Coming Soon!

With the world turned upside down by the pandemic, we're spending a lot of time thinking not only about how to navigate the choppy waters but also about what the world will look like for insurers and their customers once we finally (safely) reach the other side. 

Fortunately, we don't have to do this thinking all on our own. We have access to most of the most innovative thinkers in the industry--after all, our very name is Insurance Thought Leadership--and to leaders in other industries, including in technology, who have a history of making the right call amid widespread confusion. Our old friend and colleague Alan Kay, the principal inventor of the personal computer, says that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it," and the leaders and thinkers we're talking to have a history of inventing the future.

In the coming days and weeks, we'll be drawing on these people heavily. In addition to our mainstay, publishing articles, we'll pull together podcast and webinar series that broadly describe what will likely be the New Normal, while diving into specific technologies that will likely drive the most change and into parts of the industry that will be most affected. 

The topic we want to begin with is Risk Management, which has become particularly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After that, we plan to explore the topics you have told us are important, such as:

• AI
• Autonomous Vehicles
• Blockchain
• Connected Insurance
• Cost-Cutting/Efficiency
• Customer Experience
• Cyber
• Innovation
• Workers Comp

Please let us know if you'd like to participate, whether by writing an article, by being an interview subject or by sponsoring a series and helping us get the word out as broadly as possible.

In the meantime, stay safe.

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If you are interested in partnering with ITL on a topic that best showcases your brand , contact us at sponsorship@theinstitutes.org

 

 

There are more than 1,000 insurtechs that can help established insurance organizations. Most of the startups look the same at first glance, but they are not all created equal. Apply this three-step process to ensure that startups deliver what they promise.

The Three Steps in a Video 

This video lecture explains the three-step process in the context of "Separating the wheat from the chaff in relation to insurtechs." It contains examples that are briefly described in the following article. 

Overview of the Three-Step Process

The three steps are:

Step one, focus your efforts and select startups with the right strategic and operational fit. Step two, take the skill of the startup, match it to corresponding activities and create a proper use case. And step three, prove the business value to your decision-makers before you invest more resources.

Step 1: Select Startups With the Right Fit

Start to focus your resources by dividing insurtech startups into the two groups of Improvers and Inventors. Improvers take the current insurance industry and apply state-of-the-art technology on top. In this way, they improve and digitize existing insurance processes and business models. 

Divide Improvers further into three distinct types, based on their method of value creation. Distributors provide an excellent customer experience directly to policyholders. Enablers empower incumbent insurance providers to run digital services. NeoCarriers offer the full-stack of insurance activities to brokers, policyholders and incumbent risk carriers as a white-label solution. 

See also: Will COVID-19 Disrupt Insurtech?  

If you begin the journey of improving your business with insurtech startups, I would pick one of these types. The low-hanging fruit would be Enablers and Distributors because they relate the most to what your organization is doing today. Pick one, two or three startups and start working with a dedicated team.

The second group is Inventors. They don’t accept how insurance is done today. Inventors question the underlying assumptions, reevaluate them and re-invent insurance propositions and business models, offering new ways to provide insurance services. 

Based on the Improvers method of value creation, you can divide these insurtechs into two types. New Market Conquerers enter new markets like drone insurance (e.g. Flock), shared economy (e.g. Airbnb) and the gig economy (e.g. Uber). New Business Model Operators are the more interesting type but also harder to understand. They could disrupt the insurance industry, so you need to deploy people who are really at home in the insurance industry to understand what is going on there. One example is Laka, with its bike insurance.

Step 2: Create a Proper Use Case

Take an insurtech with its capabilities, match it to the activities inside the insurance value chain and create a proper use case that will move the carrier's key performance indicators (KPIs) in the right direction. 

Facilitate workshops with insurtechs to find out where you as an insurer can apply the new capabilities in your value chain. The value chain is a classic old school management insurtechs that documents the core activities that create value for the customer, our policyholder. This tool helps to identify suitable activities that are most likely to be located in the following departments: Asset and Risk Management, Policy Administration and Customer Service, Claims Management, Product Development and Underwriting and, of course, Marketing and Sales. 

Start creating use cases in collaboration with the team of insurers and startups. A use case is the description of a workflow that creates additional value for the insurance company. After developing a series of use cases, select the most promising one and take the third step.

A startup can help detect fraud in images of claims by extracting data from images and giving insurers clues as to whether the image was manipulated after it was captured. If there are deviations from the policyholder's description (e.g. taken in Hamburg vs. Frankfurt), the insurer may have detected fraud. If the insurer does not have to pay, it reduces its loss ratio and thus increases its profit. 

Step 3: Prove the Business Value

Prove the value of the use case before you begin to scale up. Use the value table with the five key figures on which carrier decisions are typically based. Deliver facts, not an opinion, to make the right investments. 

Take the use case and execute a proof of concept (POC), do a prototype and test it. Experiment to create some real-world data. Take that data and put it into the value table with the five key figures insurance carriers decision-makers rely on. These are 1) Revenue 2) Cost of claims 3) Costs of Distribution 4) Costs of administration and 5) Profit. The calculation is as follows: Revenue minus Costs of Claims, minus Costs of Distribution, minus Costs of Administration equals Profit. 

Enter your specific numbers from your test and analyze which of the KPIs will be influenced (at scale) by the use case you developed and tested. Calculate different scenarios and their results.

