Zurich trials chatbot for home and motor claims

Zurich has begun a six-week chatbot pilot for first notification of non-emergency home and motor claims.

Named ‘Zara’, the sophisticated chatbot programme allows customers to notify the insurer of a claim efficiently, intuitively and in as prompt a way as possible.

Recent snowfall and subsequent high levels of melt water in the UK saw Zurich experience higher call volumes than usual. Its chatbot was on hand to facilitate convenient and immediate logging of first notification.

Zara gathers information at any hour, seven days a week. It is then passed to a human claims handler who can then respond to the customer and process the claim within three working hours—an improvement on the targeted 24 hours.

Zara was developed using themes of behavioural economics with external partner Spixii, an insurtech start-up that came out of the Zurich-sponsored StartupBootCamp.

David Nichols, chief claims officer at Zurich Insurance, commented: “In a digital age, many of our customers expect to be able to interact with their insurer online and this pilot has allowed us to gauge interest in this type of innovative and exciting technology.”

“The recent launch of Zurich’s UK Innovation Foundry also demonstrates that we’re truly dedicated to exploring new technologies for our customers and will seek out the innovative start-ups that will ultimately benefit them.”

“The move to use robotics shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a hindrance. New and innovative technologies will help customers, but also empower us to redeploy people so they can develop new skill sets beyond traditional career paths.”

Renaud Million, CEO at Spixii, added: “Completing this integration in such a short period of time was only made possible by the collaboration between Zurich and Spixii, and their clear investment in delivering value to their customers. It is with great pleasure that we have completed this step with Zurich.”

Mark Dugdale