Is Value thinking the fire starter & Matchmaker between insurer and insurtech?

A few weeks ago we attended the Connected Insurance Summit in London. In the heart of London City, we encountered a modest gathering of 200 guests varying from insurance companies over services providers to insurTech vendors.

Our intentions were ambitious. On one hand we were excited to be inspired by the vibes and implementations of the insurTech companies present. On the other hand, we were looking forward to gain insights on the vision and initiatives of the leading European insurance companies towards their digital transformation

 The missions we captured were slightly disjunct and often lacked consistency and co-thinking.

The insurtech companies juggled with off-the-shelve ready-to-use solutions. IoT, BlockChain, AI, customer engagement, value creation,…all buzz tech and non-tech themes were discussed, with or, more often, without an appropriate use case or a tangible implementation plan. We did see some beautiful implementation cases, although most of the time sound business case thinking was not on the front plan.

 Business use cases might bring insurTech and insurers around the conversation table. Insurers embrace innovation themes. Large companies embark on internal innovation investments, smaller companies tend to experiment with insurtech solutions or content themselves, too often, with being a follower. Car, house and health insurance appear to be the domains most appropriate, hence lucrative, for valuable innovation. Anyway, discovering an innovation case with an economically viable business case is the Gordian knot.

As AE Financial Services, we suggest Ecosystem-driven Value Thinking:

1. Think value
   Think beyond the current business of insuring risks and think beyond cost reduction…. Instead, come up with extra services and extra revenues based on value the customer is willing to pay for. Unlocking valuable additional services will only be possible by adopting new technology
   
   
2. Think ROI
   Innovation that is merely technologically tempting is insufficient. It is important to incorporate the business side in your innovation track. That’s why we recommend to validate your business use case with real customers, early in the process, long before you make large investments. For that matter, innovation is not (only) a toy for techies, is should be one for business.
   
   
3. Think customer trust
   Many insurers tend to have a non-existing or at least clouded relationship with their customers. Keep in mind that you must build trust in order to market extra services. Once you are offering these extra services, you enter an interaction field where many interesting insights can be gained, given that you intelligently use technology to your advantage. These insights will lead you to the next level of added services, because for the first time you really aim at knowing your customer and his needs, which allows you to think and act customer-centric.
   
   
4. Think ecosystem
   In the long run, insuring might become a minor and invisible part of your offering… given that you succeed in taking a valuable and appropriate role in the ecosystem, focusing on real value streams. If you succeed in comforting your customer in the end-2-end experience of buying a car, he might forget all about the cost of his car insurance.

All elements are present, let’s start the innovation engines.