See also: Insurtechs Are Specializing  

Another example: If you identify fraudsters and reduce your claims ratio by one percentage point (this makes your head of claims happy), you increase company profit by one percentage point (makes your CFO and CEO happy). At a premium of 1 billion euros, one percentage point corresponds to 10 million euros. All of us know that applying a "simple" image check doesn't cost 10 million euros. It is, therefore, a suspect for a proper use case to prove.

If you can prove the value of your use case with facts, it is easy to ask a decision-maker: We need more money because this use case brings the company more money than it costs.

Summary

By following this three-step process, innovators in insurance companies (and entrepreneurs in startups) can focus their efforts and only work with insurtech startups (vice versa with insurers) that have the right strategic and operational fit to help improve an organization. 

Select the right partners and create proper use cases based on activities within the insurance value chain. Demonstrate the value of use cases through testing with POCs and prototypes. Then apply real-world data to the presented value table and analyze what will happen before scaling and investing more resources.

If you can prove the value of your use case with facts, you will be much more successful when asking your decision-makers for more money to invest and scale up.

There is a belief that business closure orders by civil authorities trigger civil authority coverage in business income insurance policies if the orders allege property damage of some kind. This is a misconception that is typical of generalizations about insurance contracts that come from the failure to actually read the policy language.

For example, most of the local and state governmental orders I’ve seen refer to property damage as a basis for mandatory business closures or operational changes. Here is one of the 18 “WHEREAS’s” in the City of Key West State of Local Emergency Directive 2020-03:

“WHEREAS, this order is given because of the propensity of the virus to spread person to person and because the virus physically is causing property damage due to its proclivity to attach to surfaces for prolonged periods of time;”

Dust has a proclivity to attach to surfaces, but does that result in “property damage” if I can remove it with a cloth? If I don’t vacuum my home for a month, have the floors been damaged? Admittedly, a virus can be more problematic than dust for most people, but does it actually cause damage by temporarily residing on the surface of property? These questions were addressed by the first and second articles I wrote about the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, there is a temporary impairment of the use of the property but almost certainly no direct physical damage and likely no real damage at all.

In addition, if we’re being honest about these government-mandated business interruptions, we would admit that their purpose is to prevent or minimize the spread of disease from one person to another. Surface contamination is simply one means of this occurring. These orders really aren’t issued to prevent or minimize property damage because, realistically, there is no real property damage.

See also: COVID-19: Stark Choices Amid Structural Change  

So, why do these orders include the “property damage” references? Legal gamesmanship. Well-intentioned, perhaps, but an attempt to affect insurance coverage based on a generalized comprehension of what is and isn’t covered under many, if not most, business income insurance forms. For example, following up on the Key West directive above, consider this excerpt from a local publication citing attorney Darren Horan:

 “Both types of coverage – and people can have one, both or neither – but they both require physical damage to the property, which is why it was so important for the city to include specific language in its emergency declaration stating that the virus causes physical property damage. That can only help  business owners with these types of coverage. Of course, it’s always a fight when dealing with insurance companies, but I’m glad Commissioner Clayton Lopez was at the meeting when I mentioned this needed language and brought it back to City Attorney Shawn Smith for inclusion in the city directive.”

Based on this narrative, the inclusion of a reference to property damage in the directive was to trigger insurance coverage, not because of any real or perceived property damage. In fact, there was no citation of any actual property damage. If anything, such orders are issued to PREVENT “property damage,” something that does little or nothing to actually trigger most business income coverage forms. For example, take this language from the Civil Authority Additional Coverage in the ISO CP 00 30 10 12 business income form:

"When a Covered Cause of Loss causes damage to property other than property at the described premises, we will pay for the actual loss of Business Income you sustain and necessary Extra Expense caused by action of civil authority that prohibits access to the described premises, provided that both of the following apply:

"Access to the area immediately surrounding the damaged property is prohibited by civil authority as a result of the damage, and the described premises are within that area but are not more than one mile from the damaged property."

Let’s parse this language phrase by phrase to illustrate why simply placing a “property damage” statement in a civil authority directive is almost certainly insufficient to trigger coverage.

“causes damage to property other than property at the described premises”

There is no allegation of any real, existing damage to any property. The policy language indicates that the viral contamination (IF a covered peril) must have actually caused damage to property. Directives like this are preventative, not remedial.

“that prohibits access to the described premises”

Nothing in this directive actually prohibits access to any premises. The directive prohibits conducting business as usual with the public. It does not forbid, for example, a property owner from physically accessing his building or business. In fact, for many businesses, they can continue operating in a modified way, such as a restaurant providing carryout or delivery of food. In situations like that, certainly the employees have access to the premises.

“Access to the area immediately surrounding the damaged property is prohibited by civil authority as a result of the damage”

There are three points to make about this last policy language excerpt:

First, there is no identification of any “damaged property.” Again, the directive is largely preventative.

Second, the directive doesn’t appear to prohibit access to the area. A business may be closed entirely to the public, but that doesn’t mean someone can’t walk or drive down the street immediately adjacent to the business. The reason for this reference to the surrounding area in the policy language is to express the intent of the coverage--for example, when a hurricane or tornado hits a neighborhood or business district, with extensive debris, downed power lines, etc., access is limited only to necessary emergency personnel. This coverage was never intended for an exposure like a viral pandemic that largely affects individual facilities and not widespread areas.

Third, if there was a prohibition against accessing the immediate area, it would have to be “as a result of the damage.” What damage? No actual damage is cited or known, much less proven, to exist.

See also: Business Continuity During COVID-19  

The reason the “property damage” directive language doesn’t accomplish, in this example, what the attorney thought it did is because the basis for the language was a generalization of coverage and not what the cited policy language actually says. Unfortunately, the media, government officials, politicians and others pick up only on the generalization and not the actual contract language.

