This research demonstrates that insurers can increase the actual and perceived value of social media use by extending social search tools and processes beyond marketing departments and into the core operations of the organization. Companies can realize the ROI potential of social media by applying it broadly across the enterprise, not only as part of their marketing activities.

In order to test this theory, Celent used a social media search tool to extract consumer postings from social sites that mentioned any one of 14 insurance companies. The report, Realizing the ROI of Social Media in Insurance: Listen to the Mirror, analyzes over 380,000 social posts at both macro and micro levels.

At the individual posting level, opportunities are identified to improve insurer performance in the functional areas of claims, customer service, and product management.

“Insurers are encouraged to consider how this analysis could improve their understanding of what is important to their customers and agents,” says Mike Fitzgerald, Senior Analyst with Celent’s Insurance Group and coauthor of the report. “The results will be especially valuable for companies which concentrate on the consumer and/or small commercial segments and which value customer intimacy as a fundamental strategy.”

“Social data is a good source of insights, prompts and provocations, but using it blindly as an empirical source of the truth may be pushing it too far,” adds Craig Beattie, Senior Analyst with Celent’s Insurance Group and coauthor of the report. “As with any new data source, the insurance industry must do its due diligence and respond wisely. Insurers will get the most value from analyzing this content by committing time to it and learning what works and doesn’t in sifting through data.”

This 44-page report contains 19 figures and two tables.

For a snapshot of our findings, click here.