Ausgehend von der zunehmenden Verbreitung von Smartphones wird untersucht, welchen Nutzen mobile Dienste als Erganzung klassischer Dienstleistungen in den Augen potenzieller Kunden haben. Am Beispiel der Versicherungsbranche wird zu diesem Zweck analysiert, welche mobilen Dienste von Kunden nachge-fragt werden und wie letztere gezielt angesprochen werden kon-nen. Mit Hilfe von Fokusgruppen werden diejenigen Dienste mit dem grossten Nutzenpotenzial identifiziert. Hierbei zeigt sich, dass diese aus dem Bereich der Hilfe- und Notfallanwendungen kommen. Die Kundenperspektive auf diese Dienste wird mit Hilfe von demographischen Faktoren, der Technologieaffinitat, dem Vertrauen in den Anbieter und der Risikoeinstellung im Rahmen einer Onlinebefragung untersucht. Wahrend abhangig von der Demographie keine Unterschiede sichtbar werden, gehen ein ge-steigertes Vertrauen in den Anbieter, eine hohere Technologieaf-finitat und ein risikoaverses Verhalten mit einer gesteigerten Nut-zungsintention einher.

XIV Abstract Mobile technologies have evolved as new means for companies to interact and communicate with their customers. With more than ten billion mobile applications downloaded, they provide a broad basis for reaching clients in both developed and emerging markets. In 2009, first insurers have cautiously started to explore mobile applications as a channel to sell products, provide assistance services, and manage claims. However, practical knowledge on the status quo of using mobile applications in the insurance industry is scarce and academic contributions in the field of mobile customer relationship management remain partial. The work explores the state of the art in mobile insurance applications and demonstrates not yet explored benefits and downsides based on five research questions. Answers to the questions rendered results that provide insights on the current status of mobile customer relationship management in insurance and offer a basis for companies to take the right steps when developing and offering these applications. First, a repository of mobile applications and functionalities is built to help insurers compare their own development efforts and ideas with the best practices on the market. The preferences of the customers are assessed to provide insights on the features that are demanded by their clients. The results show that most insurers follow a short-term strategy which results in a lacking integration of products and processes. The applications are hardly integrated with the corporate IT and mostly support assistance and claims processes for motor insurance. Second, the usage behavior is explored since companies assess the utilization of the applications rarely. While the findings state that the continued use of the applications dilutes quickly, they also prove that the services are reused due to positive experience. Third, mobile assistance services are investigated to understand how they contribute to generating positive word-of-mouth and strengthening the insurer’s brand. Empirical results reveal that clients with trust in the company and the service show a high affinity to engage in word-of-mouth communication. Fourth, a mobile car navigation application is considered to explain how the purchasing decision can be influenced. The evidence found suggests that revenue can be generated by extending insurance offerings with mobile applications. Finally, the possibility to reduce costs of distributing insurance in emerging markets with a mobile sales assistant application is explored. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by developing a process model and testing it in a field study. The work closes with guidelines for insurers and implications for mobile customer relationship management and discloses demand for future research.Mobile technologies have evolved as new means for companies to interact and communicate with their customers. With more than ten billion mobile applications downloaded, they provide a broad basis for reaching clients in both developed and emerging markets. In 2009, first insurers have cautiously started to explore mobile applications as a channel to sell products, provide assistance services, and manage claims. However, practical knowledge on the status quo of using mobile applications in the insurance industry is scarce and academic contributions in the field of mobile customer relationship management remain partial. The work explores the state of the art in mobile insurance applications and demonstrates not yet explored benefits and downsides based on five research questions. Answers to the questions rendered results that provide insights on the current status of mobile customer relationship management in insurance and offer a basis for companies to take the right steps when developing and offering these applications. First, a repository of mobile applications and functionalities is built to help insurers compare their own development efforts and ideas with the best practices on the market. The preferences of the customers are assessed to provide insights on the features that are demanded by their clients. The results show that most insurers follow a short-term strategy which results in a lacking integration of products and processes. The applications are hardly integrated with the corporate IT and mostly support assistance and claims processes for motor insurance. Second, the usage behavior is explored since companies assess the utilization of the applications rarely. While the findings state that the continued use of the applications dilutes quickly, they also prove that the services are reused due to positive experience. Third, mobile assistance services are investigated to understand how they contribute to generating positive word-of-mouth and strengthening the insurer’s brand. Empirical results reveal that clients with trust in the company and the service show a high affinity to engage in word-of-mouth communication. Fourth, a mobile car navigation application is considered to explain how the purchasing decision can be influenced. The evidence found suggests that revenue can be generated by extending insurance offerings with mobile applications. Finally, the possibility to reduce costs of distributing insurance in emerging markets with a mobile sales assistant application is explored. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by developing a process model and testing it in a field study. The work closes with guidelines for insurers and implications for mobile customer relationship management and discloses demand for future research.

