Insurance Mobile App Development: A Guide to Features, Costs, and Challenges

With a surge in digital adoption, consumers have grown accustomed to the convenience and efficiency of mobile experiences. Smartphones have been woven into the fabric of daily life, and shifts in consumer behaviour are forcing the traditionally paper-heavy insurance industry with slow claim processes to adopt a mobile-first mindset. Failure to adapt has dire consequences, as a recent study by PwC revealed that a staggering 80% of customers would switch insurance carriers due to a lack of a user-friendly digital interface. Simply put, Insurers who fail to prioritise mobile experiences, risk losing customers to more agile competitors. 

The same study also showed that 77% of insurance customers now prefer to submit claims through mobile apps instead of traditional, cumbersome methods like waiting for in-person meetings or phone support. This indicates a broader shift to mobile-based insurance management which offers improved accessibility, real-time policy visibility and a more convenient overall experience. As a result, insurers prioritising mobile app development with robust features and intuitive user experiences are well-positioned to outperform competitors and drive revenue growth by making insurance products more accessible. 

A mobile-first strategy not only helps insurers grow their topline but enables them to optimise their operations and significantly reduce costs. A McKinsey study found that automating claims through mediums like mobile apps can help reduce the cost of a claim’s journey by up to 30%. By streamlining submissions, document collection and communication, processing time decreases saving man-hours and freeing up staff to deal with more complex cases. A well-designed insurance application can help you create a win-win situation where you can increase your revenue while controlling costs. 

Therefore, when looking to develop a mobile insurance application it’s crucial to understand the intricacies and processes involved so that you can shortlist the right development partner. In this article, we’ll explore the various types of insurance apps, and their essential features and provide a clear overview of the development process. Moreover, we’ll address common challenges faced and future outlook based on GoodCore’s extensive experience developing Insuretech applications. 

Essential features of a successful insurance mobile app

The key to creating a successful insurance mobile application is getting the core functionality right. Without a robust foundation, user experience is compromised leading to frustrated customers who fail to find value in the app and ultimately abandon it. Therefore, before beginning your insurance app development, here are some key features you need to consider for insurance mobile app development: 

User registration and profile management

A user-friendly registration process is crucial as it sets the tone for all future interactions the customer will have with your mobile insurance application. Therefore, it’s important to simplify the registration process by offering social media logins along with using biometric verification for quick and secure access. To further secure sensitive user data, you can incorporate two-factor authentication (2FA), data encryption and access control mechanisms. 

Additionally, you need to ensure legal compliance by incorporating features that comply with international laws like the GDPR which outlines user rights. This entails providing clear consent forms with transparent data usage policies, along with dedicated sections for users to access, rectify, erase or restrict the processing of their personal data. For rectification, users should be able to effortlessly manage and change their personal information like their address, beneficiaries and passwords. 

Policy management features

Policy management tools are a core component of insurance apps. Policy details should be well-integrated with backend systems to provide users with real-time access to their policy details. Users should be able to view summaries of their policies including coverage details, premiums and expiration. On this page, they should be able to view, renew, cancel, and manage their policies. You can further improve user experience by using automatic reminders for policy renewals and notifications for policy updates. 

Claim processing functionality

A well-structured claim mechanism can make or break an insurance application. It’s important to understand the stress levels of users while making a claim and provide a seamless experience. Users should be able to effortlessly upload relevant documents and proofs using their cameras to scan and expedite processing times by eliminating the need for manual data entry.

Tracking and transparency are also important components of user claim mechanisms. To inspire confidence, users should be able to monitor the status of their claims in real-time and receive notification updates at each stage of the process. Moreover, there should be active communication channels available to support the user throughout the claim process.

Customer support integration

A recent study by PwC revealed that nearly half of insurance customers expect 24/7 support from their insurance carrier all year round. However, to ensure seamless assistance without overburdening support teams, it’s important to create a funnel which minimises the number of customers who need direct support. This can be achieved by developing a well-structured FAQ section along with integrating AI-driven chatbots to resolve simpler queries. As a result, support staff can dedicate their expertise to handling more intricate customer needs, providing a positive experience for those who need it the most. 

Types of insurance mobile applications

The insurance industry shelters and caters to a variety of stakeholders, each with a unique set of requirements. This results in various types of apps with distinct functionalities that are tailored to the specific needs of different stakeholders within the insurance ecosystem. Here are some of the prevalent insurance mobile application types: 

Customer-focused apps

Customer-focused insurance apps empower policyholders to access and manage their policies, providing them with increased visibility, transparency, and control over their coverage. This empowers them to manage their insurance experience with greater ease and efficiency.

They exhibit the core functionalities discussed in the previous section like policy management, claim filing, status tracking, customer support and documentation upload. Some insurance applications also provide additional functionalities like advisory services to help users make informed decisions by offering personalised insurance advice. This can help select suitable coverage options and mitigate risks. 

