While some say technology is taking away from the personal experience the insurance industry can provide, one Florida homeowners insurance company is working on creating the opposite situation through a personalized video service.

Security First Insurance Co. in Ormond Beach, Fla. has developed policyholder-specific videos to explain the details of insureds’ homeowners insurance coverage. Locke Burt, chairman and president of Security First, said the goal is to help educate clients on their policies, since few read them, but also engage with customers in a different way.

“We thought it was important that people understand the coverage and we know that people don’t read their policy, so the question was, would they look at a video?” he said. “We wanted to build a bridge to our customers using technology.”

Co-developed with its business partner Real Time Content, the personalized videos provide a snapshot of a policyholder’s coverage information through a personal URL specifically for the insured. The videos detail an individual’s homeowners insurance information, including coverage amounts for personal property, other structures, and loss of use expenses, as well as personal liability and medical payment limits.

The video also details what coverages are not included on an individual’s policy, such as identity theft protection, and provides information about how to add coverages if a policyholder would like to do so. The video also indicates any discounts a policyholder may be eligible for.

The videos typically run for about eight minutes, which Burt acknowledges is still a little longer than what they would like but they wanted to make sure it covered all the important parts of a policyholders coverage.

Currently the videos are just being e-mailed to new HO-3 business – around 110,000 insureds – but Security First will eventually expand to send them to renewal business, condo policies, dwelling fire and tenants policies.

“We started with our new business as way to introduce ourselves,” said Burt. “And we want to learn as we go along.”

So far, Burt says the response from its agents and customers has been very positive, as has the response from others in the industry. When the company first started sending them out in December, an average of around 20 percent of new customers were clicking the e-mail link and watching the video, which Burt says is significantly better than how many policyholders pick up and read the important parts of their policy.

That number has gone as high as 30 percent since then, with 30 percent of those who start the video watching it through to the end.

“Less than one percent of our new customers have opened the policy and read it. The only thing they probably looked at was the bill,” he says. ““Clients should still read their policy, but we cover a lot of information in eight minutes. It is not the entire contract, but it provides details about what is and what is not covered. “

The personalized video URL is available for 90 days for the customer to view or revisit. Burt says that is the case so that if coverages are changed or endorsements are added later, a client will not go back and see inaccurate information.

He says he expects this idea will be very successful in Florida because customers demand information and convenience, and the videos provide both.

“Our average premium is $1,500 – that’s a lot of money. People want us to treat them as individuals and with technology today you can do that. Self-service is the wave of the future and we want to be on top of that wave,” he says.

Sample videos can be viewed at http://welcome.securityfirstflorida.com/new/.