Banking and Insurance Industries

Banks and insurers have been in existence for a long time and facilitate economic activities for us. Banking and insurance play essential roles in the economic growth of a country and society. Both institutions provide the essential services of commercial transactions and covering risks.

Insurance services evolved from the practice of risk management for uncertain events. The risk is defined as the uncertainty of outcome in the normal process. The risks are quantified in monetary terms with consequences that are unfavorable to the process. The insurance function tends to manage the risk by providing a security net against a payment. In financial terms, insurance transfers the risk of the unfavorable event to the insurer against a payment of a premium.

As seen in Figure 1-1, the primary function of an insurance company is to manage the fund created by the premiums paid by the insured. The critical function of an insurance company is to measure the risk of loss arising from the pool to decide on premiums and, in case of an accident/adverse outcome, pay the policyholder the loss amount. As the count of adverse outcomes decreases with an increasing population, smaller premiums can be levied while a higher payout can be made to the insured who faces an adverse outcome.

The insurance industry is comprises of evolved financial services and products which are centuries old. With the advent of technology, the insurance industry has seen a surge in number of big insurance companies and deeper penetration with new products. Having a concentration brings better premiums for the insured and allows companies to cover a broader set of risks. As seen in Figure 1-2, typically the insurance products can be divided into two categories: life insurance and general insurance.

Life insurance provides coverage to the risk of mortality. The insured beneficiary receives a face amount in case of death during the coverage period. In this manner, this insurance product safeguards against financial losses arising from the death of a critical member of the family. The risk covered is called mortality risk. The actuarial science is the study of mortality behavior and used in study of fair pricing of premiums for the given subject for life insurance.

Insurance is not just limited to insuring against the risk of death. The insurance concept has been extended to other forms of risk as well. The other bucket of coverage is known as general insurance; this includes health insurance covering the financial risk of ill health, vehicle insurance for accidents, travel insurance for flight delays, and so on. The established insurance companies offer multiple products to customers and institutions as per their needs. Some of these products have standard features, where some insurance companies can create custom deals as per client needs, for instance covering the risk of severe weather during a significant event. The key differentiator between a good and bad insurer is how diligently and accurately it can measure the risk involved in the underlying events.

Banking services, on the other hand, do not cover uncertain risk, but they work in economic activities of a financial nature. Banking has also evolved to be of many types, serving different purposes for different commercial entities. However, the basic premise of banking remains as a broker between lenders and borrowers. The spread between lending and borrowing rates is also called a spread, and the bank manages to create economic activities in the system.

Figure 1-3 depicts a fundamental framework of a bank or a banking company.

Lenders have access to capital, such as institutional members having excess cash or a small retail customer who has some savings. The borrower is short of capital, but they have some economic activities which can bring returns on their investment. The bank comes into the play to solve this gap in the financial system and creates an opportunity for the lender to earn interest on deposits and lets the borrower get the required capital for an interest rate. In the example in Figure 1-3, a lender deposits $10,000 into the bank and receives 2% interest (i.e., $200), while the bank lends $10,000 to the borrower at 9% interest (i.e., gaining $900 in the transaction). The spread of 7% (i.e., 900-200=700) is the income for bank, which it can use to run operations and create new products.

Like insurance, banks have also evolved to provide various services for different types of customers and entities. Figure 1-4 is basic classification of types of banks. It is a not an exhaustive list of the types of banks and banking services. However, they are the primary type of banks.

Within the scope of this book, we will point out the typical process for an end customer for accessing financial service. The customer for a retail bank and life insurance company are the same, except for a few cases. This makes it easier to illustrate how insurance company touchpoints with customers are similar to those for banking customers. Once we set up the generic nature of these touchpoints, we will move ahead with the chatbot build process.

In retail banking, an end customer, usually an entity or individual, deposits savings in a bank, and other entities or individuals borrow that money for other purposes. Apart from that, banks also facilitate online transactions, paying billers, transferring money to other entities, timed deposits, and many other services for retail customers.

A Customer-Centric Approach in Financial Services

Customer behavior and interactions have evolved to a personalized approach over the last two decades. Competition and greater reliance on technology for delivery of services are keys to this change in customer behavior. The importance of a customer-centric approach in products and services is far greater than ever before. The customer-centric approach involves many direct and indirect interventions through multiple channels (see Figure 1-5).

The core element of customer centricity is a focused customer leadership. If the leadership aligns the strategy to become a customer-centric organization, the whole outlook and communications become customer-centric. Amazon has proved this and is now seen as the benchmark for a customer-centric approach. Understanding the customer and designing experiments to validate the hypothesis form the next steps in a customer-centric approach. Once we set up a successful connection with customers, we need to empower the front line, track essential metrics, and keep the feedback cycle. These are some indicative steps to achieve a customer-centric approach.

In financial services, primarily referring to retail products/services, the interaction points are many, and all touchpoints are critical to being customer focused. Banks and insurance companies deal with many individuals customers daily via multiple channels.

The growing digital presence of financial institutions also requires multiple changes in the technology landscape. Traditional database systems and applications are now becoming obsolete. Powerful endpoint computing (i.e., smartphones), excellent internet connectivity (i.e., 4G/5G), and cloud platforms are the magic trinity for a digital revolution in the financial sector.

