Insurance Scams are Some of the Most Common Robocalls

Over the years, the insurance industry has suffered significantly due to the onslaught of robocalls. The bad actors behind these robocalls often target consumers with insurance-related scam calls.

Auto insurance schemes, for example, are frequently used by bad actors. They attempt to sell a car insurance bundle that is unbelievably cheap to get the consumers’ personal information like social security, credit card number, and bank account information.

Healthcare scams, meanwhile, have been relentless throughout the pandemic as bad actors seize on confusion with coverage, reimbursements and COVID-19 services. In fact, the FCC issued its largest ever fine at the time in 2021 of $225 million against a pair of Texas telemarketers who bombarded consumers with roughly one billion robocalls falsely claiming to sell health insurance for Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and others.

This risk to consumers around the turn of the year is high; robocalls tend to spike annually during the open enrollment period which, this year, runs from November 1, 2022, through January 15, 2023.

These insurance scams, coupled with the sheer overwhelming volume of robocalls, have caused significant consumer distrust in voice calls. According to our recent survey*, 70% of Americans never answer calls from unknown numbers. This makes it difficult for legitimate insurance companies to break through those unwanted robocalls and engender trust among their customers.

However, legitimate insurance agents that are calling to provide information to help consumers evaluate the best plan options, compare deductibles, co-pays, premiums, prescription coverage, claim status or address other issues, TNS Enterprise Branded Calling can help any insurer that’s fighting low call answer rates among its customer base.

How it Works

With Enterprise Branded Calling, insurance companies can achieve better business results by a solution that helps improve call agent productivity and drive increased engagement with their customer base. Branded calls facilitate an improved lead-generation process by more seamlessly converting qualified leads that originate through other channels such as the web, email and social media. With more brand information on the incoming call and ensuring the call is from that enterprise, consumers connect that call to earlier touch points and are more likely to answer the phone. As such, call agents can reach these customers in fewer calls, improve their experience and provide further opportunities for the agents to make more calls throughout a business day.

TNS Enterprise Branded Calling delivers valuable call information on an incoming call screen to better educate customers on who is calling them. That additional information helps drive increased engagement rates between businesses and their customer base.

Consumers are clamoring for that information on incoming call screens. In that same TNS survey, 73% of respondents indicated they would be more willing to answer a call if the caller ID displayed the logo and name of a brand they recognize. Furthermore, 65% shared they would answer a call from insurance providers (i.e. – life insurance, health insurance, car insurance etc.) if the brand logo/name was displayed on their incoming call screen.

Insurance is Complicated; Customers Have Questions that Need Answers

Many Americans have an extremely difficult time electing and deciding what insurance plans are best for them and their families.

  • Nearly 65% of Americans (211 million) have private health insurance through their employer or individually[1].
  • 45% of insured Americans are considering switching their plan, coverage provider or changing the amount of coverage[2].
  • 24% of Americans have made a mistake during open enrollment before[3].

More often than not, current and prospective policyholders rely on guidance from valid insurance companies’ call agents throughout the enrollment process. Failing to offer that help due to a breakdown in the voice channel between insurance companies, their agents and customers might result in those customers deciding to elect policies from different insurance companies altogether, resulting in a loss of revenue.

With TNS Enterprise Branded Calling, insurance companies’ call agents can engage their customers more efficiently and create those personal relationships to help select which plans make the most sense for them and their families, driving more revenue to their bottom line and better customer satisfaction for the subscriber.

When creating those relationships, it’s critical to identify which communications channel consumers prefer to be contacted by. TNS recent survey showed that when it comes to insurance providers, 57% preferred to engage with a phone call rather than any other method (e.g., text message, email etc.)

Those personal relationships help create a more trusting customer: 59% of survey respondents acknowledged they would be more willing to share personal information with insurance providers if the incoming call is branded with their logo and name. This was especially true of younger customers, as 70% of 25 to 34-year-olds said they would be more willing to share.

Real-Life Use Case

Recently, TNS partnered with Assurance IQ, a direct-to-consumer platform for individuals seeking personalized financial insurance solutions. That company directly calls customers who have visited its website, provided consent to be contacted and expressed interest in its products. Before the TNS partnership, however, even though a prospective customer had provided consent to be contacted and expressed interest in Assurance IQ offerings, many of the company’s call agents’ outgoing calls went unanswered.

Assurance IQ implemented Enterprise Branded Calling within two days of beginning the partnership, and quickly experienced a 25% increase in the likelihood that a customer who received a call will continue to explore financial solutions with Assurance IQ or one of its partners.

That’s a positive sign of increased customer engagement. From there, the lives of call agents can be made easier and these warm leads can be converted into sales.

To learn more about how TNS Enterprise Branded Calling improves customer answer rates as it did for Assurance IQ, visit https://tnsi.com/enterprise-branded-calling/

Jim Tyrrell is Vice President of Enterprise Product Management at TNS with specific responsibility for TNS’ Communications Market solutions.

[1] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF10830.pdf

[2] https://www.valuepenguin.com/consumers-changing-health-insurance-during-open-enrollment

[3] https://www.valuepenguin.com/consumers-changing-health-insurance-during-open-enrollment

*Kantar Survey – November 2022

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