Keena Bean

Celina Insurance Group, headquartered in Celina, Ohio, is a regional carrier that offers auto, home, business and farm coverage in six Midwestern states.

In late 2019, Celina began a search for a texting platform that would help them better serve customers, decrease the claims cycle time, reduce phone tag and increase customer satisfaction. After investigating several texting providers, Celina chose Zipwhip’s texting–for–business platform.

Why Zipwhip?  

  • Experience. In addition to inventing the texting–for–business category by being the first to text enable existing landlines, VoIPs, and toll-free numbers, Zipwhip has been working with insurance providers for over six years. 
  • Text or call the same number. Celina wanted to be able to have insureds send texts to Celina’s existing phone numbers.   
  • Data security. Protecting their customers’ data is mission critical. Zipwhip is SOC2 (Service Organization Control 2) Type 2 compliant – SOC2 is the industry standard for SaaS providers. 

After a successful pilot with a small group of claims adjusters, Celina expanded Zipwhip texting to all claims staff in April 2020 – the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even during this remote, work–from–home environment, the rollout was smooth and seamless. 

Claims staff are excited about texting. After just one hour of training, they were easily sending and receiving texts directly from their computer. Information that used to take hours or days to collect from claimants can now be received in minutes or hours. 

Feedback from policyholders has also been extremely positive.   

With Zipwhip texting, there is no app for the claimant to download and no confusing customer portals to log in to. The insured texts with the adjuster, just as they do with friends and family.  And if the claimant wants to speak with a person, they simply call the same number that they’ve been texting. 

Claimants can easily take a photo or video of the damage and text it to their adjuster, rather than having an adjuster come to their home or business. This not only saves time, but also increases claimants’ comfort level regarding Covid-19 social distancing by allowing for contactless claims adjudication. 

Celina and Zipwhip continue to partner and expand their relationship. Using Zipwhip’s API, Celina has automated the movement of daily texts and photos into their proprietary claims system. Recently, Celina has expanded Zipwhip texting to the HR team for use in recruiting top talent. 

In choosing Zipwhip, Celina got more than just a software provider. They have a technology partner committed to helping them provide a world-class  communication experience to their policyholders. 

Celina’s advice to anyone contemplating texting for business? Rob Shoenfelt, Celina’s Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer summed it up this way: “If this small insurance company in the middle of the cornfields in Ohio can do this, then so can you.”

Keena Bean

Keena is Zipwhip’s Director of Corporate Communications. She shares the latest news and updates from HQ, including new executive hires, funding rounds, partnerships, and more.

Content provided by ZipWhip. Original publication can be found here.

For more information about ZipWhip, click here. Get a 10% savings on ZipWhip for being a PIIAC member. 

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