The recent economic crisis has speeded up the concentration process within the European insurance sector. However, nowadays customers are more price sensitive, which increases pressure for the whole industry and in consequence leads to further premium erosions. Thus, some insurers are seeking new ways to differentiate their portfolio by offering innovative insurance products combined with prevention activities to compete with a high value-added service strategy. The objective of this research is to gain knowledge about consumer habits related to prevention articles and the acceptance of prevention solutions to the issue of water claims prevention. We explored this through an online survey (N=197) and Telephone Assisted Web Interviews (N=122) using the same questionnaire to allow a mixed reporting of the data. The respondents are all Swiss individuals which are all responsible for the buying decisions of insurance products within their respective households. About one fifth of all respondents indicated to have at least one insurance relevant claim within the last five years. The main claims cause results in water related damages followed by fire. But in terms of claims prevention individuals are just almost exclusively aware of fire protection than on water claims protection. More than 40% of the Swiss households are featured with fire extinguishers and fire blankets, however less than three percent use water sensors to detect water leaks or related damages. The main reason is that fire protection helps to prevent injuries and may save lives while water claims prevention can be implemented (from an insurance point of view) to save high claims costs. Based on our surveys we are able deriving recommended actions for insurance companies in order to reduce claim costs by motivating claims prevention to their customers. Henceforth, this increases their own differentiation capabilities as well as customer loyalty in the above mentioned weak market environment.

Microinsurance is a growing market in developing countries and helps low-income individuals to cover risks. Delivering these products at low costs is crucial and cannot be achieved by traditional agent-based sales processes. We develop and implement a smartphone-based sales process and run a proof of concept with 20 insurance sales agents in South Africa. With a 117 insurance policies sold we show the feasibility of the process. A detailed focus group discussion suggests that the process needs to be extended. Our results show that the micro-insurance sales process can be successfully supported by smartphones. Customer's trust however needs to be increased by product brochures.

Maintaining and advancing competitiveness through additional services is an accepted strategy in today's insurance business. Despite the plethora of supplementary offerings the significance of preventive products or services deserves particular attention. Safety trainings and emergency equipment do not only allow delivering additional value to the customer but provide a mean to select risk aware customers and reduce claims. The relevance of this strategy becomes apparent with the insurance industry striving for new strategies in order to handle price pressure and eroding premiums in many European countries. Despite the number of contribution in this area and product on the market it remains unclear how the provision of preventive services affects the customer's decision during the insurance purchasing process. To close this research gap we conducted a conjoint analysis based on a motor insurance product in 2009. In addition to traditional product attributes such as the price, the franchise or no-claims bonus, additional driver safety training was included in the offer. Based on the results we show that the provision of the driver safety training has a significant influence on the preference structure of the customers and hence on the purchasing decision. In a consecutive cluster analysis based on the individual preference values customer segments were found which revealed the differing influence of the safety training on the purchasing decision. The findings of this contribution show the influence of preventive services on the purchasing decision and provide practitioners with guidelines on how to target customer segments demanding such services

The study at hand explores the influence of value-added services offered in addition to a motor insurance product on the customer's preference structure. It addresses the need of insurance companies to extend their core business with different types of supplementary services. A choice-based conjoint analysis is conducted which considers the price for the insurance product, the insurance franchise, the non-claims bonus as well as post-accident services and value-added services. Based on the results from the conjoint study among 1053 car drivers in Switzerland in August 2009, Hierarchical Bayes estimation is applied in order to assess individual preference values. In addition to a significant influence of the value-added services on the overall Preference structure, different customer groups are found in an adjacent cluster analysis which is based on the individual preference values. While two clusters represent the traditional price-driven customers, two further clusters are identified, which are dominated by the presence of the supplementary service offerings. The results provide evidence that customer segments exist which are strongly influenced by the provision of value-added services. The findings challenge the perspective of insurance companies on their customers which they believe are almost purely driven by price.

