Marketing in insurance: The importance of efficient insurance claims management

Marketing stands as one of the most important business functions for creating customers and generating demand and is of great importance in the insurance industry. Its purpose is greater than in other business areas, as insurance services and vehicles are not only intangible, but also represent a promise of future payment. Trust in insurance and insurers is essential to insurance services offerings. Thus, to achieve business objectives and create consumer confidence it is important to successfully manage marketing mix elements. Adequate management and compensation of claims are the natural extension of marketing functions in the insurance industry. Generally, the only time that a customer/policyholder has occasion to check the 'quality' of a service, and thus the insurer an opportunity to fulfil the promise of future payments, is when adverse events occur. Traditional marketing cannot affect the insured's losing confidence in insurance and in the insurer when an insurer fails to fulfil its promise. All marketing efforts to improve the confidence in such cases are useless. Thus, it is imperative that payment of claims be properly managed so as to reflect the aspiring promise of marketing claims and prevent the sullying of the insurer's reputation. In this paper are analyzed the significance of marketing in insurance and the importance of proper claims management used to achieve business objectives and build trust in insurers.