Game over.

In their search to boost profits and reduce their loss ratio, property and casualty (P&C) insurance carriers often turn to improving a cast of “usual suspects”: sales, pricing, new product development and a host of operational areas from new business through subrogation. But the biggest area to target— the one with the largest, near-term upside potential—is claims processing. Every insurer wants to reduce operating costs, cut claims leakage and reduce claim severity.

But what’s the best approach?

That depends on whom you ask. Technology providers insist that bleeding-edge, massive new systems are the answer. Internal processing teams will push for more human resources—with more relevant experience and better training. Other executivess will tell you to focus on reducing claims fraud.

But if you ask The Lab, we will say that the best approach is to keep asking questions, because the answers will point you toward a massive payback—a windfall. For example, what is the “standard” P&C claims leakage ratio, i.e., the industry average benchmark? And what is the source for this leakage number? Probably, the answer you get on leakage ratio will fall in the 2% to 4% range. Press for the source. The likely answer will be vague and hard to pin down. It’s unlikely that the answer will be: “our routine analysis and measurement of our claims processing operations—at the individual adjuster level.”

Stated differently, the source is actually “conventional industry wisdom.” If so, you’ve stumbled into a diamond field of improvement opportunities. To scoop them up, all you need to do is upgrade your company’s ability to perceive and manage claims processing at an unprecedented level of granular detail.

It’s worth the heavy investment of initially tedious effort. That’s because actual claims leakage is typically several multiples of this conventional-wisdom average of 2% to 4%: The Lab routinely documents 20% to 30%, and even more. That means that the payoff for reducing leakage, even for smaller P&C insurers, can easily reach hundreds of millions of dollars—which drop straight to the bottom line.

No, customer experience isn’t devastated. That’s because other (completely satisfied) policyholders are having their claims paid by adjusters who follow the carrier’s guidelines. The lower-performing adjusters, on the other hand, are simply not following these guidelines, and carriers fail to practice the process-management discipline necessary to ensure that all adjusters adhere to the loss-payment rules and targets.

Now, if you ask The Lab precisely how to reduce your claims leakage and loss ratio, we will point to three underused tools, or improvement approaches, to help P&C insurers surmount this challenge and achieve breakthrough levels of benefits, specifically:

1. Knowledge work standardization (KWS)
2. Business intelligence (BI)
3. Robotic process automation (RPA)

While the second two—BI and RPA—require a nominal amount of technology, the first approach, standardization, not only paves the way for the other two but also requires no new technology whatsoever. Typically, Knowledge Work Standardization, or KWS, alone delivers labor savings in excess of 20%, easily self-funding its own implementation— and readily covering much of the BI and RPA improvement costs. Taken together, these three tools rapidly transform an insurer’s P&C claims-processing operation and upgrade its related management capability. This allows management to significantly reduce loss payments while simultaneously improving operating efficiency. The result is an increase in “operating leverage”: the capability of a business to grow revenue faster than costs.

Interestingly, these three tools, or improvement approaches, also deliver major benefits for customer experience, or CX, aiding in policyholder satisfaction and retention. Here’s how:

• First, roughly half of the hundreds of operational improvements identified during business process documentation will also deliver a direct benefit to policyholders.
• Second, the process documentation and data analysis help pinpoint the reasons that policyholders leave. The predictive models that result help reduce customer erosion.
• Third, these documentation and analytical tasks also identify the most advantageous opportunities for cross-selling and upselling. In this article, we will cover these three tools/improvement approaches broadly, then we’ll drill down to explore their real- world application—and benefits—in P&C claims processing.

1: The Search for Standardization in P&C Insurance Operations

Standardization—the same innovation that gave rise to the modern factory system—is arguably the most overlooked improvement tool in insurance operations today. And it applies to everything: data, processes, work activities, instructions, you name it. In other words, variance is standardization’s costly, inefficient evil twin. Consider:

• Insurance operations performance is typically reported
  in the form of averages. These numbers are usually calculated for work teams or organizations. And this is also how supervisors approach their management task—by groups. Individuals’ performance is rarely measured, compared, benchmarked or managed.
• Rules of thumb routinely apply. “Here’s how many claims an adjuster should be able to process in a given day or month.”
• Industry lore trumps data-driven decision-making: “Claims processing is an art, not a science.” Or, even more dangerously: “Faster adjusters are the costliest ones, because they’ll always pay out too much.” (Spoiler alert: The opposite is true.)
• Differences in details go unexploited: At one insurer, for example, The Lab discovered that five teams were processing claims—and each team used its own format and guidelines for notes. That single, simple issue confounded everyone downstream, as they struggled to reconcile who meant what.
• “NIGO” prevails. The sheer opportunity cost of things like forms and fields submitted “not in good order,” or NIGO, can be staggering—often with tens of millions of dollars in unrecouped revenue flying just below executives’ radar.

2: Applying Business Intelligence, or BI, to Insurance Operations

Modern BI applications derive their power from their ability to create a clear picture from crushingly vast quantities of seemingly incompatible data. The best BI dashboards visualize this data as insightful, inarguable business-decision information, updated in real time. They let users zoom out or drill down easily; just think of Google maps. You can click from a state, to a city, to a house, then back up to a continent, using either a graphical map format or 3-D satellite photo.

Then why aren’t insurers routinely harnessing this power? Most already own one or more BI applications, yet they’re not delivering that critical Google-maps-style visualization and navigation capability.

