August is a great time to find a body of water, some nice sand, and a tree under which to focus exclusively the future of insurance and technology. Well, maybe the brain takes on some other thoughts, but I do try to focus.
The fact is that there have been so many changes to insurance and technology in the last decade that I can’t wait to see what comes next. Here are a few interesting things in play …
Getting Momentum
Crowdlinker is a company that partners with “business from various industries to transform their ideas into digital experiences.” In February, the organization turned its focus to “Using Tech To Redefine How Insurance Is Sold.”
The starting point was in 2016 when Alyssa Furtado “pitched her idea — RateHub — to CBC’s Dragons’ Den and secured an impressive $1,000,000 investment from Canadian business moguls Joe Mimran and Jim Treliving.” The idea was to “build brand awareness before someone else comes in and heavily markets, supplanting its position.”
Crowdlinker notes that there are multiple methods to enter the insurance distribution models, which seek to improve functionality on two insurance methods, external (the buying process) and internal (administration and underwriting).
The Crowdlinker lists six organizations who took to the approaches, five of which are life insurance organization. However, the final organization was Aviva Canada.
Ryan Spinner, Head of Innovation and Partnership at Aviva, has been pressing hard for several years and it is leading six InsurTech startups. These organizations “de-risk their company, develop their product market fit and drive innovation in their respective industries.”
Congrats to Ryan and company!
Attracting Talent
Let’s be frank … for the longest time (30 years in my insurance span), family members who couldn’t find another job filled the vast majority of new insurance positions.
And Chris Hampshire, vice president of carrier practice at claims services provider Gallagher Bassett Services Inc., validated his experience to date. More significantly, however, Hampshire was asked whether InsurTech can make the jobs more attractive.
And Hampshire said, “I think it has to.”
This was a set-up for an article from Canadian Underwriter, entitled “Two problems InsurTech could solve for existing players.”
Hampshire noted that that more people were coming into insurance organizations. “They have more of an awareness of the benefits of insurance – what we offer and also the attractiveness of the career-pathing – and I do think that InsurTech is going to bring more people into this space.”
So what are the ‘problems’? Well, first is the InsurTech expansion of net-new insurers. Understanding the use of InsurTechs are creating new thought-process and queries.
Second – and more significant from my viewpoint – is that legacy data, people, communications, and insurance products are holding the industry back. While we need to understand – and mitigate – legacy challenges in the past, InsurTech is opening new windows that should increase benefits and user satisfaction.
This is getting away from summer …
… I think I’ve earned enough to go to the beach. It’s summer, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
