Of course Insurtech is important, but how can the movement become integral with traditional businesses harbouring plenty of their own unique capabilities?
It was a question asked by Strategy Meets Action’s partner and chief research officer Mark Breading at the 15th annual Insurance Canada Technology Conference.
Breading moderated a panel of company professionals skilled in what Breading calls “maturetech”, otherwise known as good business practices, and compelling innovation.
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One such panelist was broker and CEO of Shephard Ashmore Insurance,
Craig Arnatt, who was the chief designer of the InsureCert micro-policy platform.
“From the perspective of the broker, we saw technology taking away opportunities,” Arnatt said.
“However, we do a program in the City of Vancouver where someone rents a gym or a playing field and they need a $2 million liability and the premium may be $30, it’s basically a money loser if you do it by hand.”
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Arnatt explained how the low-premium, high-cost business of insuring film shoots and special events in Vancouver drove his company to create its own software and eventually put it in the hands of brokers.
“Every broker started looking at us and saw the software we were using and started asking us what software we use - we said we built it from the ground up and that was our opportunity to spin this off to other brokers,” Arnatt said.
“The platform (InsureCert ) can quote, buy and issue certificates, name the city as additionally insured and collect the payment .”
Major player
Economical Insurance was represented on the panel by its chief information officer, Alice Keung, who said its direct-to-consumer, tech venture Sonnet set the bar higher for their broker channel.
“Many people would think ‘Oh my god you’re competing with your broker partnership,’” Keung said.
“We set up an advisory council, we told them (brokers) ‘this is what we’re doing, this is how we’re simplifying the underwriting rules.’ Now they have high expectations, because: ‘if you can deliver that for Sonnet, you can deliver that for me.’”
Keung described their balance of maturetech and insurtech as “a hybrid approach”.
“In our hybrid approach, we went out and got people who are specialists outside of the insurance world, people who are digital experts, customer experience experts, guidewire, Deloitte, IBM, the big and small working together,” she explained.
The moderator Breading said he believed the technological adoption rate of brokers was splitting them into two camps.
“I think that there’s a bifurcation in the broker market,” he said. “There’s absolutely those that pretty much want to do business the way they’ve done it for a long time, that are waiting until they sell the brokerage or retire.
“But there’s another set that are saying ‘we have to be in the digital age, we have to be innovative.’”
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