For the average insurance consumer, the arithmetic is hard to ignore: The less insurers pay in claims, the more money they make.

Thus is planted the seed of a doubt that so many policyholders seem to harbor: Does my insurer really have my back? Are they looking out more for my interests or their own?

Given that financial services was found to be the least trustworthy industry in Edelman’s 2020 Trust Barometer, it appears people aren’t convinced whose side insurers are really on. Indeed, when research firm YouGov asked consumers the question directly, more people said insurers act in the company’s best interest rather than the policyholder’s.

This is a problem for the insurance industry, because without trust, what kind of business can you possibly build?

If it’s any consolation for carriers, they’re not alone. It’s rare that consumers see a company that routinely subordinates its own interests to those of its customers, and that erodes trust. Because it happens so infrequently, when companies actually do put customers’ interests first, it leaves an indelible impression on people, creating a distinctive customer experience that cultivates loyalty.

What’s critical to understand, however, is that advocacy is about acts, not assertions.

Many organizations, stock and mutual insurers among them, declare their advocacy for customers through catchy taglines and marketing messages. Granted, a communications strategy around this concept is important. Ultimately, however, the “loyalty lift” accorded by customer advocacy is earned not by what you say but by what you do. It’s about signaling advocacy in a tangible, demonstrable way.

But what exactly does that look like?

It’s Costco proactively contacting customers to advise when a product they purchased has been recalled. It’s Southwest Airlines offering what they call “transfarency” in ticket pricing (no hidden fees, and in many cases—such as with trip changes—no fees at all). It’s Vanguard Investments being relentless in reducing its mutual fund expense ratios so that customers get to keep more of what they earn. It’s Apple vowing to protect consumer privacy and declining to pursue some lucrative data monetization opportunities as a result.

These are all examples of companies that are perennially rated among the best in customer experience. They’ve achieved that distinction, in part, by infusing their business practices with customer advocacy—not just words and promises but real proof points.

Insurers may not be among the most trusted of organizations, but they can surely demonstrate a comparable degree of customer advocacy, if they put their minds to it.

Consider USAA, a carrier long renowned for its customer experience. The firm, which caters to members of the military and their families, encourages its policyholders to downgrade their coverage when they are being deployed away from home. After all, liability coverage isn’t needed for cars sitting in garages. In addition, the company classifies two-car families with one spouse deployed as a single person owning two cars, thereby lowering the insurance rate (since only one car can be driven at a time).

These recommendations USAA makes to customers might result in the loss of some premium revenue in the short term. However, the advocacy it signals helps cultivate loyalty over the long-term—and as USAA has long recognized, that’s the right business strategy.

More recently, in response to reduced automobile accident exposure from COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, many insurers offered policyholders partial rebates on their coverage. Allstate and American Family Insurance were frontrunners in this regard, announcing their rebate programs first. Other carriers then followed their lead.

Insurers also relaxed late payment penalties, and some even made on-the-fly coverage adjustments to accommodate rapidly evolving business practices. Nationwide Insurance, for example, added temporary additional coverage for its restaurant and retail customers who started delivery services in response to COVID-19 restrictions.

The pandemic has provided a unique opportunity for carriers to demonstrate advocacy, but it’s by no means a golden ticket to customer reverence. After all, in other ways, the pandemic has challenged carriers’ attempts to exude customer advocacy. Just ask business interruption policyholders, many of whom were surprised to learn their coverages excluded COVID-19 impacts. (Related online article, “Business Interrupted: Why Insurers Are on the Hook for COVID-19“)

While customer advocacy is especially meaningful during difficult times, what insurers need to recognize is that advocacy is an attribute they should be accentuating at all times.

But how do you demonstrate customer advocacy outside of difficult periods, when the opportunities to do so (via premium refunds, payment leniency or cancellation suspensions) seem more obvious? Here are three ways to do it:

1. Be proactive.

Customer advocacy isn’t true advocacy when it’s mandated or when it’s exhibited only in response to outside calls for action. Real acts of advocacy are proactive. They spring forth from an organization’s intrinsic desire to put customer interests first. They’re not a reaction to pressure from legislators, regulators or other stakeholders.

Consider what irritates your customer, what worries your customer, what discourages your customer—and then go on a crusade to remedy it, long before any external party demands that you do. This can be the difference between customer animus and customer adoration.

Consider, for example, how consumers view the airline industry—an entire (oft-derided) vertical that waited for the federal government to mandate a “Passenger Bill of Rights” which, among other things, guaranteed access to water and bathrooms during long tarmac delays.

Contrast that with consumer perceptions about T-Mobile, a 19-time J.D. Power award-winner. It’s a company that single-handedly transformed the entire wireless business by voluntarily advocating for consumers—instituting customer-friendly policies in an industry that had long shunned them.

2. Don’t just solve problems; preempt them.

Successfully resolving an issue for a customer is a clear demonstration of advocacy. But preventing an issue in the first place—now, that’s taking advocacy to a new level.

Consider industrial machinery or home appliances that wirelessly communicate diagnostic information to their manufacturer, allowing for proactive identification (and potentially even remedy) of looming issues. It’s not some futuristic scenario, as LG has demonstrated with the rollout this year of appliances wired for “Proactive Customer Care.”

Imagine waking up one morning to receive a text message from your refrigerator, alerting you to vacuum the unit’s condenser because it appears to be operating inefficiently. That’s putting the customer’s interests first, because it’s arguably more lucrative for appliance makers to wait for these machines to fail, so they (or their affiliates) can then earn high fees to repair them onsite.

In the insurance realm, risk management and loss control services are an excellent, comparable example of proactive support that helps protect policyholders from bad outcomes. Sadly, however, for many insureds, a carrier’s relevance is inextricably linked to post-claim (rather than pre-claim) scenarios—”If I incur a loss, my insurer helps me.” It’s a linkage that is understandable, given many carriers’ marketing focus on claim handling.

But what if an equally prominent narrative in the policyholder’s mind was, “My insurer helps me avoid incurring a loss.” That’s a marketing message that generally gets less attention, though it’s exactly what customer advocacy looks like in insurance.

3. Provide unexpected value.

A final way to signal advocacy is to deliver value to your customer in a manner they would have never expected, addressing a need they never imagined you could help with.

As those examples illustrate, advocacy that adds unexpected value (rather than that which solves or preempts a problem) typically takes the form of an ancillary, value-added service or feature that’s not core to the insurance product itself.

Selective Insurance, for example, through their PaySync program, allows commercial policyholders to optimize their liquidity by aligning premium payments with the natural flow of their business (e.g., workers compensation coverage for an oceanfront restaurant whose payroll and revenues are highly seasonal). This flexible payment feature essentially prioritizes the policyholder’s cash flow interests. It’s a solution to a customer need (cash flow management) for which the average policyholder would likely never even expect an insurer’s help. And that’s precisely why it’s a compelling signal of customer advocacy. (Editor’s note: Allstate Insurance and Selective Insurance are clients of the author.)

Insurance is often a grudge purchase. Policyholders remit their premiums year after year, all the while hoping that they never need to use what they’re paying for. It’s for this reason that, practically by design, the carrier-client relationship feels somewhat devoid of customer advocacy. And that’s why smart insurers turn policyholder advocacy into a foundational component of their business strategy—not by making customer-centric proclamations but by delivering customer-centric proof points.

Few things are more energizing to a customer relationship than when people see you’ve got their back, you’re in their corner, you’re advancing their best interests. That’s the type of customer advocacy on which great brands are built, and it’s an outcome for which every insurance provider should strive.