That the insurance industry is going to have to find new and increasingly innovative ways for policyholders to engage with the services it offers has been made clear by the COVID-19 crisis. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, insurance companies were already facing increasing pressure to adapt to the changing requirements of their customers, but this has only been accelerated by the unprecedented speed of our move to a digital-first society.
Yet, as noted by James York (pictured), founder of the insurance platform Worry+Peace, while COVID-19 has shed light on the need for a shift in the sector, this journey looks different for each provider, broker, MGA and other players in the industry. For instance, many providers were already very digital before the crisis hit.
“Perhaps COVID-19 will impact how buyers ‘qualify’ their choices,” he said. “For some, it may be a slight tweak, while other organisations perhaps need to re-think how they work. Some are perhaps, in-between. Worry+Peace is here for all of those stages. This is one of the key things that makes our offering unique.”
This offering has recently been enhanced by Worry+Peace’s launch of a comprehensive new package of marketplace benefits for its contingent of 120 managed providers, powered by Dentsu, YouGov Direct, Melu and The Clerkenwell Brothers. These collaborators were carefully chosen on the principle of shared values and the capacity to add value for providers, York said. The question that determines such partnerships is ‘does it help buyers via providers improving their service or proposition?’ If the answer is ‘yes’, the partnership moves ahead.
“For example,” he said, “[our] Dentsu collaboration will really break the ceiling in terms of how providers approached marketing. The idea that providers can take advantage of co-advertising while making significant savings is something that’s never been explored, but it could be a game-changer for our industry. And it’s made possible only by our model of selling software and not getting between transactions.”
Each of these collaborations means that providers can configure benefits that suit their business model and have been put together to provide as broad a range of common need solutions as possible. Providers will be able to use services like Melu out of the box to boost their support triage. Meanwhile, services like Dentsu and Clerkenwell Brothers offer new ways to maximise acquisition strategies.
COVID-19 has verified York’s long-held belief that providers and others that sell insurance need to continue to find new ways of engaging their buyers. It has been encouraging, he said, to see how many providers have continued to adapt and grow. In fact, in most cases what Worry+Peace refers to as ‘Digital Tweaks’ have been enough to continue delivering excellent service.
“The pandemic has also showcased that buyers knowing what they’ve paid for and being able to figure out if the ‘promise is worth the price’ has never been a higher priority if we are to regain the initiative on society having trust in the very conceptual foundations of insurance,” he said.
Insurance is a sector that has always been examined in terms of how it is changing, he noted, and it has been encouraging to hear how much providers are willing to engage in trying to find new and different ways of engaging buyers. Some providers, however, are quite set in their ways, particularly when it comes to reviewing products and the impression Worry+Peace sometimes get is that buyer feedback sites are to be ‘managed’ rather than leveraged.
“We believe that some [providers] are still missing the huge value of embracing feedback,” he said. “In fact - we think they should start asking for reviews earlier, so more feedback is gained - before purchases. Our own research on 500 buyers showed that 45% of them would be keen to give feedback pre-purchase, compared to 8% just after purchase.
“Pennies need to drop in the market that they’re not typically using feedback for the buyer’s benefit - we’d encourage them to embrace it earlier. And we’re getting there. Decisions in this sector don’t happen quickly, we know that. We also know action does happen quickly once decisions are made. So, we’re ready and persistent.”
