New SMA Blog by Karen Pauli, Principal, Strategy Meets Action
Boston, MA (Feb. 28, 2018) – In many quarters, the title above could be fighting words! Since I can’t even watch an Olympic boxing match, much less an all-out fight, let me explain.
For as long as I have been in the insurance industry, L&A insurers have been thought of as being significantly behind P&C insurers in terms of technology adoption and innovation. L&A insurers hung on to “build, not buy” strategies long after P&C insurers were advancing “buy” strategies. Technology providers with potentially cross-segment capabilities frequently did not even have a roadmap for selling to L&A insurers because, in their view, the front door was nailed shut! When STP (straight-through processing) started to become table stakes in personal lines operations, many life insurers seemed to feel that STP was simply a good motor oil. Every application for life insurance needed manual review.
Let me enthusiastically state that those days are gone. L&A has most certainly caught up – and sometimes surpassed P&C – on many fronts. One of the measures of being “smart” is learning from prior mistakes. L&A insurers have had opportunities to learn, and not necessarily from their own mistakes. They have learned from P&C insurer mistakes as well – thus the title of this blog.
SMA recently issued two research documents based on L&A insurer surveys:
- 2018 L&A BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENTS: Balancing Producer and Customer Requirements
- 2018 STRATEGIC INITIATIVES: Life & Annuities
Many exciting insights are revealed through the survey data. Not the least of which is that in 2018, 43% of L&A insurers indicate they are transforming. Eight short years ago, in 2010, only 13% indicated this to be the case.
While this blog cannot hope to recap all the findings contained in the two SMA research papers, what did jump out quickly was the differences between how L&A has approached some things versus P&C.
Click here to read the full blog.
About SMA
Exclusively serving the insurance industry, Strategy Meets Action (SMA) is an advisory services firm offering retainers, research, consulting, events, and innovation offerings to both insurance companies and solution providers. Learn more about SMA at www.strategymeetsaction.com.
SOURCE: Strategy Meets Action (SMA)
Tags: Life & Annuity, Strategy Meets Action (SMA)
