LV= General Insurance launches industry-first voice skill

UK personal lines insurer LV= General Insurance (LV=GI) has today become the first insurer to launch a car insurance voice skill for customers with Amazon Alexa or Google Home Assistant products. Customers will now be able to discover a range of answers about their car insurance policy by asking their smart speaker to “Open LV”.

The application will allow LV= GI car insurance customers to ask questions about their policy using their home assistants. The new voice skill will be the first of its kind within the general insurance industry and will initially be able to answer over 500 policy-based questions, which have been collated from commonly asked questions on LiveChat and the call centre.

To ensure the app works as effectively as possible, LV= GI will also be receiving constant updates to help add or refine answers and update the software when required.

The alternative method of delivering policy information has been developed to help those less able to use a computer or telephone to check their documents. It is also hoped that the application will reduce some of the 28,000+ questions on policy documents that are received by call centre employees every month, freeing up time for more in-depth call handling or claims.

This will be the first voice skill for car insurance customers by a direct insurer. Plans are in place to add other products to the app in due course.

LV= GI worked with specialist agency Rabbit and Pork to help build the functionality.

Jon Mansley, LV= GI sales and marketing director, said: “At LV= GI we’re always trying to make things easier for our customers, so with nearly 13 million smart speakers sold in the UK in 2019 we thought a voice app would be helpful. With the launch of this new voice skill, customers can now find out details of their policy in a matter of seconds, simply by asking their smart device.”

John Campbell, Rabbit and Pork managing director, added: “We're really excited to be working with LV= on this voice project to help make answering questions about insurance easier, quicker and more conversational.  We are delighted to launch on both the Google Assistant and Alexa platforms at the same time, which allows us to reach a wider audience.
“It's important that companies such as LV= have a presence on voice-enabled devices, as we are seeing them become part of our daily lives. We look forward to building on this first version with more content and features in the future.”