Insurance Crisis Communication Best Practices

When faced with a rapidly escalating crisis like the current global pandemic, staying connected and keeping customers and other key stakeholders well informed is more important than ever. Insurance carriers across the US are working quickly to develop communication management plans to respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

These unusual times make communicating to customers, internal teams, and partners challenging. To help, we’ve worked with industry analysts and insurers to compile a list of seven tips to build and deliver effective crisis communications.

Respond Quickly

In a situation of uncertainty, every day you wait to deliver effective communications, you risk deepening policyholder anxiety and fear. During a crisis, policyholders look to insurers for protection and a sense of safety. Responding quickly is key to maintaining customer confidence.

Also, responding early and often with clear and easily accessible communications reduces the number of calls to your already overwhelmed call center.

If you have yet to establish regular customer updates and guidance communications in response to COVID-19, it’s not too late. Start by communicating what your business is doing to maintain service levels and let your customers know what steps you are taking to assist them in these difficult times.

Answer Policyholder Questions

Policyholders will have questions. Provide them with online resources to get information when they need it most. Consider sending FAQ communications or include FAQs on your website to answer the most common questions you are receiving from customers. You can get these questions from phone calls, emails or website forms.

Here are some of the most common policyholder questions regarding COVID-19:

• What is my insurance carrier doing to maintain customer service and claims processing levels for my company or me during the COVID-19 outbreak?
• Does my policy cover COVID-19?
• What options do I have to make my premium payments?
• What will happen if I am unable to make my premium payment?
• I’ve seen news about financial institutions making allowances for those impacted by job loss or other economic difficulties. Is my insurer offering something similar? If so, do I qualify and how can I apply?
• What is the best way to file or update a claim to make the payment arrive faster?

Think About Your Audience

Throughout a crisis like COVID-19, maintaining customer trust and confidence is critical. Communicating crisis information needs to go beyond simply stating company decisions or changes in policy.

Right now, many people are overloaded with information that is oftentimes conflicting and not directly relevant to them. To get your message across effectively, be as direct and simple as possible. Don’t add to the confusion by leaving your audience wondering, “what does this mean for me?”

Provide practical guidance to explain what developing events mean to specific policyholders and what they should be doing as a result. Plan to communicate updated information often until things return to normal.

To send the right information to the right people at the right time, ask yourself these questions:

• Who are the key stakeholders with a need for information from your organization?
• What information needs to be communicated to each group of stakeholders?
• What questions might they have?
• Who needs it first, and for what purpose?
• What is the best way to deliver the information you are communicating?
• Are you able to deliver messages through interactive tools and personalized video rather than just email to make consumption easier for stakeholders?
• Is the message clear, actionable, and relevant?

Keep Communicating

Communicating what the evolving crisis environment means for your policyholders, your communities, and your organization is job number one.

For a fast-moving crisis like COVID-19, you have to find the right balance between overcommunicating and under communicating. You want to send out all the necessary information while avoiding message fatigue.

To do this, send concise, actionable messages that reach your customers in predetermined intervals. Allow sufficient time for your message to be read and responded to if necessary. As a general rule of thumb, each communication should contain no more than one to three key points or action items.

How Often to Communicate

As you know, all policyholders are different. While some feel they are receiving too much communication, others think they are in the dark. To help you determine how often you should be communicating, think of your messages in three separate categories:

• Facts and information
• Insight and guidance
• Support and solidarity

In a crisis, people want facts. You should send essential facts and information in real-time and in an easily accessible manner.

Insight and guidance – such as how are we adapting our processes and what does this mean for policyholders – should not be sent every hour or every time something new happens. For this type of message, it is best to stick to a routine schedule. For your audience, this could mean once per week, biweekly, or even monthly. If possible, send targeted messages to ensure your communications are relevant for your audience. Keep in mind that you may run into changes that have an immediate impact on stakeholders, like call center closure. Send this information out when needed.

As an insurer, it is vital to reassure your policyholders and let them know you are here for them in these challenging times. Use support and solidarity communications for these moments. While important, you should send this type of message less often than facts and guidance. Typically, it is best to send out messages of support at significant milestones.

Even after the crisis is over, plan to communicate with your customers until everything is back to normal.

Be Transparent

Transparency and trust go hand-in-hand. Honest and frequent communication will build confidence, while a lack of information or misinformation will result in mistrust. This is why it is essential to be transparent with your customers, internal teams, and partners during a crisis.

Identify the concerns of your audience and develop messaging that assures them your organization is doing all it can to ensure business as usual. If there are delays in processes or customer service, make sure you keep your customers informed and up to date on what to expect. Let your customers know what you’re doing to resolve any concerns or questions they may have throughout the crisis.

Set the Right Expectations

Many times, insurers are so focused on getting information and resources out that they forget the critical task of managing policyholder expectations.

If you set expectations that everything will go smoothly and speedily, you will most likely find you can’t meet that expectation. In this situation, you risk frustrating policyholders and leading them to believe you’re not very trustworthy.

During a crisis, people are more tolerant of and perhaps even expect reasonable delays and hiccups to occur. Don’t be afraid to set realistic expectations that you can meet – this is what builds trust.

Some common expectations to set, guide, and manage include:

• Delays in service

• Restrictions on personal interactions

• Temporary office closure

• Call center wait time

Reach Customers on Their Channel of Choice

As with your regular communications, customers consume information using different channels and devices. With a crisis, it is important to send messages to customers’ preferred delivery channel.

While email is vital, it’s easy for an important message to get lost in an inbox – especially during a crisis. Consider sending communications through multiple channels to get messages to people faster while avoiding this issue.

Omnichannel communication is no longer optional. It is crucial for emergency communications.

To determine which channel is appropriate, use the following the chart:

website. Start delivering correspondence that builds trust, confidence, and a sense of safety. Get started with this checklist about How to Respond to a Crisis like COVID-19. If you have any questions or need help sending communications, GhostDraft is here to help.