Insurance customer experience is at an inflection point. Virtual brokerages, peer-to-peer models, on-demand products, and blockchain are reshaping the industry, making it harder for insurers to protect and grow their market share. In fact, more than two-thirds of consumers do not have one company in mind when they start researching products.
Customer expectations are evolving rapidly, shaped by new products and digital-first experiences. Today’s policyholders expect faster service, personalized communication, and frictionless claims.
To keep pace, insurers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI). A June 2024 Deloitte Center for Financial Services survey of 200 insurance executives found that 76% have implemented AI capabilities in at least one business function. Nowhere is that impact more powerful than in customer experience.
In this post, we’ll explore how AI-powered tools like Invoca help insurers bridge the gap between marketing, agent performance, and customer interactions.
Main Takeaways
- Traditional agencies face mounting customer experience challenges, particularly from tech-enabled competitors such as insurtechs.
- Many legacy insurers still rely on outdated, fragmented systems that fail to meet rising customer expectations about the insurance experience.
- Adopting modern technologies like AI, automation, and machine learning can transform insurance customer experience strategies while improving operational efficiency.
- AI-powered conversation analytics is a data-driven tool that can help optimize the insurance customer experience in several key ways.
Understanding the Importance of Insurance Customer Experience
It costs much more to attract a new customer than it does to keep one. The average customer retention rate among insurers is 84%, but top companies in the sector have 10% higher retention rates.
Yet, according to LexisNexis U.S. Insurance Demand Meter, 46% of policies were shopped at least once in the last year, indicating that nearly half of policyholders weren’t satisfied with their policy and desired a better deal. In this environment, a superior customer experience can be a differentiator that keeps more customers in the fold and attracts new ones.
According to a 2023 McKinsey survey, insurance companies with above median CX scores outperformed peers in every category, from revenue growth and total shareholder return (TSR) to employee engagement. That means not only higher retention rates, but also better customer lifetime value (CLV) — more referrals.
Key Challenges Insurers Face with Customer Experience
So, what are the major obstacles insurers come up against when trying to deliver exceptional customer experiences? Here are three examples, and the challenges they create.
Fragmented Data and Siloed Systems
Most traditional insurers still depend on legacy technology and siloed data systems, putting them at a disadvantage compared with tech-driven disruptors like insurtechs, peer-to-peer platforms, and blockchain-based models. This lack of integration makes it nearly impossible to get a complete view of customer interactions, leading to repetitive questions, inconsistent service, and frustration for policyholders.
We’ll dig into this more later in this post, but one way to connect data points within existing systems is to use AI-powered automation tools like conversation analytics. By digitizing and analyzing phone call data at scale, these tools help insurers connect data points across systems — creating a clearer picture of customer behavior and expectations.
Rising Customer Expectations
Technology is raising the bar for customer experience. Consumers accustomed to apps and digital solutions now expect fast responses, seamless self-service options, and personalized interactions. Yet nearly 75% of customers who attempt to purchase insurance online experience problems, according to Accenture.
To close that gap, traditional insurers must embrace modern technology to remove friction and deliver the level of service today’s customers demand. (More on this later, too.)
Competitive Market Pressures
Market pressures for traditional insurers are also intensifying. Insurtechs and digital-first providers are setting new standards for the insurance customer experience by combining efficiency with innovative offerings such as parametric insurance, microinsurance, and embedding insurance into other digital platforms such as travel and ticketing sites.
Here again, traditional insurers must adapt or risk losing market share.
Key Tips to Improve Insurance Customer Service
With all this in mind, here are nine ways your insurance business can improve customer service and deliver a superior customer experience.
1. Build an Omnichannel Insurance Contact Center
You must meet customers on their terms. In today’s highly mobile, digital world, that means being present across every channel — web, social media, mobile apps, phone, and in person. An omnichannel strategy is essential, and each channel must be seamlessly connected to deliver a unified experience.
Insurance agencies need consistent messaging across channels and the right contact center technology to let customers move effortlessly between them. For example, Invoca’s PreSense bridges the gap between online and offline interactions. When a customer moves from browsing an insurer’s website to calling for more information or a quote, PreSense uses their digital activity to route the call to the right agent and provides key details — like the caller’s name and likely intent — enabling immediate personalization and a smooth transition.
Want to see how PreSense can help your business? Check out this short video clip below:
2. Use AI and Analytics to Improve Call Experiences
The phone remains a critical touchpoint for insurers. In fact, more than two-thirds of consumers prefer using the telephone — especially when they have questions or need assistance. That’s why it’s essential for insurers to make great call experiences a feature of the overall insurance customer experience.
