Trailblazing the customer experience and protection in insurance
The Challenge – Insurance
Prior to 2015, account takeover (ATO) fraud prevention was not something the Company was directly focused on. Fraud investigations were focused on more “traditional” insurance fraud, such as application misrepresentation and false claims.
However, in 2015, the Company and several others in the insurance industry experienced a significant contact center based ATO “whaling” attack by fraudsters. “Whaling”, which is “phishing” with a higher profile of targets, entailed impersonating multiple, high profile clients of the Company, including members of the Company’s Board of Directors.
This event was an eye opener and made the Company realize that fraud prevention needed to become a central focus. At that point, authentication methods were unsophisticated, often just consisting of asking callers for basic personal information such as date of birth and social security number, customer service representatives were not trained on how to detect fraud red flags and there were virtually no fraud controls or technologies implemented. This environment coupled with the continuously evolving tactics of fraudsters were making the Company more and more prone to breaches.
The Solution – Positive Impact with Pindrop
As a response to this increasing risk, a small fraud team was established in 2015, initially focusing on call center activity as the Company didn’t have a strong online capability yet at that time. One of the first actions that the Company’s newly formed Fraud Team took was to scan the market for potential technology solutions. Pindrop was introduced to the Company through a partner and following a successful trial period, the formal relationship began in late 2016 with Pindrop’s anti-fraud solution. Rolling out Pindrop’s anti-fraud solution was the first move to protect customers that was not manual.
The initial goal of the effort was to stop as much fraud as possible. The immediate results were great; the return on investment was significant and some serious fraud attempts were stopped. In 2017 alone, Pindrop’s anti-fraud solution detected over 250 fraudulent calls, an increase of almost 400% from prior year, and more than $40 million in customer account value was protected from fraudsters.
Improving the customer experience while gathering new data
Since December 2019, the Company has realized significant benefits from Enhanced Authentication, including:
- Operational cost savings of $1.2 million, more than double our initial goal of $500 thousand
- $38 million in customer assets protected from fraudulent attempts
- $1.6 million in fraudulent disbursement attempts stopped
With Pindrop as a key partner, the Company set out to implement a brand new authentication technology ecosystem, dubbed “Enhanced Authentication” or “EA”. The main goals were improving security to stop fraudsters while simultaneously enhancing the experience for legitimate customers by reducing friction and reducing or eliminating the time CSRs had to spend manually authenticating callers.
The three key features of the effort were identity proofing utilizing a phone ownership verification service and both threat detection and multi-factor authentication utilizing Pindrop’s authentication solution. The Company’s longer-term strategy also included enhancing digital capabilities and enabling more self-service opportunities in the interactive voice response (IVR).
Even in just the pilot stage of this Enhanced Authentication effort, the Company was able to achieve an average authentication rate of over 80% for enrolled callers. It also helped the Company gather intelligence about the activity occurring in the IVR that they previously had no visibility into.
Targeting the optimal customers experience
In 2015, the Company relied solely on traditional knowledge-based authentication based on questions generated from a wider base of personal information. Pindrop’s data shows that fraudsters tend to pass such questions with success more than half of the time whereas the true person forgets the correct answers 20-40% of the time. Furthermore, instances such as not knowing your policy number meant no service were leading to a terrible customer experience.
Starting in 2016, the Company developed and began implementing a more holistic fraud prevention, identity proofing and authentication strategy. When it came time to select vendors to support that strategy, the success of the anti-fraud solution already in place and the mutual trust between the Company and Pindrop led to the relationship extending into the authentication space – formally live in 2019.
Future outlook
The Company’s next goals with Enhanced Authentication include improving efficacy by increasing the percentage of their customers who claim an ID to the same level as its peers in the banking industry, and deploying Enhanced Authentication to both additional call centers and additional personas. The Pindrop relationship has been a key contributor to the great benefits the Company has realized thus far and those benefits are only expected to increase as the Company deploys and enhances EA further.
The Company’s long-term vision entails creating full profiles for every customer and building relationships based on that profile, allowing the Company to target the optimal customer experience based on customer preferences with an omni-channel focus, including the digital channels while providing best-in-class security.
How did Pindrop help the company?
Pindrop has been an integral part of the Company’s pioneering efforts in the insurance industry at a point in time when technology was not widely used to assess risk or identity proof and authenticate customers. More importantly, Pindrop has enabled the Company to prevent millions of dollars in fraud, provide industry-leading security, and optimize the customer experience.
1. IVR Adapted Technologies Identify Fraudsters Real-Time Pindrop Protect provides multiple layers of security and protection for the call center. Protect combines 5 technology engines into one platform which analyze risk across time and accounts to determine if an incoming caller exhibits anomalies that indicate high-risk or suspicious behavior, activities, fraud or fraudulent reconnaissance.
2. Passive, Multi-factor Authentication Pindrop Passport eliminates or significantly reduces traditional authentication methods and the unwanted customer friction they bring, replacing them with a multi-factor authentication solution. Passport improves overall customer experience and hardens the call center to attacks. Authentication, utilizing the Deep Voice(TM) Biometrics, happens in the background, reducing call handle times, saving operational costs, and increasing agent efficiency.
Related research + insights
Access expert research, detailed guides, and practical resources on voice security to strengthen your contact center’s defenses.
