Geico ranks first for overall mobile experience: Keynova

Property and casualty insurers are continuing to improve digital assistants, according to a report from Keynova. 

Keynova Group, a financial services intelligence firm specializing in benchmark insights, released its Q3 2023 Mobile Insurance Scorecard, which evaluates the mobile website and mobile app offerings from the 12 largest U.S. property and casualty firms.

Geico scored first overall for mobile experience, app and mobile web. State Farm scored second overall and in mobile app. Progressive and State Farm tied for third in mobile web. Progressive scored third overall. Farmers scored third in mobile app.

The report analyzes user capabilities and live customer experience to identify trends and observe digital capabilities. Scoring is based on an evaluation of approximately 250 objective criteria.

The report suggests there is an increased focus on streamlining digital quoting by the carriers but Nationwide recently suspended all online and mobile quoting.

Beth Robertson, managing director of Keynova, thinks Nationwide retrenching from digital quoting was notable but it likely won’t last.

“I don’t think it’s a permanent back away, it’s just unusual at the same time when you have firms, including Nationwide, making a lot of advances in digital tools. … I think they’re just reassessing and coming out with some stronger capabilities,” Robertson said.

Digital assistants are typically not using natural language processing but 83% of the firms offer them in the mobile browser and 58% provide one in the app. 

“We’re starting to see some use of natural language processing but it’s not as sophisticated as what you might see from a few of the banks,” Robertson said. “They can be used to complete more tasks and as an interactive capability to help with login problems or to help file claims. … I think we’re seeing more flexibility in terms of what they can help with.”

Carriers are also introducing digital assistants that can vocalize responses or respond to queries in Spanish. The most common option is a customer support number.

“We’re seeing more translations of public site content, in particular, the information about insurance coverages. There is less translation of secure site content but Geico is offering that now but not for claims, but we expect that to be coming,” Robertson said. “I think we’ll see alerts being able to be selected and delivered in Spanish. That’s something that we’re seeing some of the banks do.”