This lack can be traced to two, intertwined obstacles: business data and business processes. Each requires its own, tediously mundane, routinely overlooked and massively valuable, non-technology solution: standardization.

See also: Provocative View on Future of P&C Claims  

Business data is already well defined—but it’s defined almost exclusively in IT terms. Think of the latitude/longitude coordinates on Google maps; do you ever actually use those? These existing IT definitions are difficult, if not impossible, to reliably link to business operations and thus produce useful, navigable business information.

The Lab solves this problem by mapping existing “core systems” data points to products, employees, transactions, cycle times, organizational groups and more. The solution requires standardizing the company organization chart, product names, error definitions and similar non-technology items. This is a tediously mundane task.

Technology can’t do this. But people can, in a few weeks if they have the right templates and experience.

Business processes are also already defined—but with wildly inconsistent scope. For example, the IT definition typically involves a “nano-scale” process—like a currency conversion or invoice reconciliation. Business definitions represent the polar opposite: global scale. Think of “order-to-cash” or “procure-to-pay.” All parties involved—throughout business and IT—thus talk past each other, assuming that everyone is on the same page. Worst of all, almost no business processes are documented. They exist informally as “tribal knowledge.”

The Lab solves this disconnect by mapping business processes, end-to-end at the same “activity” level of detail that manufacturers have perfected over the past century. Each activity is about two minutes in average duration. The range for all activities is wide but easily manageable: from a few seconds to five minutes. Over the past 25 years, The Lab has process-mapped every aspect of P&C insurance operations—and we’ve kept templates of every detail for these highly similar processes. Consequently, we can (and routinely do) map business processes remotely, via web conference... around the world!

Rigorously defining, standardizing, and linking business data and business processes underpins the best BI dashboards, delivering the Google-maps-style navigation that execs crave. This is how it's possible to build astonishingly insightful BI dashboards that help make claims leakage losses apparent to our clients.

3: Robotic Process Automation, or RPA: A Powerful New Tool for P&C Carriers

Robotic process automation, or RPA, is simply software— offered by companies such as Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and UiPath—which can “sit at a computer” and mimic the actions of a human worker, such as clicking on windows, selecting text or data, copying and pasting and switching between applications. If you’ve ever seen an Excel macro at work, then you can appreciate RPA; it simply handles more chores and more systems. And it isn’t limited to a single application, like Excel. It is as free to navigate the IT ecosystem as any employee.

RPA “robots” are thus ideally suited for mundane yet important repetitious tasks that highly paid P&C knowledge workers hate to do. Better yet, robots work far faster than people, without getting tired, taking breaks or making mistakes. This frees up human workers for higher-value activities.

RPA also confers customer experience, or CX, benefits. With faster operations, customers enjoy the Amazon-style responsiveness they’ve come to expect from all businesses. On-hold times are reduced, claims get processed faster and the entire company appears more responsive.

Beyond the dual opportunities of knowledge-worker labor savings and CX lift, RPA holds the power to disrupt entire industries. Deployed creatively in massive waves, it can deliver windfall profits on a scale not even imagined by its purveyors.

Yet, today, most insurance companies’ RPA efforts, if any, are stalled at the very beginning; recent surveys indicate that internal teams hit a 10-bot barrier and struggle to find more opportunities, or “use cases.” That’s because the underlying processes to be automated are never made “robot-friendly” in the first place. So there needs to be scrutiny of the different activities—and the elimination of all of the wasteful ones that hide in plain sight, such as rework, return of NIGO input, and so on.

How to Overcome the 10-Bot Barrier in P&C Claims Processing

First, set expectations to focus on incremental automation with bots. No, you’re not going to replace an entire adjuster with a bot. But, yes, you will be able to quickly use a bot to call a manager’s attention to a high-payback intervention in the P&C claims-adjusting process. Examples:

• Managers look for inactivity on open claims: If a claim is open with no activity in the last 10 days, that’s a red flag. But many claims are overlooked. A bot can call these out promptly.
• Full-replacement cost, instead of partial replacement cost, is a major cause of overpayment that is most prevalent in roofing, flooring and cabinetry replacements. Bots can track payments and send management alerts based on line-of-coverage and even more granular detail. Roofing examples include: replacement, whole slope vs. whole roof; and number of roof squares replaced.
• Audits are conducted on claims to improve quality and consistency—and to reduce overpayment. However, these are done on a very limited sample and only after claims have been paid and closed. Based on learnings from past audits, bots can alert management when certain claims- processing failures happen on a live basis. Managers can intervene... before payment.

Standardization (KWS), BI, & RPA: Focusing on P&C Claims Processing

All three of the above tools, or improvement approaches for P&C carriers—standardization or KWS; business intelligence, or BI; and robotic process automation, or RPA—can be readily applied to claims operations. Indeed, they seem to be custom- made for it.

Standardization

Consider the following story, created from a mashup of different P&C insurance carrier clients of The Lab:

This “insurer” had plenty of claims data to share with The Lab; in fact, theirs was better than most. But that’s not saying too much: While 40% of the data was usable and comprehensible, the other 60% wasn’t. (Remember: This is better than most P&C insurers.)

Data was reported weekly, and sometimes daily, on an organization-wide basis. Here’s what they had data to report on:

• Overall averages of claims processed, based on total headcount.
• Average losses paid per claim.

That said, the company never tracked the performance of individual claims processors. They were all effectively “self- managed,” following their own individual procedures. There were no standard, activity-level instructions and guidelines, set by management, for quantifying targets for time, productivity or effectiveness. There were, on the other hand, vague, directional methods, many in the form of undocumented “tribal knowledge” and “rules of thumb.” The claims processors simply managed their own workdays, tasks and goals—similar to Victorian-era artisans, prior to the advent of the factory system.

