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Most carriers have checked the omnichannel box. They have email, a mobile app, a self-service portal, etc, and they assume that covers it.
News alert, it doesn't.
Real omnichannel communication means supporting the full spectrum. From the Gen Z auto policyholder who wants to submit a photo of their damage via text and get a chatbot response in two seconds, to the 70 year old homeowner who needs to send a fax because their internet is down.
Both are your customers, both are filing claims, and both will remember exactly how you handled it.
Carriers who build for the average are building for no one in particular. The ones winning on satisfaction and retention are the ones who've closed the gaps.
The generational gap is real and larger than you think
Generational communication preferences aren't a marketing concept they're measurable, and the data is consistent.
Gen Z communicates digitally by default. They expect text, chat, and self-service options to work immediately. Boomers, on the other hand, lean towards phone and formal written communications (yes, snail mail is still a thing)
Believe it or not, 98% of Boomers are more likely to purchase from a company that communicates through their preferred channel, and for most of them, that channel isn't a chatbot. Gen Z is the opposite, they prefer digital as the default and have little patience for playing phone tag or dealing with formal communication styles. (https://www.infobip.com/generational-messaging-trends all stats in this section)
In a claims environment, this matters a lot. It shows up in FNOL completion rates, adjuster touchpoints, and ultimately, how a policyholder rates their experience after a loss. And how each audience wants to communicate is almost entirely different.
So remember, meeting one doesn't mean meeting both.
Think "Old" channels aren’t dead. You’re wrong. They’re just load bearing.
There's a notable assumption that modernizing communication means eliminating traditional channels. That assumption is wrong, and there is plenty of data out there that makes a clear case against it.
The global fax services market was valued at $3.31 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $4.47 billion by 2030. This is a market that doesn't grow when no one's using the product. In financial services alone, fax accounts for nearly 20% of market share, driven by the same compliance and security requirements that govern insurance.
In regulated industries like insurance, fax remains trusted because email can't guarantee a dedicated communication line that doesn't route through the open internet, delivery confirmation built in, or a compliant document trail. Surprisingly, banking, financial, and insurance industries accounted for around 19% of the global fax services market in 2024, and that share is expected to grow.
Dismissing fax or phone, for that matter, doesn't make an insurance carrier modern. It makes them inaccessible to a large portion of their target market.
In a CAT event, the channel you deprioritized is now officially critical
Consider what happens when a major storm hits. Cell towers are overloaded. Broadband is out. Power is down across multiple areas. The claim volume surges exactly when communication channels are compromised.
In those situations, fax — which runs on phone lines, not internet infrastructure — can be one of the only reliable options still standing. Carriers that assumed "no one uses fax anymore" discover that, at the worst possible moment, when a policyholder is trying to send documents and has no other way to do it.
This isn't a hypothetical. CAT situations are exactly when communication gaps are noticed and when customer trust is either won or lost. A carrier's ability to receive information by fax during an outage is the difference between being reachable and being unreachable. And in claims, unreachable is simply unacceptable.
It’s a clear business case
Full-spectrum communication isn't a nice-to-have. It's a retention driver.
A 2023 study analyzing behavioral data from 250,000 P&C insureds found that policyholders who engage across multiple channels are 21% less likely to cancel, and those who do so consistently show a 25% higher retention rate. Yet only 55% of U.S. insurance customers say their carrier communicates through their preferred channel. That gap is widening, not shrinking.
The channel a carrier doesn't support is the one that loses the customer.
How Snapsheet covers the full spectrum
Snapsheet’s integrated communication tools are built to eliminate gaps, not create new ones. texts, chat, email, and fax all within a single platform. This way, adjusters don’t have to toggle between systems, and everything stays centralized within the claim file.
With new native fax capabilities (link to faxing feature forward), adjusters can now send and receive faxes directly via the Quick Access Panel without leaving the platform, using external tools, or breaking the communication audit trail.
That's what full-spectrum omnichannel looks like in practice. Not a list of available channels, but a platform where every channel is integrated, traceable, and accessible from one place.
See what else Snapsheet’s building
Faxing is one of many platform updates that Snapsheet ships on a monthly release cadence. See what's new, what's coming, and what's already live by checking out Feature Forward, our monthly product release hub, where we break down new capabilities and what they mean for claims teams like yours.
