There are few purchases people hope never to use. Insurance is one of them. In Luxembourg, the sector generated total revenues of €50.9bn in 2025, according to the Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Companies. It is a colossal industry built around a product that customers often poorly understand, rarely consult and, deep down, hope they will never need to activate.

That is why the rare moments when they do need it matter so much. When a claim occurs, it is no longer only the contract that is being evaluated, but the entire relationship built with the insurer. And in a market where guarantees are increasingly standardised, customer experience has now become the main field of differentiation.

For Olivier Vansteelandt, chief commercial officer at Axa Luxembourg, the transformation is already well underway, and it goes far beyond the simple digitalisation of customer journeys. “In our sector, products and prices are increasingly becoming commodities. The real difference is now made through the experience,” he summarises.

Customer expectations are no longer shaped solely by the insurance industry. Today, policyholders compare their experience with all the digital services they use daily. Amazon, Netflix, Uber and banking applications have gradually imposed new standards of speed, simplicity and seamlessness.

Insurance, however, was never designed to operate at Amazon’s pace. “When you can order a pair of shoes at 2pm and receive them the next day, customers no longer understand why it still takes eight days to issue an insurance contract or sign documents,” observes Vansteelandt.

Insurance facing new digital standards

This delay appears particularly significant in Luxembourg. In its Global Benchmark on Customer Journeys in Insurance, published in October 2025, consulting firm Sia Partners analysed the digital experiences offered by 110 insurance companies across 13 countries. Luxembourg received a score of 47.1 out of 100, well behind Belgium and France. Vansteelandt, who previously worked at Axa Belgium, regularly cited among the benchmark’s top performers, is not surprised by the result.

Nevertheless, he does not believe in the gradual disappearance of human interaction in customer relations. According to him, the Luxembourg market retains strong cultural specificities. “Luxembourg customers remain attached to their agent. When subscribing, many still want to speak with someone, to understand their coverage, tax aspects or how a claim will be handled.”

The challenge, therefore, is not to move towards a fully digitalised model. Rather, it is about finding the right balance: automating what can be automated and simplifying what needs to be simplified, all while maintaining a human presence where it becomes irreplaceable.

Because some moments go far beyond simple administrative management. “I do not believe customers always want to trust a machine,” Vansteelandt continues. “The day your house burns down or you are diagnosed with cancer, you are glad to have someone on the other end of the line.”

For Vansteelandt, this is where the profession’s true value lies. Not in simple or easily automated files, but in supporting customers facing major life events. “The real added value appears in complex cases. That’s where support makes more of a difference than technology.”

This approach is also transforming the skills sought within the sector. Supporting a policyholder confronted with a serious accident, illness or the loss of a home is not simply about a well-designed process. It also requires listening skills, discernment and human experience.

“There is no miracle training for empathy,” acknowledges Vansteelandt. “Part of it already happens during recruitment. Some people enter this profession because they naturally have this desire to help.” And in the most sensitive cases, experience remains decisive. “You need experience. You need to have already lived through these situations to know how to manage them.”

Restoring a relationship of trust

This growing focus on customer experience also responds to a deeper issue for the profession: trust. The stereotype of “the insurer who never pays” remains deeply rooted in public opinion.

This mistrust is partly explainedby the fact that many customers still have a poor understanding of what they are buying. Vansteelandt says he was surprised by customer and non-customer panels showing that nearly 80% of policyholders struggle to identify the main guarantees included in their home insurance, often limiting their answers to fire or flood risks.“

Customers sometimes feel they have paid for ten years for nothing when they have not had any claims,” explains Vansteelandt. “And the day something happens; they discover that a specific risk was not covered.” The issue, he says, is less about insurers refusing to compensate than about a lack of educational effort in an inherently technical profession.“

To set a price, you need to define guarantees and establish certain limits. We are not a non-profit organisation: there must be a form of profitability,” explains Vansteelandt. Deductibles, exclusions or compensation caps are therefore not mechanisms designed to avoid reimbursement, but parameters that allow the model to function sustainably.

The chief commercial officer nevertheless recognises that the sector still needs to improve in terms of clarity. “Products remain too complex, not transparent enough and probably too detailed. We need to move towards something simpler that everyone can understand.”

AI as a simplification tool

This is where artificial intelligence could gradually transform the sector. One initial use concerns fraud prevention, at a time when digital forgery tools are becoming increasingly accessible. Insurers will need to strengthen their capabilities to detect anomalies, verify documents and cross-check information, without creating a culture of general suspicion that would ultimately damage trust.

But AI could also play a much more positive role: simplifying the understanding of contracts. “Before, people had to read hundreds of pages that nobody read. Today, AI can help customers better understand what they are buying.”

This evolution comes at a time when insurers are facing increasingly complex risks. “Thirty years ago, risks were relatively stable and historical statistics allowed products to be modelled accurately. Today, everything evolves much faster,” observes Vansteelandt.This acceleration is gradually pushing insurers to rethink their role. Compensation alone will no longer be enough. Prevention is becoming a new strategic pillar and an opportunity to reposition customer relationships in a more positive and proactive way, even before a claim occurs.

Preventing a fire can sometimes avoid irreparable damage--and irreparable damage cannot truly be compensated for by money. “If we can prevent a certain number of claims, it is in our interest as insurers to do so, because prevention costs less than compensation. But customers also prefer to avoid traumatic experiences.”

Long perceived as cold, technical and administrative, insurance is now discovering that its most strategic dimension may also become its most human one. For Luxembourg’s insurers, part of the challenge will be to catch up digitally. But it will be, above all, to find the right balance between technological efficiency, contract clarity and human presence at the moments when customers need it most.

This article was written for the Customer Experience supplement of Paperjam magazine’s June 2026 issue, published on 17 June 2026. The content was produced exclusively for the print magazine and is published on this website solely to contribute to Paperjam’s complete archive.

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