Auto Insurance Websites Are More Important To Customer Experience Than Agents

The J.D. Power 2020 U.S. Auto Insurance Study released last week revealed that auto insurance websites have become more important to the customer experience than human agents for the first time. This was the first time in the 21-year life of the study that digital came out on top.

The study found that auto insurance websites had a bigger impact on customer satisfaction than human agents. This suggests that if insurers want to score the highest marks with their policyholders and potential customers, the digital experience will need to be a top priority.

Though this doesn’t come as much of a shock to insurance companies, as the trend has been moving in this direction for a long time, what makes this study’s results particularly notable is that it has recorded the first time that the digital experience has more influence than human interaction.

“We’ve seen this trend developing for several years, but this is the first time that the digital channel has become the preferred means of interacting with auto insurers, exceeding one-on-one communication with agents,” said J.D. Power senior consultant for insurance intelligence, Robert Lajdziak.

“This has huge implications for the industry because it puts the focus squarely on digital investment to notably expand creating seamless customer touch points. It’s an area in which the major national carriers excel, versus hyper-local, albeit knowledgeable, agent networks.”