Agent-focused apps

Apps designed for insurance agents help consolidate their day-to-day activities into a single digital platform. Agent-focused apps equip them with the necessary tools to manage their clients, generate leads and ultimately drive revenue growth. Here are some key functionalities agent-facing insurance applications offer: 

1. Customer Relationship Management: insurance applications often integrate with CRM systems, allowing you to manage current and potential client information, track interactions, and access policy details from a centralised platform. This provides insurance agents with a complete experience that covers the entire sales funnel from lead generation and meeting scheduling to renewal and upselling opportunities.
    
2. Quoting and Policy Issuance: agents can create forms to input customer data into insurance applications, allowing them to electronically generate quotes and even issue policies. This significantly speeds up the sales process and improves efficiency.
   
3. Claims Management: this functionality helps agents with processing and managing insurance claims. It helps them track claim processing internally while providing policyholders with visibility as well.

Enterprise apps

To maintain their competitive edge, insurance companies need to optimise their internal processes and reduce overhead costs. Enterprise insurance applications help fulfil this need by streamlining insurance workflows, increasing employee collaboration and enhancing overall performance. Some key functionalities include: 

1. Risk Assessment Tools: using these tools and calculators, agents are able to input customer information to get risk assessments. These models help insurance companies effectively price their policies by evaluating the likelihood and severity of claims.
   
2. Internal Communication Platforms: messaging apps and other collaboration platforms help employees and departments communicate effectively.
   
3. Claims Processing System: backend systems to help manage and process insurance claims efficiently, automate workflows and reduce manual intervention.
   
4. Data & Analytics Reporting: enterprise insurance applications can generate reports that provide valuable insights on sales performance, customer trends and other improvement areas. This enables insurers to make data-backed decision making by incorporating real-time data insights.

An overview of the insurance mobile app development process

Crafting your vision into a successful insurance app involves a comprehensive, methodological approach. A well-defined roadmap helps guide you through each critical stage from initial conception to deployment and beyond. Here’s an overview of the key phases in the insurance mobile app development process: 

Planning and requirement analysis

The initial requirements analysis and planning stage is crucial for solidifying your vision and building a solid foundation for your application. We focus on: 

• Understanding client needs: the development process begins by engaging relevant team members with our client to gather insights about business objectives, the target audience and other requirements. The key is to align project goals and expectations of all key stakeholders.
  
• Understanding the market: to avoid entering a market blindly, we conduct thorough market research helping us understand consumer behaviour, competitors and regional legislation. This enables us to identify market gaps early on, ensure compliance with local regulations, and design a development strategy that’s relevant to consumer needs as well as differentiated from competitor offerings.
  
• Defining Project Scope: after solidifying the vision for your insurance application, it’s important to document it using a well-structured Statement of Work (SoW) to document which outlines the project’s scope, timeline and expected deliverables. Work is split up into timeboxed sprints, where core functionality is prioritised first, creating an MVP and iterating on it with additional features.
  
• Specifying Detailed Functionality: once you’ve defined your project’s scope, you work on a comprehensive requirements document which goes into details of the app’s functionality. This creates a blueprint for the development and includes technical specifications, compliance requirements and user stories. Additionally, a well-written service level agreement (SLA) should be drawn which protects quality by clearly defining product acceptance criteria, delivery timelines, responsibilities and resolution response times. 

Design and Prototyping

In this phase, we visualise your idea while focusing on a user-centred design that ensures a seamless user experience. 

• Tailored UI/UX design: user requirements are studied in detail and insights collected are turned into tailored guidelines for the insurance application’s look, feel and flow. The goal is to create an intuitive and visually appealing interface that appeals to users while maintaining your brand’s identity.
  
• UX Wireframing: the insurance application’s core screens and user journeys are mapped out using low-fidelity sketches to visualise the structure and layout of the application. This helps identify usability issues and refine the user experience before development.
  
• Interactive Prototypes: In this stage you add details to the sketches you made in the wireframing phase, producing interactive models that closely mimic the actual interface of your mobile insurance application. This allows you to test and validate your application’s design, ease of navigation and user experience early on. 

Development and Testing

In the next phase, your insurance application begins taking shape as we decide which technologies will serve as its foundation then begin coding and testing. In this stage we: 

• Technology Stack: we choose the most suitable programming languages and frameworks for your mobile insurance application based on your requirements like feature sets, platform compatibility (iOS/Android) and scalability. Common choices include Swift or Object C for iOS and Java or Kotlin for Android.
  
• Frontend Development: using the languages and frameworks selected in the technology stack, the prototypes of the insurance application are coded into functional screens and functionalities that are responsive across different devices.
  
