A few weeks ago, I’ll admit that I fell for the marketing. I’ve admired the iPhone since its release, but more as a piece of art than a piece of technology. All of a sudden, the commercials seemed so much more convincing. I can cut, copy, and paste? Sure, I do that everyday in Word, but for some reason it looks so much more ... extraordinary ... when a model’s hand flicks away effortlessly, copying a phone number from a web site and pasting it into the calling box. And then there are the apps. Who hasn’t been impressed at the ingenuity showed in some of the offerings?

Insurers are getting in on the game, with yet another major player — Farmers Insurance — launching a free iPhone app last month that helps an insured submit a claim. Other insurers, such as State Farm and Nationwide, have been touting their apps for several months now. These tools encourage and educate users on how to submit a claim by using a walkthrough approach to the task, even prompting insureds to take photos of damage with the iPhone’s camera, which are then attached to the claim when it is submitted.

Is anyone actually using it, though? Sure, the iPhone is a huge hit in terms of audience awareness — "There’s an app for that," is now a pop-culture reference. However, in terms of actual market share, the phone is decidedly in the minority, with only 13 percent of all smart phone users making it their phone of choice. In other words, it is a niche market.

More importantly, what do claim adjusters think about it? While covering the International Association of Special Investigation Units (IASIU) conference last month, I asked an investigator and claim handler if her company — one of the three who has launched an iPhone app — had seen any claims come through via iPhone. Her eyes lit up as she told me about a claim that had just been submitted. It was the talk of the office when it first came through, she said, and the feeling of excitement as she described the novelty of it was palpable. Pictures of the claim were unexpectedly vivid, as it involved a fire that was still in progress. The app seemed like a winner.

So I went to the Apple store and gave it a test run. Despite the seductive commercials, I found that operating the iPhone was a lot more complicated than I expected. I hardly knew where to begin, this from a guy who has always enjoyed and embraced the shiniest technologies. After some effort, I navigated to the text messaging menu to see how the touch screen worked for typing. My nubby fingers plunked away at the virtual keys, misfiring with abandon. While hoping to spell out, "This is cool," I was instead disappointed when my own words mocked me as "thus is fool" appeared instead. Getting to the app store was no problem, though, and downloading the insurance apps was a cinch. The menus were clean, simple, and easy to navigate. I felt connected and empowered.

While those making a claim via iPhone may not number in the thousands, the approach and meaning behind the movement should not be misinterpreted. Insurers are embracing new technologies and trying to buck their reputations as late adopters. More and more, they are connecting to their policyholders in a unique way that goes far beyond the actual number of iPhone users or the potential number of automated claim submissions. They are Facebooking. They are Twittering. They are giving policyholders and those in their ranks reason to be excited and surprised.

Dare I say it, but are insurers becoming cool?