When pressed, the company defended its choice to not track individual performance. The two reasons it gave would come back to bite the managers:

• They were confident that individual performance, if measured, would only vary by about 5% to 10%, maybe 15% at most.
• They were equally confident that imposing time and productivity quotas on processors would increase loss severity. In other words, they were completely sure that faster claims processing equates to overpayment of claims.

However, their very own data contradicted both of these notions—in a huge way:

• First, the “long tail” of claims processors revealed a 250% variance between the top and bottom quartiles of individual performers—that’s 15 to 50 times higher than what management believed to be the case. In other words, the top three quartiles were out-processing the bottom quartile so much that there was no hope of the bottom quartile catching up—even getting close to the average. Put another way: Reducing this variance alone would yield a 25% capacity gain—an operating expense savings. And it could be accomplished by the top performers’ simply processing just one more claim per day—an increase they’d barely even notice.
• Second—and just as important—the data revealed that the slower performers actually overpaid each claim by an average of 50%, an amount that totaled in the scores of millions, swamping the amount spent to pay their salaries. This carrier was thus getting the worst of both worlds with its lowest performers: They were slower, and vastly more costly. Not only that, they dragged down the average performance figures (not to mention morale) of the faster, leaner producers.

The impact from these revelations equated to losses measured in hundreds of millions of dollars. Incidentally, the story above is not rare; rather, it’s typical. As we’d mentioned, it’s based on a mashup of several insurance carriers.

Here’s one other standardization eye-opener. The claims process itself was rife with rework, turnaround, pushback and error correction. As a claim made its way through reporting, contact, dispatch, estimating, investigation and finally payment, it bounced and backtracked between the FNOL (first notice of loss) team, the appraiser, the casualty adjuster and so on. When presented with this “subway map” of the as-is process, the insurer’s executive sponsors were aghast:

Fortunately, the “spaghetti mess” can be cleaned up, even without new technology.

Business Intelligence (BI)

The Lab often encounters P&C insurance companies that invest heavily in systems such as Oracle Business Intelligence or Microsoft Power BI yet struggle to get value from these advanced analytics platforms.

Many of the issues stem from failing to “complete the final mile” when it comes to data definitions and hierarchies; that is, companies aren't reconciling the IT-defined data elements with their own business-defined operations characteristics. This problem can often be traced to a disconnect between business leaders and IT organizations.

An IT person could—and often does—assemble and manage business intelligence for business units. But the person needs to understand the business so well that the person could confidently select which data to use and aggregate so that the final KPI (key performance indicator) in the resulting dashboard represents reality. And even if the person managed to create a BI picture of perfect “reality,” there’s no guarantee that the business would accept it. Let’s be frank: Creating useful BI and related analytics is a towering challenge. It’s overwhelming not only to IT; most businesspeople lack both the documentation and the comprehensive perspective to pull it off. So, the status quo continues: The “business language” experts will talk with the “IT language” experts, and the business executives will still lack the Google-maps insights they seek.

See also: Keeping Businesses Going in a Crisis  

Another BI stumbling block is the “false precision” of too much data and too many categories. Consider the automotive insurer with “claims types gone wild”—such as “Accident: Right front fender,” and “Accident: Left front fender,” and so on. The Lab’s BI dashboards will often reveal to claims executives that 20% of the claims types represent 80% of the volume—another valuable, “long-tail” insight.

Robotic Process Automation (RBA)

As noted earlier, operational issues and customer-experience or CX challenges are typically two sides of the same coin. Often, both can be addressed by robots.

For example, consider the policyholder who calls the FNOL contact center and validates info. Then the person is handed off to another rep, who must re-validate the info. And then another. And another.

That’s not just an operational mess. It’s also creates a clear and present danger of losing that customer, hiding in plain sight.

While robots can speed repetitive chores, they can’t fix the underlying business processes (remember that FNOL spaghetti map, above?). Fortunately, Knowledge Work Standardization can. And once it does, the robotic possibilities are practically limitless: They span everything from sales prospecting to renewal notices to premiums/commissions reconciliation.

You saw how RPA bot deployments augmented the work of claims-processing managers. The next step is to augment the hands-on work of rank-and-file adjusters. Again, don’t try to replace the entire job position. Instead, augment the processor’s activities. In particular, hand off the adjuster’s mind-numbingly repetitive activities to the bot. This will allow the adjuster more time and thought—not to mention accountability—for complying with the policy’s payment guidelines.

For P&C claims, there are numerous opportunities to “park a bot” on top of routine, repetitive, knowledge-worker activity. Think of these as admin-assistant bots for adjusters. Here are two of many examples:

• The “pre-adjudication assistant” bot. Adjusters spend lots of time sorting out “unstructured” information at the receipt of the FNOL. For example, they read descriptions of damage that arrive in free text data fields, then they standardize it and proceed to adjudication activities such as looking up coverages and setting reserves for the claim, prior to contacting the insured. Most, if not all, of these activities can be performed by RPA bots—but only if the inbound information is standardized. The Lab has used its KWS methods to create drop-down menus for this data and make it RPA-friendly. This standardization can be done incrementally, enabling bots to prep claims for adjusters: They look up coverage limits, set reserves and prep for the adjuster’s call to the insured.
• The “customer contact assistant” bot. Adjusters, and others in the contact center, spend a great deal of avoidable and inefficient effort communicating with policyholders regarding their claims: advising status, notifying for damage inspections, obtaining corrections to initial NIGO information and more. Simply contacting customers can be a tedious, time-consuming and inefficient process; bots can help. They can be configured to send notifications to customers, preempting calls to the contact center. Bots can also initiate “text-call-text” notifications to customers’ cell phones. Here’s how it works: Bots, at the push of a button by the adjuster, send a text to the customer. The text may notify the customer to expect a call from the adjuster—avoiding call screening. The adjuster calls and gets through. Afterward, the bot sends a confirmation of the issue or next step.

