Who Is Really Controlling Your Customer Experience?

As an introvert, I don’t often write or talk about subjects that are highly personal to me, but every time I do, people seem to appreciate it. In fact, my partner and friend, Mike Maddock, always encourages me to do it more. Another good friend and a highly regarded insurance industry thought leader, Nick Gerhart, encouraged me to tell this story specifically. So here goes.

In the second half of 2017, my family became a three-time Reverse Lottery winner. When you say that fast, it sounds really awesome. But it’s not. The Reverse Lottery is my personal shorthand for describing the complexities of insurance in a simple way — Random Sucky Things that you win money to “fix.” It’s the lottery you buy a ticket for but never hope to win. These situations have left me with some burning questions.

The first experience was the death of my 86-year-old dad in September, after a stretch of time in and out of care facilities. I am sure I don’t need to explain the pain of loss when you lose a parent. That pain is multiple times worse for my mom. They were married for 64 years and met as teenagers.

However, back when he was getting ready to retire, he bought some life insurance. I’m proud that I encouraged that purchase, and facilitated it through the company I was working for at the time. While life insurance wasn’t really something my parents knew a lot about, they trusted me enough to go ahead with getting a policy on each of them, as they both worked and had pensions to protect. Ironically, my dad was the one we all expected to live the longest. Partly because his dad lived to be 94, but also because he promised me that he would live to be 100. So we bought less on him than my mom. It seems silly in hindsight to play actuary on the basis of my dad being like Superman to me. While my mom is thrilled to have had any life insurance at all, my only regret it is that I didn’t get objective advice on how much to buy, as more was clearly needed.

So a burning question is, Why did a comic book character play the leading role in determining how much life insurance my dad should have?

The second experience was the Saturday evening after Thanksgiving, when my husband and I came home to a flood in our condo from a leaking boiler that fed our entire building, but impacted only us. It destroyed the floors on two levels, staircase, several walls, molding and ceilings. Luckily it didn’t damage any of our personal stuff. But needless to say, it’s a major inconvenience and stressful to boot during a particularly challenging year at holiday time. So we are living in a hotel now as our place is restored.

However, the good news is that I didn’t play actuary this time. I got advice on how much was needed from my financial advisor, Chet, who ironically doesn’t make any commission on that type of insurance, but encouraged me to have it because he was looking at my needs in totality versus just what he could offer me product-wise. That’s someone who has your back. The other good news is that I chose a reputable insurance company that really came through for us, paying not just for the damage repair but for all the extra expenses associated with living elsewhere while the repairs are done. They are coordinating efforts with the condo association, contractors and mold remediation specialists — and even wired money into our account within 10 minutes so we didn’t have to go out of pocket to eat out more frequently than we typically would.

The adjuster breathed a sigh of relief when he saw our policy had plenty of coverage. He told me that so many condo owners wouldn’t have enough coverage to repair the damage we had. You could say that we were lucky we had that policy. But really, we were luckier to have the advice to buy it and not cheap out. Policies don’t come to you by luck, they come by choice, and we chose the richer benefits because it isn’t an expense, it’s an investment in sanity.

Therefore, the next burning question is, How often does someone outside the company’s ecosystem (like Chet) impact the outcome at claim time?

The third experience is perhaps the most difficult to talk about, because it is still impacting people 15 years later, including my brother, whose 60th birthday is the same day as I write this.

He’s a retired NYPD officer and a first responder to the World Trade Center disaster on 9-11. And while we are all well aware of the thousands who lost their lives and the billions of dollars' worth of damage to property, that terrorist attack continues to damage more lives from a wide variety of health issues suffered by people at ground zero. Later his month, right before Christmas, he will have an operation to remove part of his kidney due to a 9-11-related mass that was discovered. He has already lost several friends to cancer who were beside him during that time.

However, the 9-11 fund has made his journey so hopeful. As an insurance expert, I would characterize it as the mother of all insurance policies. And he almost didn’t apply during the open window until one of his buddies encouraged him to do so, because he didn’t want to think about it and didn’t know yet that there was anything wrong.

Good thing. Not only is all of his care fully paid-for directly, but also the doctors working with him are among the best available in the world, and are treating him with the dignity, respect and urgency he deserves. Granted, this insurance policy had no premiums associated with it, but he paid with a very different currency to get that type of coverage. And he more than deserves it, as do the others who were down there on that horrific day and the months that followed.

Here, the scary burning questions are, What if his buddy didn’t intervene? And what would have happened if the assigned doctor did not treat this situation with urgency and made him wait months for an appointment, as many specialists often do?

These burning questions point to a big customer experience lesson. It is to understand that there is so much opportunity to innovate around the moments associated with claims. After all, isn’t that what insurance is all about?

Companies focus so much on making insurance cheaper and easier to buy, because the currencies of money and time are more easily counted. However, the benefit side of the equation needs more love and attention, because it is rich with possibilities for a better world. That’s because when the "random sucky thing" happens, it’s a gang of people with expertise, empathy or both that dictate how the story will go. And they come from many different angles and don’t always get counted in the customer journey — or they may be missing completely.

Your customer experience efforts must include deep insight on a wide ecosystem of people and their roles, pain points, attitudes and behaviors to fully understand the opportunities to innovate and continuously improve the experience. Do you deeply understand all the players in that ecosystem, how they interact with your ultimate customer and at which critical moments? If not, consider a commitment to getting an unparalleled understanding of the hidden players in the experience. It could do wonders for your competitive advantage in the new year.

Happy birthday to my brother. Looking forward to 2018.