Everyone knows moving is stressful. If moving companies can help alleviate that stress, they stand to improve customer satisfaction and earn more referral business. Recent data shows there are opportunities for moving companies to seize. In particular, online moving insurance is more important than ever.
People Are Moving – But They’re Not Always Insuring Their Moves
The U.S. Census Bureau says people move an average of 11.7 times during their lives. Since the U.S. has a population of about 331 million, that’s a lot of moves. Shyft says around 9.8% of Americans (or 15.3 million households) move annually.
Moving.org surveyed people who had moved in 2021 and found 80% of them had used professional moving services. Unfortunately, these moves don’t always go well. In fact, 55% of respondents said they felt scammed by their moving company.
There are a lot of reasons why people might feel scammed. In some cases, they really are scammed. The Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker shows consumers lost more than $730,000 to moving scams in 2021 – a year-over-year increase of 216%. Sometimes, moving customers never receive their belongings or the moving company holds the belongings hostage and demands more money than they originally quoted.
In other cases, however, people might feel scammed even though the moving company didn’t try to cheat them. For example, delays happen and can be frustrating to moving customers who are waiting for their items. Damage can be even worse, especially when customers find out their moving valuation doesn’t come anywhere close to covering the replacement costs.
Movers Need Security
Since moving involves risks, movers need security.
Moving companies can’t promise nothing will go wrong. Sometimes, losses occur despite movers using best practices. What moving companies can do, though, is provide third-party moving insurance options and educate customers on why this coverage is so important.
Consider how customers might react to a damaged television in a scenario with insurance versus a scenario without insurance.
- The customers without moving insurance find out their television has been damaged beyond repair. It will cost them about $800 to buy a new television, but the moving company says the valuation will only pay a few dollars based on the weight. The customer feels ripped off and posts scathing reviews online.
- The customers with moving insurance contact the insurer to report the loss and receive the full replacement cost. Although they’re annoyed about the damage at first, the claim process goes smoothly and they’re ultimately satisfied. They write a positive review and recommend the company to a friend.
Movers Need Convenience
Moving companies shouldn’t expect customers to buy third-party coverage on their own. Many customers might not even realize this is an option. Even if they do, they may be so busy with everything else, they might not ever get around to purchasing coverage.
Moving companies are in the perfect position to help. Instead of hoping customers figure out they need insurance on their own, moving companies can embed online moving insurance coverage into the booking process.
This will appeal to modern consumers who prefer the convenience of carrying out everything online. A study commissioned by Cover Genius found 45% of bank customers were interested in insurance offers relevant to their purchases and events and 49% of consumers cited convenience as the primary reason they were interested in transaction-based offers. It’s reasonable to assume from this that customers would also be interested in relevant moving insurance options from their moving companies. The opportunity is there – moving companies just need to seize it.
Embedded Insurance and Ecosystems Are the Future
McKinsey & Company says that insurance ecosystems can create seamless customer journeys and that these are the next frontier in productivity. Fintech Finance News explains that insurance can be integrated into third-party purchases through APIs. Tesla, an early adopter, has already used embedded insurance to generate more revenue through product and insurance sales.
Moving companies can be the next to benefit from ecosystems and embedded insurance. By embedding insurance into the moving process, moving companies can boost coverage rates. If something goes wrong, customers can file a claim with their policy, which can prevent ugly disputes and bad reviews. This can also lead to more revenue opportunities for moving companies.
Relocation Insurance Group provides quality online moving insurance. Ask us how to embed insurance into your moving process.