“US Contact Center Verticals: Insurance” looks at the structure, growth, technology, HR and commercial issues found in contact centers within the US insurance sector.

It contains data from multiple large-scale surveys of hundreds of contact centers carried out since 2010, and is the definitive study of this vertical market’s customer contact operations.

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Report summary and contents

Size and growth:

There has been something of a decline in the jobs associated with insurance contact centers: the sector currently employs almost 24,000 fewer people than it did in 2017, although this is still close to 400,000 jobs.

Technology:

As expected in an industry with so many regulations to comply with, interaction recording is used by all of the insurance survey respondents in 2019, with DTMF IVR and IP infrastructure also very popular. Cloud-based solutions are used by 43% of respondents, a little below the industry average of 52%.

Channels:

The insurance sector is focused upon voice: almost exclusively of the live agent variety. Digital channels are very low (with the proportion of emails actually dropping in recent years), and some in the insurance industry still use significant amounts of fax interaction.

Salaries, attrition and absence:

Insurance agents tend to get paid somewhat higher than the contact center industry average, and while absence rates are usually higher than average, attrition is usually somewhat lower.

Operational performance:

Insurance call durations and speed to answer tend to be lower than a typical contact center call. We would expect to see a rise in digital channels and self-service to handle simple queries or interactions, leaving live voice calls to more complex issues, and also for customers who are less comfortable with automation and self-service, and who may also take longer on a call. As such, we would expect to see insurance call durations rising within the next 2-3 years.

Sector outlook:

Recent rises in self-service, mobile service, online insurance product quotes, comparison sites and online account management mean that the typical call dealt with by the future insurance sector will become more complicated and require greater skills from the agent.

There is strong expectation amongst insurers that significant investment in web chat and email management systems will be made, suggesting that this sector will fully embrace omnichannel within the next few years.

Report contents:

Market Sizing 9
Structure 9
Growth 14
The Use and Effect of Omnichannel 15
Inbound & Outbound Activity 17
Technology 19
Human Resources 22
Salaries 22
Agent Attrition 23
Agent Absence 24
Operational Benchmarking 25
Agent Activity 25
Call Duration 26
Speed to Answer 27

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