• Backend Services: backend services are developed and integrated ensuring data exchange and storage, user authentication, communication with third-party APIs and other core functionalities operate smoothly in your insurance app. A crucial step when developing and integrating backend services is ensuring legal compliance with relevant regulations like the GDPR and HIPAA.
  
• Rigorous Testing: extensive testing is performed on the application to identify and fix bugs, ensuring that the app performs reliably in various conditions. We look at the speed and stability of individual units of code as well as the entire system.

Read Also: Software Testing Life Cycle – A Complete Guide

Deployment and Maintenance

In the final stage, the application is made available to users while we ensure it continues to run well post-launch:

• Deployment across platforms: once your application is ready to launch, we submit it to the relevant app stores (i.e. Apple App Store and Google Play Store) while ensuring compliance with their guidelines. Once approved, the app is published and made available to users.
  
• Post-launch support: the mobile insurance application’s performance is monitored and issues identified through user-generated feedback are ironed out. By troubleshooting and addressing problems, we ensure your application runs smoothly over time.
  
• Regular Updates: prioritising continuous improvement, regular updates are performed to introduce new features, enhance security, address user feedback and adapt to technological advancements. 

Analysing the cost of developing insurance mobile apps

Development costs for a mobile insurance application can vary greatly depending on several factors like complexity, scope and platforms. This section gives a general overview of both upfront and ongoing development costs associated with developing an insurance application to help you estimate a budget. For a more detailed overview, refer to our guide on Understanding Software Development Costs In 2024. 

Breakdown of development costs

You can break down development costs into two categories: 

1. Initial Costs: one-time costs like design, development, testing and deployment
2. Ongoing Costs: recurring expenses like maintenance, updates and server-hosting costs

Software development projects have four major cost components: Development, Project Management, Quality Assurance and UI/UX design. While the breakup of the breakup of these costs can vary significantly from project to project, here’s a general overview of what the cost breakup usually looks like for software development: 

We can use this basic breakup to estimate what development costs can look like for different companies based on our 18 years of working with various clients: 

Although these calculations can help give you a ballpark figure of what your actual costs might look like, it’s important to realise that these are just estimates, it’s important to consult with an experienced software development company to get actual cost estimates as well as what kind of functionality your budget can get you. 

Factors influencing the development cost

Another way to estimate the cost of a software project is to examine the underlying factors that influence development costs: 

• Platform Choice: developing an insurance application for a single platform can significantly reduce initial complexity and costs but may limit your audience. For example, choosing Android gives you access to a wider user base compared to iOS, but you may lose out on premium customers.
  
• Project Scope: a software project with a larger scope with more features, screens and user bases naturally increases your product’s development time, increasing costs. Clearly defining the scope from the onset of the project can help set realistic timelines and budgets.
  
• Feature Complexity: a simple application with a basic user interface and a simple functionality like a form is easier and less time-consuming to develop, decreasing costs. However, more advanced features like AI-driven analytics, dynamic dashboards and recommendation engines not only take more effort but also require more expensive expertise and push up costs.
  
• External Integrations: costs can increase with the need to integrate with payment gateways, maps, ERPs, CRM software and more. Some of these integrations can get complicated and time-consuming, increasing development costs.

Challenges in developing insurance apps

Developing an insurance application can present a host of different challenges. Technical issues along with challenges related to user adoption are particularly significant and are common when developing mobile apps for insurance. 

Technical challenges

There are many technical challenges that can arise while developing insurance software: 

• Integration with existing IT infrastructure: a common challenge faced is integrating the insurance application with the insurance company’s IT systems. Often these legacy systems are outdated, often lacking the standardisation required to interface with new applications. This complicates the API implementation process and may require middleware solutions to bridge this gap.
  
• Reliability and Uptime: as insurance is a highly regulated sector, insurance applications should be highly reliable with minimal downtime is important. To mitigate this risk, it’s important to work with experienced development teams and host backend infrastructure with reputable providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Moreover, 24/7 customer support and dedicated maintenance teams also help minimise and reduce downtime.
  
• Data Security: data security is of paramount importance for insurance applications as it often deals with sensitive data like personal information, social security numbers, payment details and more. Therefore, it’s important to implement strict security measures like strong encryption protocols, access controls, security audits, multi-factor authentication and most importantly; working with well-established software development partners.
  
• Legal Compliance: insurance is subject to a plethora of different regulations which vary from region to region like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability) in the US. Non-compliance can result in significant fines, legal action, and can threaten to shut down your business. Therefore, you should shortlist partners who are familiar with the relevant data privacy regulations in the regions you operate in so they can embed legal compliance in their development process. 

User adoption and engagement

Achieving a product-market fit is paramount to any product’s success. Often companies fail to meet user expectations, failing to deliver on anticipated. This eventually leads to user churn and ultimately, the product’s obsolescence. 

