As consumers shop more online for insurance, research on their shopping journeys can be used to ensure they’re more engaged and more likely to convert. Jornaya and iptiQ by Swiss Re partnered to research how comparison shopping correlates to life insurance applications and policy issuance and to understand how these shopping behaviors vary by consumer characteristics.
Consumers on a life insurance buying journey do their research. One in three applications in the data set were witnessed on a comparison shopping site in the Jornaya network before submitting an application. And their research can begin many months before an application is submitted. Specifically, 27% of applicants began their journey six to 12 months before applying.
It’s important to engage with consumers while they do their due diligence pre-application because engaging can increase the likelihood to purchase. In fact, consumers who shop on comparison sites before they apply are 68% more likely to become customers than those who don’t.
Consumers are often on multiple buying journeys. Jornaya’s research found that other considered purchases can affect buying life insurance:
- 13% comparison-shopped for a mortgage or refinance in the year before applying for life insurance
- Those applicants issued at a 45% higher rate than those who did not show mortgage-shopping activity before applying
During the Application Phase
Consumers frequently shop after they submit an application and should be nurtured accordingly. The study found:
- One in 12 applicants will continue to shop post-application
- 64% of applicants witnessed post-application returned to market within the first week after submitting an application with iptiQ
- Consumers who shop on comparison-shopping sites post-app are 26% less likely to become customers
See also: 2021: The Great Reset in Insurance
Post-Policy Issuance
Retention risk is low early on, and cross-selling opportunities exist for insurance providers that sell multiple insurance products.
- 3.5% of buyers shopped for a health insurance product within 90 days of their policy being issued
- 3% shopped for auto insurance within 90 days post-issue
Implication for Insurance Providers
Insurance marketers will maximize production by using the right data to understand their prospects and create personalized nurture programs to drive timely and relevant interactions.
No two consumer journeys are alike, and insurance providers are better-positioned than ever to meet consumers in the market exactly when they want to be approached. The key is to tap into and act on the data available from first- and third-party sources to drive stellar customer experiences and differentiate offerings from the competition.
In the analysis, iptiQ provided Jornaya with anonymous identifiers associated with 479,570 life insurance applications, a subset of iptiQ’s 2019 application activity. Jornaya’s Activate Identity Graph ingested hashed identifiers (email and phone) associated with these records and resolved the anonymous consumer to behaviors witnessed within the Jornaya Network of third-party comparison sites.
While the findings are directly focused on life insurance, the trends hold true qualitatively across all insurance lines of business. Complete research can be found here.