Make the Move Toward Improved Insurance Operations & Reduced Loss Ratio

Claims processing, as we’d mentioned at the outset, is just one area within the P&C carrier organization where the power triumvirate of Knowledge Work Standardization (KWS), business intelligence (BI) and robotic process automation (RPA) rapidly deliver massive windfall value.

The pandemic has caused many predictions for 2020 to be spectacularly wrong. One exception is that data privacy and compliance will become even more important, specifically because of the introduction of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). 

For carriers that work with consumers in California, the legislation created a list of compliance considerations. Californians now have the right to know what information companies have, request that it not be sold and request that it be deleted unless it is in conflict with another law (very important to note that last piece for our highly regulated industry). Businesses must also provide a link that says, “Do Not Sell My Information,” which enables the consumers to make their opt-out request. 

Let’s take a look at three of the many concerns related to CCPA:

• Data Breaches: Protecting a consumer’s private and sensitive information should be a top priority, as data breaches have become more common and have resulted in damaging headlines and expensive settlements. Given the nature of our industry and the amount of personal information exchanged, insurers are a prime target for cyber attacks, and we will certainly see them fall victim to data breaches.
• Identify Theft: Insurers need to be certain that they are not responding to these consumer requests without reasonable verification that the consumer making the request is the actual consumer in question and not a bad actor trying to steal consumer information.  
• Compliance: Carriers should consider hiring a compliance vendor or outside counsel well-informed on CCPA to make these situations more navigable. These partners act as a referee, offering valuable third-party input to verify that a safe and compliant process is in place. This partnership can provide a paper trail (if needed) to document that the required data usage and privacy notices were communicated to consumers. If trouble arises, it can be advantageous to have an independent third party defending you.

See also: CCPA: First of Many Painful Privacy Laws  

Working With Technology Partners

Since CCPA’s initial rollout on Jan. 1, insurance carriers that conduct business with Californians have been trying to reach full compliance before enforcement actions are scheduled to begin on July 1. For most, working with a technology partner, especially a data-as-a-service (DaaS) company, can be monumental in navigating the ins and outs of the new compliance standards. Here at Jornaya, we recently extended our compliance product suite to assist companies in meeting the requirements of the CCPA, as well as potential future state and federal regulations.

As CCPA goes into effect, plenty of other states are looking to it as a blueprint for creating their own data privacy laws. Nevada, New York, Texas and Washington are just a few states where legislators are starting to follow California’s lead by introducing privacy bills.

Creating Better Customer Experience

These laws are trying to provide transparency about what data is being collected on a consumer and how it is being collected and allowing the consumer to be in the driver's seat as to how that data is going to be used. 

Privacy regulations, like the CCPA, are simply about doing the right thing for the consumer. And the consequences of not paying attention and not doing the right thing by consumers with regard to their privacy can be devastating, not only in terms of potential legal action but also in the loss of consumer trust and associated sales. 

Disclaimer: Any and all content provided (material, information, graphics, etc.), and any other versions and variations of the content (e.g. in .pdf via email or otherwise) is provided only for general information. It is not intended to serve as, or as a substitute for, legal or compliance recommendations; to advise or infer to be used in any particular way by you or your company, and not intended to be used as a basis for making business/commercial decisions.

Cyber insurance is probably the single most rapidly evolving insurance product on the market, and understandably so. It’s still a fairly young product, and cyber criminals are constantly changing their tactics. As a result, insurers are constantly adapting their policy forms. With constant changes, it can be difficult to know what coverages, you (as a policyholder or broker) may be missing out on. Here are some of the newer enhancements we’re regularly seeing from insurers.

• Utility Fraud Coverage: Sometimes the damages related to cyber-attacks can be entirely unexpected, like a hefty electric bill. Cyber criminals are now employing two newer hacks that can significantly affect a company’s utility costs. The first such attack is crypto-jacking, in which hackers fraudulently use computer systems to mine crypto-assets. For those unaware of what “mining” means, for every bitcoin transaction a verification is required and a ledger is added to the blockchain. Those processing these transactions can earn cryptocurrency in return. To maximize that return, however, cyber criminals are now taking over the computers systems of others, to process large blocks of transactions. This results in computer systems running at near full capacity, which can generate a significant increase in electricity costs for the victims. Despite the fact that many may be unfamiliar with this type of attack, they are extremely popular and growing. Last year, IBM reported that many hackers had actually abandoned ransomware attacks in favor of crypto-jacking, with an increase of 450% from the prior year. The other utility-related fraud is telecom fraud, in which cyber criminals access VOIP systems to route long-distance calls, often on a large scale. Trend Micro has a nice illustration here of exactly how those frauds are carried out. In response, many insurers have begun providing “utility fraud endorsements,” which provide coverage for any resulting increase in utility costs stemming from these unauthorized acts. 

