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World Life Insurance Report 2025

Bridge the customer experience divide: Ensure life insurance relevancy through relentless customer centricity

Life insurers today face declining penetration rates in mature markets. Many consumers are at best only mildly interested in traditional life insurance products, and the industry is struggling to meet new and more challenging life insurance customer experience expectations – with legacy technology being a major barrier to driving meaningful change.

The World Life Insurance Report 2025 reflects the views of 6,186 life insurance customers in 18 countries, as well as insights from interviews with 213 leading life insurance company executives across 16 markets; both of these research initiatives gathered inputs from all regions of the globe – the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

Our report’s life insurance industry analysis suggests that only a small group of life insurers globally – five percent1 – are delivering quantifiably outstanding customer experience (CX) and achieving “best-in-class” status. To get on board, key findings recommend the balance of mainstream life insurers need to:

  • Address policyholder dissatisfaction challenges at every stage of the customer journey, including product offerings, onboarding, servicing, and claims experiences
  • Lean into advanced technology to modernize legacy systems, streamline data management, and enable Gen AI
  • Cultivate talent and partnerships to drive a customer-centric culture and increase efficiency across the value chain.

Our analysis shows that best-in-class insurers go beyond developing advanced capabilities – they effectively translate these into measurable business outcomes. They consistently outperform mainstream insurers by achieving higher customer satisfaction, lowering operational costs, and driving stronger revenue growth than the industry, demonstrating their ability to convert enhanced customer experiences into tangible business success.

World Life Insurance Report 2025 highlights

Highlight 1

Older technology hinders life insurers

Life insurers are burdened by several internal challenges that impede their ability to enhance customer experiences, with outdated technology being a major obstacle for 52% of insurers. The rigidity of legacy systems also limits the adoption of advanced technologies, stifling innovation in life insurance customer experience. Furthermore, increasingly complex regulations add another layer of difficulty.

Life insurers struggle to redesign onboarding, servicing, and claims/surrenders

For life insurers focused on enhancing CX, transforming core processes like onboarding, servicing, and claims is essential. Most insurers have achieved point automation within business processes (Level 1) by digitizing tasks, while fewer have redesigned processes at an enterprise level (Level 2) to create organizational connectivity. Only a small number have developed integrated ecosystems (Level 3) to deliver seamless, personalized experiences.

Top 3 challenges faced by life insurance customers across the policy lifecycle

To convert CX from a competitive liability into a strategic advantage, insurers can refocus on customer-centric strategies across pivotal touchpoints by:

  • Optimizing onboarding to address the customers who struggle with complex terms and unclear benefits
  • Enhancing self-service to tackle the customers frustrated by long wait times for support
  • Enabling empathetic and intelligent claims to address the concerns of policyholders and beneficiaries who lack clarity on claims status.
Best-in-class life insurers realize business results

Only 5% of life insurers deliver outstanding CX to achieve best-in-class status. Compared to mainstream insurers, they excel in onboarding, self-service, and claims capabilities translating into 38% higher Net Promoter Scores® (NPS), and11% lower expense ratios. Over the past three years, they have also achieved 6% higher growth than the industry.

The information in this report is general and not intended as legal, tax, investment, financial, or professional advice. Capgemini assumes no liability for errors or omissions or the use of this material. This report is for informational purposes only and may not address your specific needs. Capgemini disclaims responsibility for translation inaccuracies and provides the information “as-is,” without warranties. Capgemini will not be liable for any losses arising from reliance on this information.

1Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services analysis, 2024.

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Meet our experts

Samantha Chow

Samantha Chow

Global Head, Life Insurance, Annuities, and Benefits Leader, Capgemini Financial Services

Shane Cassidy

Shane Cassidy

Executive Vice President, Financial Services; Insurance Business Unit Leader

Kiran Boosam

Kiran Boosam

Vice President, Financial Services; Global Insurance Industry Strategy and Portfolio Leader, Capgemini Financial Services

Elias Ghanem

Elias Ghanem

Global Head of Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services

Adam Denninger

Global Industry Leader, Insurance

Samantha Chow

Global Head, Life Insurance, Annuities, and Benefits Leader, Capgemini Financial Services

Shane Cassidy

Executive Vice President, Financial Services; Insurance Business Unit Leader

Nathan Summers

Global Head for Capgemini Invent

Kiran Boosam

Vice President, Financial Services; Global Insurance Industry Strategy and Portfolio Leader, Capgemini Financial Services

Lotfi Baccouche

Co-lead of Insurance Practice, Capgemini Invent

Elias Ghanem

Global Head of Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services

Luca Russignan

Head of Insurance, Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services

Executive roundtable participants

Giancarlo Bosser

Giancarlo Bosser

Chief Life Officer

Generali Italy

Izu Atsushi

Izu Atsushi

Head of Innovation Planning Group, Head of Global Dai-ichi Innovation Lab

Dai-ichi Life Holdings

Antonio Santillo

Antonio Santillo

VP, Client Experience and Innovation

Northwestern Mutual

Diana Steinhoff

Diana Steinhoff

President and CEO

Renaissance

Lorenzo Ball Jr.

Lorenzo Ball Jr.

Chief Data Officer

Mutual of Omaha

Sam Fromson

Sam Fromson

Co-founder and COO

YuLife

Hans-Erik Lind

Hans-Erik Lind

CEO

Nordea Life and Pension

Pankaj Gupta

Pankaj Gupta

MD & CEO

Pramerica Life Insurance

Benny De Wyngaert

Benny De Wyngaert

Managing Director Bank Channel & Life Development

AG Insurance

Bruno Alves do Nascimento

Bruno Alves do Nascimento

Director of Strategy and Technology

BB Seguros

Patrice Amann

Patrice Amann

EMEA Insurance Business Lead

Microsoft

Rory Yates

Rory Yates

Chief Strategy Officer

EIS

Lisa Wardlaw

Lisa Wardlaw

President and Founder

360 Digital Immersion

Juan Mazzini

Juan Mazzini

Director of Insurance Practice for APAC, EMEA, & LATAM

Celent

Chad Hersh

Chad Hersh

Head of Worldwide Market Development, Life Insurance Industry

AWS

Shane Cassidy

Executive Vice President, Financial Services; Insurance Business Unit Leader

Samantha Chow

Global Head, Life Insurance, Annuities, and Benefits Leader, Capgemini Financial Services

Kiran Boosam

Vice President, Financial Services; Global Insurance Industry Strategy and Portfolio Leader, Capgemini Financial Services

Sustainability-In-Wealth-Management-and-ESG-Final-WebVersion

Elias Ghanem

Global Head of Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services

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