AI can help transform these customer interactions. With tools like call tracking and conversation intelligence, insurance agencies can access customer insights at scale, enabling meaningful personalization and smarter, faster service. AI and automation also support intelligent call routing and sentiment analysis, helping agents understand customer needs in real time.
3. Automate Quality Management with AI
Conversation intelligence analyzes spoken interactions—a task AI and automation excel at because they can process massive datasets quickly and accurately. This makes AI an invaluable automated quality management tool. Traditionally, call center managers review only a small sample of calls due to time constraints. AI, however, can analyze every call, delivering faster, more comprehensive insights. Here’s how:
AI-Driven Call Scoring
Call scoring based on small samples is subjective. Call scoring on 100% of calls is objective. This makes for an effective scoring system, with clear criteria and a focus on overall customer experience that leads to trustworthy results. Agents using AI-driven call scoring benefit from keener insights and consistency, which means they can provide better customer experiences.
Automated Script Compliance
Insurance sales are highly regulated, and agents must provide all required disclosures to customers. This makes script compliance critical. AI tools like Invoca support this by analyzing calls, flagging missing disclosures, and generating a complete compliance record for every interaction. Without AI, managers would need to review each script manually—a slow and resource-intensive process.
4. Enhance Agent Performance for Better Conversions
How your sales and customer service agents perform directly shapes the customer experience. Positive interactions build loyalty and increase conversion rates, while poor ones do the opposite. Agent performance depends on ability and training—and AI can strengthen both.
By applying conversation analysis, AI can turn real customer interactions into practical, self-paced training modules. Managers can also use insights from conversation analytics to inform onboarding programs, address specific challenges such as missed sales targets, or provide regular refresher courses to keep agents’ skills sharp.
Continuous Training Programs
Conversation analytics gives managers a continuous stream of insights into actual agent performance, enabling the development of targeted training programs. These modules can be tailored to address specific scenarios, formalized for team-wide sessions, or customized for individual agents. Agents can also complete training at their own pace, with AI tracking and reporting progress back to managers.
Coaching Through Conversation Analytics
Conversation analytics surfaces patterns in customer interactions and flags areas for improvement. For example, if several agents fail to comply with a recently issued disclosure statement, for example, AI identifies and exposes the omission. Managers can then use this insight and AI tools to create a specific training module emphasizing the new disclosure rule.
Coaching modules can also focus on key metrics such as first call resolution, average handle time, and customer satisfaction to deliver improved performance.
5. Use Call Analytics for Effective Lead Generation
AI-driven call analytics can also connect marketing efforts to phone conversations and help improve lead quality and conversion rates.
Segmenting High-Value Leads
Marketing managers can segment high-value leads by using AI to analyze call data to identify the characteristics of the highest-value prospects. This information can be used to improve the targeting of marketing campaigns and even refocus campaigns that are underway.
For example, a property insurer using AI-driven conversation intelligence might detect a surge in calls from a region where a competitor has reduced flood insurance coverage, prompting a timely lead generation campaign tailored to homeowners in that area.
Identifying Drop-Off Points
AI call analytics also pinpoints where leads are being lost by pinpointing exactly where potential customers abandon the purchase journey. Reviewing transcripts to find the exact pain point can lead marketing and sales to improve the conversion funnel and sales process.
For example, AI might flag repeated complaints about broken website links, allowing teams to fix them quickly. Or, if transcripts show frustration with a lengthy application form, the agency could simplify the form or introduce a shorter prequalification option to reduce friction.
6. Strengthen Customer Trust and Retention
Any financial product, especially insurance, is both complex and dependent on trust. To have a meaningful customer experience, policyholders must trust that the insurer is offering reasonable terms and will honor those terms and cover any claims against the policy. Insurance agencies can cultivate customer trust by being communicative and focused on superior service.
Transparency in Policy Details
Trust and transparency depend on agents’ being clear when communicating policy details, including the extent of coverage, any exclusions, and the claims process. AI-based conversation intelligence can help agencies be more effective in providing expected transparency and earning trust by identifying pain points or customer confusion.
For instance, if an analysis of calls to a claims center reveals that many holders of the same cruise travel policy want to add Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) coverage after the typical 21-day window, the insurance agency can act. It could update sales scripts, highlight the deadline in brochures, and prominently feature it on its website and in marketing materials.
Here are some other ways insurers can build trust with customers:
- Communicating proactively, such as reaching out with personalized options before renewals are due
- Offering claims transparency by providing clear timelines and regular updates on claims processing
- Making knowledgeable experts accessible and educating customers so they fully understand their coverage and options
- Providing consistent messaging across all channels so that customers have the same information and don’t become confused
7. Track Progress with Marketing Attribution
The insurance customer journey is complex, and you can’t improve service without understanding what’s working along that journey — and what isn’t.
