The KYC process for customer onboarding and maintaining user experience in financial and insurance companies has become pretty challenging due to extensive, cumbersome, and expensive procedures. Regardless of years of investment in incorporating contemporary technologies, most institutions strive to conduct seamless onboarding processes.
During the insurance onboarding process, these firms must comply with KYC, AML, and CFT regulations. For instance, as per KYC and AML compliance standards, financial organisations must implement a risk assessment process for their new clients before onboarding them. These processes include AML and KYC checks and the application of control mechanisms to recognise risk levels.
In addition, according to Refinitiv, data shows that corporate clients typically go through eight touchpoints with their financial services provider during the onboarding process. Furthermore, it takes an average of 20 days to finish the customer refresh process.
In this KYC AML guide, you will learn how integrating digital KYC in insurance companies can ease and improve the insurance customer onboarding process.
Six Major Challenges in Insurance Onboarding Processes
There are several challenges that many insurance companies may face during the onboarding process of new clients. Some of the major challenges include:
i. Lack of Standardisation
The onboarding process and procedure of different insurance forms vary from one another, which may become an overwhelming, time-taking, and gruelling task for the companies as well as for customers. The reason is the lack of standardisation, which may lead to instabilities in the process and poor user experience. It may also result in the generation of obstacles to employing new customers.
ii. Data Security and Privacy
In addition to this, insurance companies need to gather user information and sensitive data of customers. This information includes their personal and financial details. However, protecting this data is one of the major challenges for insurance companies during the onboarding procedure. Yet, insurance companies need to make sure that they have enough security systems to protect the sensitive data of their customers.
iii. Process Complexity
The insurance onboarding process involves numerous steps, which include gathering customer data, executing background verification, policy insurance, subsidising, etc. However, with manual KYC integration, this procedure may become complicated and lengthy, which can lead to errors and delays.
iv. Cost and Time-Consumption
Onboarding customers in the insurance industry could be a time-consuming and expensive procedure. It is a time and cost-consuming process not only for the company but for the customer as well. This factor could be a major hurdle in a smooth process and become a reason for the inefficiency of productivity.
v. Poor User Experience
In the insurance industry, one of the major challenges in customer onboarding is to leave an impact of poor experience or dissatisfaction on the client. If the firm does not deliver efficient services to its users, customers may become frustrated and leave.
vi. Legacy Systems Integration
Numerous insurance organisations still integrate the legacy system, which may become another challenge in the KYC incorporation process with the latest technologies. Using these systems can lead to unreliabilities and errors in the customer onboarding process.
How Digital KYC Helps Overcome these Challenges?
During the insurance customer onboarding process, encountering such challenges is very common. Therefore, these firms integrate eKYC to unlock efficiency and security with digital measures and conquer these obstacles.
i. Standardisation
Digital or electronic KYC helps drastically with the standardisation process for insurance and other finance companies. It helps reduce the variation in the customer experience across various insurers. Moreover, it enables customers to compare different insurance services and pick the best one that enhances the overall user experience.
ii. Enhanced Security
eKYC also helps in improving security measures. It may include protecting user-sensitive data, multi-factor verification, and encrypted data transfers. It also diminishes the risk of data theft and helps in keeping client information confidential.
iii. Proces Effortlessness
Going digital with your KYC process can be a game changer for both customers and businesses. By allowing for online onboarding, the need for physical visits or manual submissions becomes obsolete. This not only speeds up the process but also eliminates the chances of errors in data collection and verification as everything can be handled digitally.
iv. Time and Cost-Effective
Other than this, eKYC streamlines the insurance onboarding process by cutting out paper submissions and manual data entry. Not only does this make it more cost-effective for both the insurance company and the customer, but it also opens up opportunities for wider accessibility and affordability.
v. Better Customer Experience
Going digital with your KYC makes the insurance onboarding process quicker, easier, and more accessible for customers. This improved experience can lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction, reducing the likelihood of customers switching to a competitor.
vi. Modern Systems Incorporation
With digital KYC, integration into cutting-edge technology such as cloud platforms, mobile apps, and AI algorithms becomes a reality. This eliminates the hassle of manual data entry and minimises the risk of mistakes, resulting in a smoother and more efficient process.
Summing Up
In conclusion, the KYC process for customer onboarding in financial and insurance companies is challenging due to extensive, cumbersome, and expensive procedures. Despite investment in modern technologies, most institutions struggle to conduct seamless onboarding processes.
Therefore, the process must comply with KYC, AML, and CFT regulations, leading to several challenges such as lack of standardisation, data security and privacy, process complexity, cost and time-consumption, poor user experience, and legacy systems integration.
Digital KYC helps overcome these challenges by standardising the process, enhancing security, making the process effortless, cost and time-effective, providing a better customer experience, and incorporating modern systems.