To mitigate this problem, you need to incorporate user feedback early on into the product development life cycle. Look for partners that have well-trained teams who are accustomed to following powerful methodologies like Agile which decrease your time to market through iterative development, allowing you to validate your product and pivot accordingly. Team members should be able to extract detailed and meaningful insights from users along with cultural intricacies that are specific to regions to successfully design an effective insurance application. 

Read Also: Agile Software Development Life Cycle

Case study: how GoodCore can help develop an insurance application

Stonestep, a Swiss-based company specialising in microinsurance contracted Goodcore to develop an InsureTech application that could help facilitate their sales team. A team of four worked on the project and completed developing an Android application and a complementing web-based portal in just 4 months. 

The mobile app for insurance agents was designed to aid them in presenting insurance products more effectively and streamline customer onboarding. The focus was on developing a quick and clean way to explain different policies to customers, onboard customers quickly and incentivise sales. 

Android was selected as the primary platform, with a web-based portal for back-office admin operations. PHP, Android SDK and MySQL were used to finish the development of the product. This allowed for better compatibility as the application could work on a wider range of affordable mobile devices. The final product helped agents effortlessly pitch their product and onboard customers through a simple form. 

Moreover, agents were also motivated to increase sales using gamification which incentivised them through the ability to win reward points for sales conversions. Agent performance manifested before them because they could keep track of these points and rank up as they continued to earn more points. Here are some of the key features of both platforms: 

Key features

Mobile App for Insurance Agents

Web Portal for Admins

Through successfully understanding user behaviour, Goodcore was able to empower Stonestep’s sales agents with seamless customer presentations and onboarding as well as motivate them through gamified rewards – helping increase topline growth.

Future trends in insurance mobile app technology

Emerging technologies and their implications

As the insurance industry digitises, emerging technologies bear the power to disrupt the industry, transforming static applications into risk assessment and mitigation platforms. 

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence is one such example. AI can help insurers service and educate their customers with personalised experiences, 24/7. Additionally, generative AI can help provide users with tailored insights surrounding their policies, as well as recommendations. 

For operations, AI has the potential to automate traditional roles like claim assessment, significantly increasing efficiency. Machine learning can also further enhance risk assessments and can be integrated directly into applications to provide users with instant quotes. 

Blockchain can also pose security and transparency benefits. Decentralised, smart contracts can automate policy issuance and claims settlement while keeping both parties accountable, reducing the risk of fraud and mistakes. 

The role of data analytics

Data analytics can help significantly improve the capabilities of insurance applications. Mobile insurance applications make it easier to collect user data which can be used to prevent fraud, improve your offerings and predict consumer behaviour. 

Insurers can utilise the behaviour patterns of users to improve the flow of their applications, enhancing the user experience. User insights can be converted into features like automated policy renewal reminders. Combining past behaviour with personal information can help predict customer churn and prevent it by offering policy discounts. Moreover, user behaviour can be used as a tool against fraud by setting benchmarks to detect suspicious activity and implementing risk-based KYC protocols. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, embracing a mobile-first strategy not only meets the evolving expectations of customers but also offers substantial operational benefits, such as cost reduction and improved efficiency. By leveraging the insights and expertise provided, insurance companies can effectively navigate the development process and deliver a superior digital experience to their users.

If you are looking to develop an insurance mobile app and need expert assistance or a quote, feel free to reach out to our team at Goodcore. 

FAQs

What are some advanced features that can be integrated into an insurance mobile app?

Insurance applications can enhance their user experience by implementing advanced features like AI-powered chatbots for 24/7 support, augmented reality images for more accurate damage assessments and personalised dashboards to help users visualise their information. Additionally, gamification can be used to encourage user engagement and educate customers about policies. 

How can insurance companies leverage mobile apps to improve customer engagement?

To improve customer engagement, Insurance companies can personalise communications based on the personal information of users, offering users information that is relevant to them as well as periodic summaries of their policy usage. Additionally, insurers can provide educational content in the application to educate users and incentivise them to learn by gamifying it using a points system and ranks. 

What are the security considerations when developing an insurance mobile app?

As insurance companies handle sensitive information, it’s important to implement strict security measures like strong encryption protocols, access controls, security audits, multi-factor authentication and most importantly; working with well-established software development partners. 

How can insurance companies ensure their mobile app complies with regulations?

Insurance companies should work with development partners with domain knowledge and experience working with local data protection regulations like the GDPR in the EU and HIPAA in the US. Additionally, they can enlist the help of third-party legal consultants who can audit their mobile application and infrastructure to ensure compliance. 

What is the future of insurance mobile app development?

As the insurance industry digitises, emerging technologies bear the power to disrupt the industry, transforming static applications into risk assessment and mitigation platforms.