One of the biggest challenges in marketing attribution is connecting digital and offline interactions. Despite the rise of trackable online ordering and AI assistants, 67% of consumers still pick up the phone for high-stakes purchases — and that percentage is even higher for insurance purchases.
With AI-powered call tracking analytics, you can link those offline calls back to the campaigns that drove them. You can realize other benefits, too, including:
Multi-Touch Attribution
Call tracking analytics sheds light on multi-touch attribution — revealing which online and offline interactions drive conversions. With this complete view of the customer journey, marketers can allocate budgets more effectively, doubling down on high-performing campaigns and eliminating those that underperform. The result: a measurable boost in marketing ROI.
Marketing and Sales Data Alignment
Sales and marketing team alignment can drive revenue, but only if their data is aligned as well. Integrating technologies — especially call tracking analytics — closes those gaps. It helps connect the entire insurance sales funnel, driving more effective campaigns and stronger sales.
8. Adopt Digital Transformation for Better Policyholder Engagement
Digital transformation is reshaping customer service and the insurance customer experience. Beyond AI, tools like blockchain, big data, self-service apps, and end-to-end process systems are rapidly modernizing the industry.
AXA, Geico, Progressive, and State Farm are among the major insurers that have seen success in developing apps for their customers. (AXA’s eServe portal, launched in 2015, remains a benchmark for digital customer service.)
Insurers must be strategic in their approach to avoid over-transforming — or transforming too quickly — which can lead to significant overhead. The development of a self-serve claims portal for customers or brokers, for example, can cost anywhere from $40,000 to $400,000. But when an insurer implements a portal thoughtfully and at the right time, it could boost operational efficiency and deliver up to 190% ROI within three years of development.
9. Choose the Right Technology Partners
The high-risk, high-reward nature of digital transformation makes it critical to choose the right partners when introducing technology to optimize the insurance customer experience. In today’s connected world, poor ratings and reviews travel fast. The message for insurers: Select partners whose technologies can integrate seamlessly into your stack and are likely to deliver multiple, measurable benefits.
Invoca’s cloud-based, AI-powered platform offers exactly that. It integrates with martech tools and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to provide always-on, actionable data. Tools like Signal AI analyze phone conversations to identify the most effective sales tactics and flag when agents go off script or fail to read the right disclosures.
Key Trends Reshaping Insurance CX in 2025
Finally, here’s a look at four significant trends influencing how the insurance industry is redefining customer experience.
1. AI-Powered Conversation Analytics
Voice analytics and sentiment tracking help insurers pinpoint gaps in agent performance. These insights can be used to log compliance, build personalized coaching modules, and better understand customer preferences and behavior at scale.
Invoca’s Signal AI and Sentiment Analysis, for example, help insurance teams surface actionable insights from every customer call. These insights support training, compliance, and improvements in the customer experience.
2. Omnichannel Service Expectations
Today’s customers expect seamless mobility across online and offline channels. They want to move between email, chat, phone, and mobile apps without losing context or continuity with a brand. To deliver a superior omnichannel customer experience, insurers must ensure consistent data and messaging across every channel. If you’re offering a premium discount on your website, it should be available over the phone, too.
3. Proactive Communication
Customers also expect their favorite brands to know them well. That means being proactive and relevant in every marketing communication. If you send policy update alerts, they should be tied to the correct policy. The same applies to renewal reminders and personalized product recommendations. By leveraging data from your CRM, call tracking, and customer journey analytics, you can time and target outreach for maximum impact.
4. Faster Claims Resolution
The claims process is the most critical part of the insurance customer experience. Policyholders who have paid for coverage — whether upfront or through monthly premiums — expect a fast, hassle-free payout. To meet those expectations, insurers are turning to automation to streamline claims handling and improve satisfaction.
Self-service tools, such as real-time claims tracking through mobile apps or online portals, are also helping to create a smoother, more transparent customer journey.
Transform Your Customer Experience with Invoca
As these trends redefine the insurance customer experience, agencies can’t afford to stand still. Adapting now is key to winning market share and keeping policyholders from switching to competitors.
Invoca helps you elevate the customer experience by using AI to streamline every step of the journey and capture conversation data at scale, turning real interactions into actionable insights about your customers’ preferences, behaviors, and needs.
Additional Reading
See these resources to learn more about how Invoca’s quality intelligence and customer interaction management tools can help your insurance business deliver a standout customer experience and maintain your competitive edge:
- 7 Tips for Insurance Marketers to Drive More Phone Leads from Paid Search
- Omnichannel Contact Center: A Quick Guide for 2025
- What Is Call Analytics and Why Should Marketers Use It?
- How to Personalize Customer Experiences With Data Analytics
When you’re ready, book a free demo with our team to see for yourself how Invoca can help you amplify your customer experience strategy.
