Breaking Down Silos: Why a Cross-Functional approach to CX is Key to Insurance Growth

Delivering a great customer experience isn’t [and has never been] just the job of one team within Insurers – it’s everyone’s responsibility. When marketing, underwriting, claims, IT, and customer service align around a shared CX strategy, the impact is tangible – improved performance, deeper engagement, and a stronger brand in the eyes of customers. What’s driving this momentum is a cross-functional approach to CX, one that breaks down silos and puts the customer at the centre of every decision.

Why CX Alignment Across Teams Matters

Traditionally, insurance organisations have been structured around specialist functions. That’s logical from an operational point of view but it doesn’t reflect how customers experience your business. From their perspective, they expect speed, personalisation, and joined-up conversations across all touchpoints.

That’s only possible when internal teams are aligned around the same goals, measures, and view of the customer.

When marketing knows what claims is working on, when service understands what comms are being sent, and when IT supports that journey with the right tools, all working together to drive genuine CX.

The Data Makes a Strong Case

McKinsey research backs this up:

• P&C insurers that lead on CX see 65% higher total shareholder return over five years
• Life insurers see a 20% uplift
• And across the board, these organisations outperform in revenue growth, EBIT, and even employee satisfaction

The message is clear: CX pays off, but only when it’s embedded across the business.

My Perspective: What We’re Seeing Across the Industry

At Purple Square, we work closely with large enterprises in the UK and across Europe – across multiple industries – and the common thread in successful CX transformation? Collaboration. It’s not enough for CX to sit within marketing or be treated as a post-sale function. It needs to run across the full customer lifecycle and be embedded in every department’s strategy.

In practice, that looks like:

• Bringing marketing automation and customer service closer together, so personalisation doesn’t stop once a policy is sold (read more)
• Helping compliance and marketing teams align, to ensure clarity and fairness are part of the experience, not obstacles to it (more here)
• Enabling IT to support real-time data access across functions, so everyone is working with the same customer view
• Prioritising personalisation even in a self-service-first world, because that’s what earns trust (see this article)

We’ve seen insurers achieve meaningful improvements in loyalty, retention, and operational efficiency by embedding CX into their automation strategies – but only when departments are united around common goals and insights.

The real shift? Moving from reactive service to proactive engagement. And that takes joined-up thinking from every corner of the business.

What Customers Actually Experience

For customers, this kind of cross-functional collaboration means:

• Faster claims processing
• Fewer handoffs and less repetition
• More consistent and relevant communications
• A stronger sense of trust

When the experience feels effortless, customers notice – and it builds the kind of loyalty that’s hard to replicate with product alone.

The Role of Technology

Achieving true cross-functional CX isn’t possible without the right technology foundation. At the core is data, and specifically, having a unified view of the customer that’s accessible across teams. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) play a vital role here, breaking down data silos and ensuring that every function, from marketing to claims, is working from the same customer insight.

Layered on top of that is marketing automation, which allows teams to scale personalisation and maintain relevance across the entire customer lifecycle. But automation is only as good as the strategy behind it – and its success depends on how well it’s connected to real-time data and aligned with broader CX goals.

Then there’s AI, including the growing use of generative tools. These can enhance everything from content generation to decision-making and predictive modelling. But again, AI only adds value when it’s integrated into the broader ecosystem – supporting consistent tone, messaging, and responsiveness across all channels.

The common thread? Technology needs to enable collaboration and not create more silos. When systems, data and tools are aligned around the customer, cross-functional CX becomes scalable, measurable, and far more impactful.

A Few Gotcha’s

Of course, this isn’t a plug-and-play solution. To make this cross-functional approach to CX work, insurers need to tackle a few key challenges:

• Cultural change: Shifting mindsets and redefining roles takes time
• Data integration: Everyone needs access to the same customer view
• Ongoing training: Teams must stay up to speed with both tech and processes

CX isn’t the responsibility of one team – it’s a shared mission. And in insurance, where trust and timing are everything, aligning teams around a unified customer strategy is more than a competitive advantage – it’s business-critical.

The insurers who get this right are already seeing the rewards. The question is: is your organisation set up to follow suit? Let us help