The unique challenges of onboarding remotely have become familiar during the COVID-19 pandemic. The process, according to Nick Wilmot (pictured), who joined LexisNexis Risk Solutions (LexisNexis) as senior manager, home, about five weeks ago, is made simpler when you have worked with the business before and seen their solutions and culture for yourself. He noted that through his 10 plus years working at insurance companies, he has had the chance to see first-hand how the business’s products can enrich data and improve customer journeys.
“I saw this opportunity as LexisNexis is looking to grow their presence in the home market and I felt that aligns quite well with my experience working for their customers,” he said. “So to bring that experience across and couple it with their data capabilities will hopefully come up with some good products and solutions to complement the existing product range for the home insurance market in the UK and Ireland.”
The need for experienced professionals who can harness their knowledge of a specific sector to create data-driven solutions is becoming increasingly clear. Having worked at several insurance companies, including most recently as bespoke manager at NFU Mutual, Wilmot said he is excited both by the opportunity to marry his experience to the capabilities of LexisNexis and the opportunity to learn from his colleagues overseas.
Despite being so new to his role, he has already lined up several areas of focus for the year ahead. Whether it’s by adapting products that are currently available to the car insurance market for the home market, or by enhancing and refreshing existing products, his first objective is to evaluate the existing products offered by the business. Beyond looking at internal products, however, he is also looking to explore new opportunities, with the claims team now working on a contributory home claims database.
“It’s good to have such an opportunity right at the beginning,” he said, “because I think this is a really impressive and groundbreaking initiative that will have a big impact on the market. I’ve only been here several weeks but two new products have already come to market – our LexID product which will enable home insurers to gain a single customer view, and LexisNexis Emailage Rapid which will help insurers improve fraud resilience. My responsibility within the vertical team at LexisNexis is to make sure all these products have a place within the home insurance market.”
The role of the data across the whole insurance continuum is growing, Wilmot said, and it has a critical role for insurers in reducing expenses, cutting fraud and improving risk selection. Looking to the challenge facing insurance companies when it comes to weather and environmental impacts as an example, he said, the geospatial tools that LexisNexis offers are primed for combating these risks. The mapping tools and the real-time data from the Environment Agency can give an instant view of a potential flood or storm’s impact across the entire portfolio, drilling down even to individual addresses.
“These types of tools allow insurers to get on the front foot,” he said. “If we’re able to predict the impact of a particular weather event, if those insurers can use that to potentially identify customers that are at risk from that, and get on the front foot then they can engage with those customers, both to mitigate their losses and also to prove to customers that they’re going to be there for them in their time of need.”
Starting work remotely has been challenging in its own way, Wilmot said, but also very interesting and though he has only met one colleague in person so far, it doesn’t feel that way between remote communication tools and LexisNexis’s recent online client engagement conference. That being said, when the pandemic is over, he is looking forward to meeting colleagues in person for the first time.
“Also, we’re quite fortunate at LexisNexis to have offices in some good places like Dublin,” he said. “So, I’m really looking forward to getting over to Dublin to meet our analytics teams, and hopefully, have a couple of drinks in Temple Bar.”
