The End Is Nigh!!

The end is nigh!! –  Competing in the funeral insurance market.

‘Over myDead Body’ – was the highest rated show aired by Dutch public broadcaster.  It followed the lives of fiveterminally ill young people and created both controversy and debate when itwent on air.  ’Over My Dead Body’ set out to break through the one last taboo still existing among young people, byconfronting the facts of life and death openly. As the taboo surrounding death slowly fades, people are looking differently at theirown funeral and want to have more choice in the matter.  This has led to an extension of thefuneral experience cycle. Previously,the focus was on the bereaved (the Arranging and Aftercare phases), now thereis a bigger focus on the earlier Orientation and Choose phases, where people canbe helped to arrange their own funeral.

Insurance companies have missed the point – Again!!

Traditional insurance companies active in the funeral market often only offer commoditised financial products to cover the funeral costs or income risks. Unfortunately, these products fulfil a mere fraction of the needs in the entire experience surrounding someone’s death. Insurance websites include bog standard information about premiums and coverage but fail to answer the real questions consumers have, such as “What should I arrange beforehand?”, “What are all the options Ican choose from?” and “How much will a funeral cost?” This gap in the market is being addressed bythe rise of so called Funeral ‘in kind’ insurers. These ‘in kind’ insurers, insure and arrange for the actual funeral. Thus when the policyholder dies, the insurer not only bears the expenses but takes care of the funeral arrangements as well – as against ordinary funeral expense insurance, where an amount is paid out and the beneficiary is responsible for making funeral arrangements. It is little wonder that thelarger insurers are falling behind in the market as they fail to fulfil customer needs.

Is this market dead for regular insurers?

Insurancecompanies wishing to secure a place in the funeral market should offer anexperience in addition to their low interest and commoditised products. Recently,Capgemini helped the largest Dutch insurer to live up to their brand promise totake away all your worries by guiding them through three stages:

Build a business case and identify customer needs through segmentation and the customer experience cycle. Determine the customer experience you want to offer Select partners and deliver on the promise

Togetherwith Capgemini, the insurer developed a new ‘When I’m not around anymore’ concept,which included a new internet portal and a helpdesk to guide people aboutfuneral choices, required arrangements, extra services, registration of wishesand 24 hour support. Death and Funeral are difficult topics, andcustomers prefer to pace themselves rather than be pushed into buying a productfrom an ‘insurance salesman’

We stronglybelieve that if most insurers were to take a good look at the customerexperience in the funeral market, they would realise that they are only fulfillinga fraction of customer needs. Tocompete against the ‘in kind’ insurers, Insurers need to look at the entirecustomer experience lifecycle, identify real needs and choose which needs to fulfilin order to still be relevant to your customers.

While werecognise that this is a difficult topic, we would like to know what you expectfrom your insurer in terms of your funeral.

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