Centric helps OOM Verzekeringen with digital transformation

Not everyone takes out war risk insurance, which is good because otherwise it would mean that the country is at war or war is impending. However, in the Netherlands in 1940 there was a demand for such insurance. That was also the year in which insurance company OOM Verzekeringen was founded, originally as a war risk insurer, but these days mainly known for its expat health insurance and its fire insurance for uncommon fire risks. Because many of its customers are Dutch nationals living abroad, internet plays a key role in the company’s communication mix. So, OOM teamed up with Centric to ensure that the internet channel was set up in the best possible way.

In 2001, for the very first time a customer took out insurance with OOM online. This made OOM one of the first to take this step, as this was still a new phenomenon at the time. These days, taking out insurance online is an everyday occurrence. And even though the process ran smoothly at OOM for years, there was room for improvement. The customer journey was still not so different to filling in a printed form. It was high time to redesign the website, including the customer environment, based on the latest UX insights.

But how do you take rigid technical insurance material and transform it into an attractive customer journey? How do you ensure that visitors do not get halfway through the process only to find out that they need a particular document? OOM also wanted to use online marketing tools, to personalise the customer journey for example. Many of those solutions come with a hefty price tag however, and the underlying systems often have to be replaced as well.

“Customers want to have personal control over their insurance affairs. We feel that online convenience for the user goes hand-in-hand with personal attention from OOM Verzekeringen.”

Marga Purvis CEO, OOM Verzekeringen

Centric opted to use a scrum approach for this project, with intensive consultations being held with the internal stakeholders of OOM. By hiring a user experience specialist early in the process, the website modules were seamlessly tailored to end users. It emerged that the online marketing ambitions could be realised on an open source basis, at a considerable cost savings.

High customer satisfaction

And what about the customer journey? It’s now been personalised. For example, current customers are presented a different homepage than those who visit the website for the first time. And it’s fast and intuitive to go through the various insurance modules too. The result is that customers are more satisfied and have far fewer questions.

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