In this book, we will explore the evolution and working of chatbots in many endpoint interactions with customers. While conversational agents have existed for a long time (remember the IVRS systems?), new technology developments have made them driven by natural language, offering customer-centric delivery of information. Chatbots are designed to carry out specific and structured interactions; the complex service interactions are still better served by an experienced customer service representative. In coming chapters, we will cover different aspects of building a chatbot for an insurance agent.

Benefits from Chatbots for a Business

According to the Grand View Research 2018 report,¹ the global chatbot market is expected to reach $1.25 billion by 2025, with a CAGR of 24.3% (average annual growth rate). The chatbot market will grow significantly across the financial services sectors, as they are among the largest customer-facing businesses (in our context, the insurance business). The immediate value creation for institutions happens by significantly reducing the operating cost and bringing customer satisfaction.

Daily, the ever-changing chatbot market is coming up with disruptive ideas and delivering value across the spectrum.

Chatbots in the Insurance Industry

Gone are the days of waiting for the next available operator or taking the effort to get the information. The customer-centric approach is one of the critical differentiators for a company today. Chatbots are helping augment customer engagement and brand presence, and they are proving to be very useful in most industries including the insurance industry. The emergence of mobile and social media has not only provided new channels of communication between people but has also made people feel closer to businesses. Companies are investing heavily in creating and maintaining a robust digital presence and implementing new solutions so they can have a better customer reach.

Traditionally, the insurance industry has been slow to change. Due to the complexity of insurance, covering a diverse set of risks, the operating model has been cumbersome, with a lot of paperwork, background checks, and approvals. With the new era of digital business and increasing competition, the insurance industry is also addressing the needs of the always-on, always-connected digital world.

Roughly 70% of calls to a call center of an insurance company are queries that can be addressed without a human interface, such as customers requesting details on their claim status, policy renewal, or information on financial advisors. According to World Wide Call Centers,² in a shared call center, an inbound call rate ranges from $.35-$.45/minute at low-cost international agencies to $.75-$.90/minute in the U.S./Canada and from $8-$15 internationally to $22-$28 in the U.S./Canada. A typical large insurance company gets more than 10 million calls every year. Considering a call rate of $5 per call, even if a chatbot can address half of these queries, that’s a potential savings of $25 million per year.

Where live agents can handle only two to three conversations at a time, a chatbot can operate without any such limit and reduce the human resources required to handle such queries. It can also automate repetitive work. These calls to call centers have an average wait time of 3 minutes until they are assigned to an agent, and customers who browse the website typically spend around 5 to 10 minutes to find the information they require. Virtual agents such as chatbots provide this information in real time, which is significant use of technology to make the interaction faster and more efficient. The services can be accessed 24x7 through multiple digital interaction platforms such as mobile apps, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, SMS, Skype, Alexa, and web UI chat, providing omnichannel support to customers.

Figure 1-6 shows the ways in which chatbots are transforming the insurance industry.

Some of the most common applications of a chatbot in the life insurance industry are in the following sectors.

Conversational Chatbot Landscape

In this internet era, every time a person requires a service or information, the person must find an appropriate website. In the mobile era, native apps took center stage with the same purpose as a website. Every business nowadays has one website and one mobile app at the bare minimum. Now, in the AI era, a customer is flooded with information on the website and the mobile app, and there aren’t as many employees to help the many customers who are seeking the service or information. Moreover, even if a company finds many employees, the cost is very high. Conversational bots or chatbots are playing a pivotal role in the AI era by addressing the critical problem of information deluge at an affordable cost.

The organization is going through a digital transformational journey where chatbots are being discussed in roadmaps. The primary objective is to improve customer experience through simplified touchpoints and faster service time. This objective often results in higher conversion for newer products and services and reduced cost of operations.

Acquisition and engagement help companies build a strong top line for the business while servicing helps in reducing cost and feedback increases customer retention.

Figure 1-7 shows an industry-wide adaption of chatbots and various use-cases.

In terms of benefits, insurance companies are now able to process their claims 24% faster,³ and telcos are achieving as much as 90%⁴ reduction in their customer service calls, in which 75% is reduced by self-service guides and automatic tips and an additional 15% of calls with the help of an artificial intelligence agent. This leaves only 10% to the costly phone call operator. By answering up to 80% of routine questions in a service center, the customer service cost is reduced by 30%⁵ and companies like Autodesk saw 99%⁶ improvement in response time for their level 1 queries. The benefits are continually increasing with more adaption and improvements.

In the upcoming chapters, we will delve into the details of NLU and various technologies to build a fully functional enterprise-grade chatbot. In the next chapter, we will discuss how to identify the customer interactions points, the data collection strategy, the importance of being compliant with privacy laws and understanding the data flow for each interaction with the client.

Summary

This chapter focused on processes in the banking and insurance industry where chatbots are bringing a new wave of innovation. Tasks that were earlier thought to be possible only by humans are now getting automated. Such innovation brings the cost down and helps in achieving scale. We also discussed chatbots in various other industries including healthcare and travel. Various industry reports were highlighted to prove the benefits of using AI-driven chatbots in an industry. In the coming chapters, we will build a conversational chatbot from scratch, keeping the focus on banking and insurance.