation of concerns. This model helps localize the use of
native device features and OS specific APIs to a thin rich client on the device. The core business logic
resides in a common server layer that serves the requests from the device clients through a proxy. This
also restricts the need for niche OS specific app developers while helping insurers leverage their existing
web teams to developing the core functionality to be exposed. The model also helps in adopting proven
architecture principles such as multi-level authentication, process orchestration, service integration, data
encryption and storage which are critical for long-term sustainability. This approach will help insurers roll
out functionality on multiple devices at a faster pace and enabling easy maintenance.
Management of the various smartphone and tablet devices on which enterprise applications will be
made available for internal employees and/or partners is a top priority for insurers. Mobile Device
Management solutions (such as GOOD Technologies) enabling remote management of devices, security
encryption of data stored on the devices and wipe (full or partial) of data in case of lost/stolen device has
to be a key component of the architecture strategy for mobile adoption.

Sustainable Support Model

The mobile journey begins with the rollout of that first app and then requires ongoing deep and
sustainable support expertise. There are three key aspects to achieving sustainable support:
n

Focus on the most innovative business processes in a prioritized manner to deliver maximum values
to consumers, producers, partners and employees

Establish a factory like delivery model that allows for the best leveraging of niche OS developers skills,
web and integration skills and mobile testing skills all in an assembly line fashion that delivers
business solutions with a high degree of agility

Control and categorize the devices to be supported for all employees all the way up to senior
executives enabling varying service levels for the help desk and support teams

TCS has established a dedicated mobility practice to support this growing market need. Head-quartered
in Santa Clara (CA), it has established focused delivery centers at Santa Clara, Milford (OH) and seven
Indian cities. The team brings unique experience and integrates closely with domain focused innovation
labs to pilot new solution ideas and deliver best in class solutions. The group has established strong
relationships with partners such as Apple, RIM, Motorola, Microsoft and Oracle. With 12 years of
experience in mobile computing and 40+ years of delivering application development and support
services for customers across the globe, the mobility group is positioned to provide world class
end-to-end services from strategy to implementation.

12

Conclusion
The dynamic growth in mobile apps is driven by growing expectations from consumers; producers,
partners and employees requiring insurers to develop a robust mobile adoption roadmap. This model
needs to be scalable and sustainable to achieve the twin goals of growth and profitability. Insurers
should review their processes as well as complementary value-added services to look for opportunities
that can improve all participants experience and productivity. Attention to the three critical success
factors discussed in this paper should be at the heart of defining and putting in action a successful
mobile strategy. Once created, this roadmap should be a living document that can account for fast
emerging advances in mobile technology and respond to the competitive insurance landscape. TCS is
looking forward to joining insurers on this journey and sharing the experience of our leading edge
customers who are already pushing the frontiers of mobile business and technology with us.

Acknowledgement
We are thankful to TCS teams from Domain, Innovation Lab, Mobility Practice and various mobile projects
that have provided valuable inputs and insights in creation of this paper as well as the industry analysts
that we are working with.

References
[1] Industry analyst reports and analyst interaction notes
[2] Mobility Management News and Blogs
[3] mobiReady (http://ready.mobi/launch.jsp?locale=en_EN)
[4] Apple App Store: http://itunes.apple.com
[5] Android Market: https://market.android.com/
[6] RIM's AppWorld: http://appworld.blackberry.com
[7] Nokia's OVI Store: http://store.ovi.com
[8] Windows Phone 7 App: http://www.appsfuze.com

13

Contact
For more information, contact insurance.practice@tcs.com

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