• Bricking Coverage: Almost all cyber insurance policies contain broad bodily injury and property damage exclusions. These can be particularly problematic for companies operating in certain sectors. They can also be problematic for specific claims, such as those attacks that effectively cripple (also known as “bricking”) a company’s computer systems. Crypto-jacking attacks can not only result in significant utility costs but can overwhelm a company’s computer network, effectively destroying any affected computers. Imagine a mid-sized company with 150 affected computers, having to replace each system at a cost of $2,000. That’s a cyber-attack with a $300,000 price tag. Luckily, many carriers today now provide “bricking coverage endorsements,” which specifically cover the costs to repair or replace computer systems that may be destroyed from cyber attacks. 

• System Failure Coverage: Generally speaking, if computer system failures are caused by cyber intrusions, coverage for any resulting lost income would be triggered under the “lost income” insuring agreement within a cyber policy. Many companies today have taken this coverage one step further by including specific “system failure endorsements” that provide coverage for lost income resulting from any unintentional/unplanned system failures. The broadest versions of these endorsements also often extend coverage to include lost income resulting from system failures that affect dependent third parties.

See also: Coronavirus Boosts Cyber Risk

• Coverage for Reputational Loss: Cyber intrusions can generate considerable media attention and inflict significant reputational harm. Almost all cyber policies include some form of crisis management coverage for the costs associated with hiring a PR firm to minimize reputational harm, but coverage for any resulting lost income is often absent. In an effort to mitigate the risk of lost income stemming from negative PR following a cyber event, policyholders should ensure their policies contain an appropriate endorsement for “reputational loss.” It’s also important that insureds review these endorsements carefully - coverage can often be severely sub-limited, and more restrictive endorsements may specify that the loss must be the direct result of a publication. Because such a direct relationship will likely be difficult to establish, insureds should favor endorsements that have no “direct” requirement to trigger coverage. 

• Coverage for GDPR/CCPA Violations: The passage of recent privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA now subject companies and their directors to regulatory scrutiny (and hefty fines) for privacy-related violations. To complicate matters, many companies are unfamiliar with their compliance requirements and obligations. While the majority of insurers already include regulatory coverage within their cyber policies, there are often considerable gaps in those insuring agreements. To broaden policy terms and clarify the scope of coverage for violations of these regulations, some companies have begun to include specific GDPR and CCPA endorsements that provide coverage for costs associated with violations of these laws, stemming from “privacy wrongful acts” such as: misuse of protected information, improper collection of protected information, failure to correctly safeguard or manage protected information or failure to inform individuals regarding the collection of protection of information. 

• Bodily Injury and Property Damage Carve-Backs: As briefly mentioned above, almost all insurers include broad bodily injury and property damage exclusions within their policy forms. The intent is to push those claims to respective general liability policies, where they belong. However, insureds are left without coverage in circumstances where the cyber intrusion itself results in bodily injury or property damage (a topic we visited in depth in our prior article). This coverage gap is often identified when working with an experienced cyber broker, who will attempt to negotiate improved wording at the time of purchase. However, it appears a growing number of insurers are slowly realizing the need for improved policy language and automatically including appropriate carve-backs, which will preserve coverage for such claims. 

With the dramatic shifts in the business world due to the pandemic, it seems that every aspect of tech and insurance is being scrutinized. After speaking with dozens of tech companies over the last two weeks – including incumbents, insurtechs and other companies of all sizes, I've seen a theme has emerged. To borrow from Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” And it all has to do with digital capabilities.

Insurers have adapted remarkably well to the new norm – if there is a norm. Most insurers rapidly shifted employees to work-from-home mode and continued business as usual, producing quotes, handling claims, processing renewals and working with distributors and external parties. The volume and nature of the business have made some dramatic shifts. Fewer people and businesses are buying new vehicles or properties. Claims are way down in some sectors and up in others. But, generally, the industry has adapted. At the same time, big gaps have been exposed. Much of the challenge has been related to manual, paper-based processes – inbound mail that needs to be scanned and ingested into workflows and outbound documents such as printed policies and checks. Suddenly, the need for a fully digital enterprise has become crystal clear.

All of this has significant implications for tech vendors. To put it simply, those that have digital solutions that address the gaps are quite busy. Those that have solutions in other areas are not. Companies that are especially agile at quickly standing up digital capabilities have their phones ringing off the hook. (One tech company told me that an insurance CEO called and asked if a solution could be operational in two weeks!)

See also: Will COVID-19 Disrupt Insurtech?  

On the other hand, there are many tech firms that have solutions of high value to insurers – but they may be in areas that enhance current capabilities and are suddenly lower in priority. They don’t necessarily provide digital self-service or digitize processes that get workers out of the office. Where existing projects are underway in these areas, insurers are moving forward so they do not lose momentum. But there is a reluctance to start new projects in the short term if they don’t address the digital gaps that are most acute during this period. 

This is a unique point in time. All manner of tech solutions are required for insurers to advance their digital transformation. But the phase we are in has put a spotlight on the specific capabilities that are needed now. When the current crisis has passed, the world will be forever changed. Digital expectations will be different. It is likely that the digital transformation of insurance will accelerate, and there will be new and renewed demands for tech solutions of every kind. But for now, there is one category of tech solution providers that is experiencing high demand for new solutions and another class that is finding it to be a difficult time to generate new leads and sales.

We are living through extraordinary times, the first truly worldwide pandemic in our lifetimes, which has effectively halted economies and introduced the concepts of #socialdistancing and #flatteningthecurve into the vernacular (not to mention #PPE). Beyond the horrific infection rate and loss of life, coronavirus’ impact on travel, retail, hospitality and other industries has been so profound that it may take years to recover. However, it has had at least one positive impact -- the pandemic has forced people to confront their mortality in a way that larger threats (heart disease, car accidents, diabetes) haven’t over the last 10 years. 

