Insurers lead with customer technology

The UK's leading insurers are pursuing customer relationship management (CRM) technology more aggressively than their banking counterparts, new research shows.

This is because the insurance industry is under pressure to deliver better shareholder returns.

At the same time it is trying to modernise its costly paper-based processes, deal with decreasing margins and cope with a tightening regulatory environment.

CRM technology tries to make the most of a business's relationship with its customers to generate extra income, through cross-selling, or to improve customer retention.

The technology aims to provide a "single customer view" across all distribution channels and to give the customer consistent service, irrespective of the channel they choose to use.

The research was carried out by specialist technology research firm Quadriga Consulting on behalf of gem, a Belfast-based e-CRM outsourcing company. It was based on ten in-depth interviews with senior executives from banking, general insurance and life and pensions businesses.

It also shows that insurers are extending the range of services that they outsource.

Valerie Fulton, vice president of gem, said: "In contrast to the retail banking sector, where there is a reluctance to give third parties access to customer or prospect data, the insurance market has traditionally had a range of outsourcing relationships [such as call centre services]."

She said subcontracting of data enhancement and data cleansing services were becoming increasingly popular, to enable co-ordinated and segmented marketing campaigns.