The next time you call up an insurance agent, you could be talking to a robot. If you’re an insurance agent working in the industry, a robot could hand you a pink slip.
Robots have long been involved in manufacturing, with robotics doing tasks such as welding and painting. Now, with the advent of sound recognition technology and advancements in artificial intelligence, they may start to take over more “white collar” jobs.
Auto Insurance Comparison Sites are Embracing Virtual Assistants
Tech pioneer Snejina Zacharia is targeting the massive United States auto insurance industry, with a small startup, Insurify. The company was built not as just another online brokerage or call center. The rapidly growing firm helps consumers find the best auto insurance deals, for the type of coverage they want using virtual assistants.
Complex algorithms are used to determine what company is the best match for the customers’ coverage needs. The best deal might be a small company like GoodtoGoInsurance.org or a large national carrier like Progressive Insurance. Zacharia likes to think or her comparison site like a Trivago, but for auto insurance.
Consumers Can Use Smartphones to Compare and Buy Auto Insurance
To help consumers through the process of figuring out coverage and buying a plan, Insurify uses a so-called “expert virtual insurance agent,” named Evia. To get quoted with the new service, you need to upload a photo of your current driver’s license. Next, you will be asked several questions via text messages. After that, smart software will sort through nearly 100 insurance providers to help you find the best deal. The whole process only takes a few minutes and can be done using a smartphone.
Robot Insurance Agents are Faster and Make Fewer Mistakes
The Bulgarian born Snejina, CEO of Insurify claims no one in the car insurance industry has a similar service. Consumers, especially millennials, seem to love the convenience and simplicity of the service. The robot agents claim to be smarter, faster, and less mistake prone as a typical insurance agent. Even worse for active agents, the robot costs a lot less than a human, doesn’t get sick and never takes a day off.
For the time being, the service has not been widely adapted, so agents don’t need to worry about getting replaced by a robot in the near future. In the long run, that’s a different story. Artificial technology is growing at an alarming pace. New robots have the ability to not only recognize voice and language but make calculated decisions on their own.
Consumers are Comparing and Buying Auto Insurance Online
More consumers are shopping for their car insurance online. They are using services like RodneyDYoung.net, which allows users to compare multiple quotes in less than 10 minutes. Most young people under 35 want to buy nearly everything on the web. This is now true of auto insurance. The new generation of techno addicts want apps that compare the cheapest auto insurance available for the desired coverage. Most people don’t want to get on the phone with an agent that might not even have their best interests in mind. In simple terms, many younger car insurance shoppers trust apps more than a well qualified, professional agent.
While a portion of auto insurance agents and brokers might lose their jobs in the next 10 years, as robotic assistants penetrate the market, other jobs will be created. Big data is an emerging industry that has seen huge job growth. All that data that goes into analyzing human behavior needs to be processed and analyzed. In the near term the only thing that is sure is change itself.
We are living in an exciting time where we can have conversations with robots, have them drive our cars around and clean the floors. Now it seems they can also find the best deals on auto insurance for us. For insurance agents, they need to brace themselves for a changing business environment, one that includes more robots.
