Insurance has always been a rough business, but the last decade has seen major changes that have only made it harder on smaller insurance agencies.
Most insurance companies don’t have the deep coffers of GEICO and State Farm to spend on, let’s be honest, less than stellar TV ads. Take a look at the heavyweights adspend in 2023:
GEICO spent $1.28 billion on ads in 2022, which was 38% less than the Berkshire-Hathaway company spent the year before. Now, we don’t have figures for 2023 from the major insurance players yet but look at how much your competition spent just under two years ago:
Top 4 Insurance Companies Advertising Spending for 2022
- Progressive: $1.73 billion
- GEICO: $1.28 billion
- State Farm: $1.01 billion
- Allstate: $950 million
While the major 4 have reduced their budgets the last couple of years, you may wonder why these household names with well-known mascots (who doesn’t know Flo or Jake?) are still spending so much? Statistically, car insurance companies make an average of $296 for every $1 they spend on advertising. It would be difficult to walk away from that ROI!
That’s why your major competitors are tossing massive money chests at TV and digital ads. So how can smaller players compete? AI!
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here, not just knocking at the doors of the insurance world but blowing them wide open!
Whether you’re grappling with the mundane task of responding to Google reviews or need a spark of genius for your content creation, the tools below will help you become more competitive, land more clients, and help create those human connections that propelled insurance agents to success for decades – before the talking lizard promised them ’15 minutes’.
10 AI Tools For Insurance Agents
- Automated Responses to Google Reviews with AI and Zapier
Handling Google reviews can be a repetitive task, especially when responding to positive feedback. Here’s a solution: using AI like Gemini or ChatGPT along with Zapier to automate responses. This setup triggers when a 4 or 5-star review is posted on Google Business Profile. Zapier filters these reviews and passes them to the AI of your choice (we humbly recommend AkzisAI), which crafts a personalized reply. This reply is then posted back through Zapier. This automation saves precious time while maintaining a natural, engaging interaction with clients.
The same AI-powered principle can be applied for negative or lower-rated reviews but it’s best to address any concerns directly and improve customer relations.
- Jasper.ai: Your On-Brand Content Creator
Content creation tools like Jasper.ai can be invaluable for creating diverse content that remains true to your brand’s voice. Whether it’s emails, blog posts, or social media updates, Jasper adapts to your desired tone, even if it’s as quirky as a pirate’s! By leveraging AI models from sources like ChatGPT and Anthropic and infusing them with the latest SEO and grammar tools, Jasper delivers content that ranks well on search engines.
One quick thing about Jasper and ChatGPT and Gemini, for that matter, use the tool of your choosing to create social posts, video scripts, and descriptions and content but be sure you tweak their output. ChatGPT’s style and word choices are well-known to AI detectors and Jasper, while a good tool, tends to produce content that’s dry, highly formulaic, and not entirely human.
Of course, you could always choose an AI Human Writer instead!
- Synthesia: Professional Videos in Minutes
Imagine creating professional-quality videos without any need for cameras or editing skills. Synthesia makes this possible by converting text into video using AI avatars that can speak over 120 languages. Insurance agents use Synthesia to quickly produce marketing videos and informational content for platforms like YouTube, drastically reducing production time and resource investment. This tool allows for the easy repurposing of existing content like blogs and presentations into dynamic videos.
- Lately.ai: Master of Micro Content
Lately.ai does one thing, but it does it well, it turns long-form content into bite-sized pieces that are perfect for social media. It analyzes social media analytics to learn what content achieves the highest engagement and uses that insight to slice larger pieces into more digestible parts. This AI tool not only saves time but also increases social media interaction significantly. Given its ability to schedule these snippets automatically, Lately.ai offers a seamless bridge between content production and social media management.
- Albus: The AI Knowledge Wizard
Named after the wise Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter, Albus is an AI-driven assistant that integrates within Slack to boost team productivity. It serves as an on-demand resource for training new employees, clarifying coverage details, and streamlining agency workflows. With the capability to be fed custom content, Albus can act as an interactive FAQ or training manual, making it an indispensable tool for both training purposes and client engagement.
- ClaimsBot: AI-Powered Claims Processing
ClaimsBot has changed how insurance claims are processed by using AI to automatically assess and process claims based on the data input by customers. It can quickly analyze photographs, documents, and other evidence submitted during a claim filing, which speeds up approval times and reduces the workload on human agents. And faster approval times means happier clients, and that usually means… the all-important word-of-mouth referral.
- RiskGenius: AI for Policy Analysis
RiskGenius uses machine learning to analyze and compare insurance policies. This tool can be incredibly useful for insurance agents needing to understand policy language deeply and ensure compliance with local regulations. It streamlines the review process by highlighting key clauses and potential issues, saving agents time, and reducing the risk of errors. It’s also a great tool to use when a potential client comes to you with a competitor’s offer. Run the offer through RiskGenius and offer the lead a customized comparison.
- DigitalGenius: Customer Service Automation
AI companies really like using the word “genius” apparently in naming. DigitalGenius integrates into existing customer service platforms and automates responses to common inquiries using AI. For insurance agents, this means less time spent on routine questions and more time available for complex cases. The AI learns from past interactions to improve its accuracy and efficiency over time.
- Zesty.ai: AI for Property Insights
Zesty.ai offers detailed property insights using AI-driven analytics, crucial for underwriting and risk assessment in real estate insurance. By analyzing aerial imagery, weather data, and historical events, Zesty.ai helps agents assess risks more accurately, leading to better policy pricing and risk management.
- Planck: Real-Time Data for Commercial Insurance
Planck leverages AI to aggregate and analyze real-time data for commercial insurance underwriting. This tool provides agents with instant insights about businesses, such as risk factors and compliance issues, based on a wide array of online data points. This enables more informed decisions and personalized insurance offerings.
Wrapping Up
The adoption of AI in insurance isn’t just about keeping up with technology, it’s about survival. This tech can help you lead the charge in innovation to streamline processes, enhance client interaction, and leverage content creation for maximum impact.
Your competitors haven’t fully jumped on the AI train yet because they’re used to the old way – spend a billion dollars on ads each year and when growth slows, buy more. That’s only sustainable if you have a billion dollars to toss into marketing. Right now, the biggest players in the insurance game are moving too slowly to adapt and adopt AI. Smaller, faster players have an opportunity that doesn’t come along often – take it and run with it. Grow big or go home!
