Tracy McDonagh: Why Amica Life Insurance is Empowering Customers with Self-Service Data

Amica Life Insurance Assistant VP of Life Data Strategy Tracy
McDonagh argues that insurers must provide more digital options to
their customers to stay competitive in a fast-moving marketplace

The days of shopping for insurance through an agent are coming to
an end. In a competitive B2C insurance marketplace, providing
enhanced digital access to data and services has never been more
important.


Upgrading data platforms to accommodate this shift in customer
behavior is essential for forward-thinking insurers, as Amica
Life Insurance Assistant VP of Life Data Strategy Tracy McDonagh
argues in this week’s episode of the Business of Data podcast.


As McDonagh explains, the modern customer is more technologically
savvy and has higher expectations of their insurance providers
than ever before.


“We’ve definitely seen an uptick in terms of how people are
looking [for insurance products] digitally,” she says. “They want
to be able to log on, see what they’ve got, see what the
offerings are and be able to start applications online.”


In her role at Amica, McDonagh has spearheaded digital
initiatives that allow customers to manage transactions online
and put policy information into their hands.


“What we do at Amica Life is provide products that are easy for
our customers to navigate and we want to make sure we have not
only a product but a process that allows us to do that,” she
says.


While the insurance industry is sometimes slow to adopt
innovation, the benefits of upgrading to a modern data platform
helped to address ‘legacy thinking’ at Amica.


“There have been so many pain points in regard to our old systems
that people really are looking to all of the positives of working
with these new, modern platforms,” McDonagh notes.


She concludes: “From a user experience [perspective], in terms of
the customers and the internal experience of using these systems
and supporting the customers, there really has not been a lot of
resistance to change.”
Key takeaways


Digital transformation is key to meeting customer
demand. Modern shoppers want seamless digital
experiences


Align your vision to business objectives.
Overcoming legacy thinking requires a vision of the business’
future state


Provide first-class insights. It all starts
with the data. To be successful, the data must be clean,
reliable and timely