Technological support for an emergency situation where a pet, child or elder person is lost has been countered in the last years with the advent of consumer track and trace solutions. Based on a market survey and an adjacent experience study we investigated the state-of-the art of consumer track and trace solutions for pets. We found that until today most of the providers are struggling with providing a satisfying solution. We found that this was due to the demanding nature of device size, weight, and precision requirements which are not met by the providers yet. In addition we found that most of the existing products are not tailor to the specific scenario of locating a lost animal, child or person in an emergency situation. While most of the providers offered the tracking functionality via SMS or Web-based services only one provider offered a separate mobile application which was valued most by the participants.

Die Wartung von Notfallsystemen bei Gebauden wie z.B. Sprinkleranlagen kann im Brandfall uberlebenswichtig sein; bisher dominieren allerdings kosten- und zeitintensive Papier-basierte Losungen. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt im Rahmen des Facility Managements bzw. der Gebaudeinstandhaltung einen Demonstrator auf der Basis von NFC-Mobiltelefonen. Das System bietet eine Echtzeit-Dokumentation und damit die Moglichkeit einer zentralen Prozesskontrolle fur sich wiederholende Wartungsprozesse. Der gesamte Wartungsprozess wird dadurch effizienter und die Prozessqualitat steigt. Dieser Demonstrator wurde am Insurance-Lab (I-Lab) der ETH Zurich/ Universitat St. Gallen (HSG) entwickelt und durch die Unternehmenspartner des I-Labs finanziert.

This contribution investigates how accurate location information is on smartphones. Our research is based on a data set consisting of 2289 locations gathered from a marketed iPhone application. In a first analysis, it became evident that the accuracy information differs significantly among iPhone and iPod and iPad devices. A second analysis of the accuracy values reveals clusters of accuracy values at above 1 km, at 500 meters, and at an accuracy of below 300 meters. Information with an accuracy of above 500 meters originated from Cell-ID based positioning. Finally, an analysis revealed that the accuracy is significantly reduced for locations with more than 500 meters away from the next populated area. The overall results suggest that additional Cell-ID based positioning technology allows for higher coverage at the costs of a significantly reduced accuracy. If location information is required, with an accuracy of below 300 meters, the technology should be limited to GPS and WLAN based positioning. Adding Cell-ID based positioning increases the coverage while accuracy is reduced.

Using a mobile application to report an emergency allows for the transmission of the current location. This not only helps rescue teams but supports the assistance service if provided by insurance companies. However, the acceptance behavior as well as the influence of trust related to the insurer is unknown. We hence explore the influence of provider trust on the acceptance of mobile emergency applications. Based on theoretical foundations of prior research on the interplay between technology acceptance and trust we develop and test a structural model using data collected from 1617 respondents in Switzerland. The results confirm the applicability of the acceptance model for the two considered mobile emergency applications. However, the influence of trust on the perceived usefulness and the intention to use, which was shown in other cases, could not be confirmed. The results demonstrate an above average intention to use for the two mobile applications and we reason that the influence of trust towards the insurance company cannot be considered a critical issue in the acceptance process.

Information about health, disease or environmental conditions is increasingly becoming available. We investigate the suitability of using mobile phones as an interface to provide information about risk-related events or conditions to the user. We approach the problem by conducting an online survey in order to match the requirements on a risk information service with the capabilities of the mobile phone and to evaluate different notification mechanisms, the usage frequency, and the influence of costs. Based on the results of the survey we confirm the suitability of the mobile phone to provide risk-related information as well as the user's willingness to pay for the service.

The current economic crisis has speeded up the concentration process within the European home insurance sector, especially in the UK. However, nowadays customers are more price sensitive, which increases pressure for the whole industry and in consequence leads to further premium erosions. Thus, some insurers are looking for new ways to differentiate their portfolio by offering innovative insurance products combined with prevention activities to compete with a high value-added service strategy. Based on a profound analysis of more than 220.000 insurance claims of one leading European home insurer between 2004 and 2008, we generated different risk and customer profiles to identify the most suitable prevention strategy for each customer group. The prevention activities are focused on fire, theft, and water damage protection as these represent the core businesses of the examined insurance company. The following research discusses the whole project lifecycle for water damage protection as an example - from target group and risk identification, choosing appropriate prevention actions down to building the corresponding business case. The presented prevention system centres on a comprehensive water detection system, which is based on intelligent water leak detectors, automatic valves, conventional and resistive detectors and control panels. We show from an insurance business perspective how these advances in sensing can contribute to a better risk assessment as well as to significantly reduce the extent of damages. Likewise, we illustrate for insurance clients how damage protection comes together with voguish water saving to make the case even more customer rewarding.