Australian brokers are in the middle of a challenging process of digital transformation across the whole insurance industry. According to a leading innovations expert, many brokers have a long way to go.
“Many brokers will still get their client to do paper claim forms. I’ve seen that and it’s terrible,” said Drew Schnehage (pictured), managing director of Innovation Group Australia.
Innovation Group is a global consultancy that offers operations and technology support to the insurance industry. Schnehage has more than 30 years’ experience working and advising in the insurance space, specializing in technology and strategy development. In 2019, she moved from South Africa to lead Innovation Group’s operations in Australia.
Online form filling doesn’t cut it with Schnehage either.
“The broker will get the client on the phone, get the details and then submit the form online to the underwriting agency or the insurer. But the online form, at the end of the day, is much like sending an email,” she said.
The Innovation Group boss said today’s technology allows brokers to be much more proactive.
Essentially, said Schnehage, brokers should allow technology to take care of the actual claims process.
“So you can be proactive and phone the policyholder and double check with them to make sure they got the notification about their vehicle. But the broker doesn’t play this meat in the sandwich role the whole time, trying to deliver the service as an experience for their policyholders when the technology could do it and they could be part of the process,” she explained.
Schnehage, who ran her own underwriting business in South Africa, said she helped take South Africa’s broking community through the same process. It wasn’t easy.
“So initially, the brokers were kicking and screaming and they protested with arguments like, ‘No, we’re not going let go of our clients!’”
Fifteen (15) years ago South Africa’s brokers operated very differently – much like many Australian brokers today, she said.
“Back then you never would have thought this change could have happened, it was a very traditional market as well,” said Schnehage.
At that time, she said, South Africa’s direct market and the broker-driven market were competing head-to-head. Then some insurers realized how important brokers were to their bottom line and to avoid losing them – and their customers – went on a technology transformation.
“So what the insurers did is they started upgrading their tech and working with third party tech providers so that the brokers could go on with third party tech,” said Schnehage.
“They integrated the tech so that brokers could be on their own platform. That’s where we are struggling at the moment in Australia,” she said.
One big reason for that struggle, said Schnehage: the big insurers in Australia are still grappling with getting their own technology in order.
In terms of convincing brokers to take this technology leap, Schnehage said demonstrating and delivering a good experience is key.
“You have to demonstrate and you need to have your guinea pigs, the friendly ones that are happy to support you. They’ll test it for you - then it spreads by word of mouth,” she said.
Schnehage said if the customer experience is good, others sit up and take notice.
“So then everybody starts copycatting, which is fine, because then everybody starts adopting it. Then it becomes a wheel that starts turning,” she said.
Schnehage said some companies run this sort of technology using apps and some on links, but for the Australian market, she said links and QR codes would be best.
“I won’t do apps now because it’s old school!” she said.
Given that most people will lodge a claim once or twice a year at most, Schnehage argued that downloading an app that permanently sits on your phone doesn’t make sense.
“You can end up with 100 apps on your phone, even though you hardly use them, and you end up deleting them,” she said.
Just before the outbreak of the pandemic, Schnehage led a transformation process at Innovation Group Australia. After meetings with staff and clients she collapsed the management structure and revamped the management team. Schnehage told IB’s Terry Gangcuangco that it was all about discovering “the heart of the business.”
