Nearly half of insurance leaders are prioritizing investment in hyper-personalization, AI targeting, digital transformation and marketing technology modernization - yet consumer expectations rank fifth among the factors driving those investment decisions, cited by just 10% of insurance leaders as a primary driver. That inversion sits at the heart of new research from TransUnion, which finds insurers investing heavily in personalization while the customers those investments are meant to serve remain largely unconvinced.
The findings come from a blind quantitative study conducted in partnership with Arizant, an independent B2B research firm, surveying 100 senior insurance decision-makers - directors or above - at organizations generating at least $2 billion in annual revenue, spanning property and casualty, life and multiline insurance businesses. TransUnion supplemented the survey with a nationally representative study of US insurance consumers examining expectations, perceptions and experiences across the policy lifecycle. The summit at which findings were presented brought together 112 insurance professionals.
The headline gap is stark: 70% of insurers believe they provide personalized experiences, while only 43% of consumers share that view. Among Gen Z consumers specifically, the figure drops to 32%.
Patrick Foy, senior director of strategic planning for TransUnion's insurance business, said the Gen Z finding should concern carriers thinking about long-term retention. "Persistent inflation has heightened consumers' focus on price and value," Foy said. "When customers don't feel engaged through personalization, they're more likely to switch providers, even for modest price differences. Insurers should be especially concerned that so few Gen Z consumers report personalization, as they represent the future of the market."
The stakes are material. A separate study by Earnix found that 60% of insurance customers would consider switching providers if they do not receive personalized experiences - putting personalization alongside pricing and coverage as a retention driver. Research from J.D. Power provides independent corroboration of the engagement link: policyholders who recalled receiving communications from their insurer during the previous 12 months reported satisfaction scores 50 points higher than those who did not.
The explanation for the gap between investment and outcome sits largely in data infrastructure. More than half of insurance leaders surveyed cited poor or incomplete data and integration issues as barriers to personalization efforts, while 62% identified departmental data silos as the biggest obstacle to effective customer relationship management.
Karen Imbrogno, co-author of the study and manager of market development for TransUnion's insurance business, said the problem is not a shortage of customer information but an inability to unify it. "Most insurers have a wealth of first-party data, but it remains inconsistent across departments, and few organizations operate from a unified source of truth. As a result, many insurers are operating with an incomplete view of the customer - and you can't personalize to someone you can't see," she said.
Earnix has similarly found that while many insurers are investing in personalization capabilities, only around one in four reported being able to deliver personalized experiences at scale across their customer base - suggesting that technology investment is a necessary but not sufficient condition for customer-facing outcomes.
TransUnion's position is that connecting consumer identities across multiple signals allows insurers to maintain a persistent view of customers across interactions, supporting consistent experiences from initial advertising through policy acquisition, customer service and claims handling. That framing reflects the firm's core data business - but the underlying infrastructure problem it describes is consistent with what the broader research record shows: insurers have the intent and increasingly the investment, but the organizational architecture to deliver personalization at scale remains the constraint.