Life insurance penetration (the percent of adults who have at least one policy) stands at only 57%, down from 63% in 2011. Half are underinsured relative to replacing their income for their family, as the role of life insurance is to replace the current and future income of the person insured (as a rule of thumb, coverage should be at least 10-12 times the insured person's annual income).

Demand is at the highest level in 10 years

COVID-19 seems to have created a “wake up” moment, raising awareness of the need to protect families and loved ones if something was to happen. Demand for life insurance has spiked and is at its highest since 2011, according to Google Trends, which tracks the relative interest of keywords (in this case “life insurance” as a phrase) over time (100 means the highest interest over the period covered):

This trend has been echoed in numerous discussions with carriers and reinsurers, and this interest will likely continue for a time even after the virus is brought under control. 

Macro trends of direct-to-consumer policy originations and automated underwriting will accelerate

With shelter at home, people can’t meet with an agent or have a physical exam when applying for life insurance. This has accelerated a trend toward automated/virtual underwriting and originating policies directly with consumers by carriers (Mobile/Online applications were up 24% in March, according to one study). The need for electronic data, delivered in real time as part of an online underwriting process, has risen as carriers and reinsurers are looking for tools to replace the paramed exam, where someone comes to your home or office to draw fluids and collect other medical data. While current automated data sources (Rx, Lexus-Nexus, MIB, MVR) have been used for several years for both full and accelerated underwriting, there is an opportunity to leverage new sources such as oral health to provide more robust information to assist with underwriting.

In addition, agents can’t have clients come to their offices (or go to their homes), so consumers are searching online and finding a host of carriers and insurtech companies, not to mention marketplaces, where they can get quotes and apply/get covered without leaving their homes.

COVID-19 has, however, created problems for underwriters and actuaries, who are having a lot of sleepless nights trying to figure out how to account for COVID-19 as part of the application process.

See also: Pulse of Insurance Shopping During Crisis

Despite COVID-19, net mortality rates may actually decline

While coronavirus is difficult to screen for, carriers have developed tele-exams and questions to at least reduce the risk of underwriting someone with the virus. Even more significantly, it’s possible overall mortality rates could fall due to shelter-at-home orders affecting 97% of the country. 

Based on CDC data, almost 170,000 people die from accidents each year, 40,000 of those in car accidents. With driving down so significantly that auto insurers are giving rebates to customers, and other activity curtailed, data from the CDC indicates that deaths may actually be down over the same period as last year. Regardless, because the highest mortality rates are older individuals who are less likely to get term insurance (91% of COVID-19 deaths to date are 55 or older, with 78% 65 or older), it is possible that lower accidental death rates would more than offset the mortality risk of coronavirus for 25- to 54-year-olds (who are the prime target for term life insurance).

While the COVID-19 pandemic is a terrible crisis, one small benefit is that it’s raised awareness of the need for life insurance in families throughout the U.S. (which isn’t in the top 10 countries in terms of coverage). Finding ways to originate and underwrite remotely (including leveraging new forms of data delivered in real time) can help meet this need and perhaps reverse a multi-decade decline in life insurance coverage.

Since the world went on lockdown to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), satellite images from NASA have captured an unlikely view of planet Earth. Pictures from space showed a dramatic drop in pollution over Wuhan after the central Chinese city implemented coronavirus-related restrictions.

You don’t have to circumnavigate the globe from a spaceship to witness the effects the current pandemic is having on our planet. Urban waterways have cleared up in the absence of human activity. Vapor trails from passenger planes no longer streak the skies above us. Rush hour traffic is nonexistent—it’s like driving to work on a holiday.

The natural world is getting a much-welcomed reprieve from human activity. With national parks closed to tourists, the animals in those parks have begun to move freely about areas that would otherwise be populated by humans taking photographs. At Yosemite National Park in California, rangers have witnessed black bears walking in the middle of the road. And at South Africa’s Kruger National Park, a pride of lions was seen sleeping on a paved roadway that was devoid of motor traffic or any human activity.

Earth is also taking a breather from the constant onslaught of pollutants that humans have been pumping into the atmosphere and dumping on the ground and into the waterways in increasing levels since the industrial revolution.

If there’s a lesson to be learned (and there will be many, when all is said and done), it may be that a deadly and catastrophic pandemic has, in just a few months, noticeably curbed our contribution to climate change.

Let me be clear—a global pandemic is not the path to a sustainable future. But the current crisis has helped shed light on the herculean effort needed to turn the tide if we hope to save our planet for future generations.

Climate change

There are countless ways the current crisis has led to a significant reduction in the emission of greenhouse gasses.

Travel of all kinds has come to a standstill. Very few people are driving to work—or anywhere—right now. Nonessential businesses have closed, and those who can work from home are doing so. Conferences have been canceled. Business trips have been postponed. Vacations have been put on hold. And for the time being, there are no concerts, sporting events, in-person weddings or graduations to attend. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, transportation was responsible for 14% of all global carbon emissions in 2014.

See also: COVID-19: Stark Choices Amid Structural Change  

In addition, power plants and factories in China and around the globe have reduced output. Millions are now wearing face masks in public to avoid contracting or spreading the virus. Ironically, the threat of COVID-19 means they’re also breathing cleaner air when they venture outside.

It’s not just cleaner air; even the water is cleaner in some parts of the world. In Venice, locals say the water in the city’s canals has never been clearer, due to the dramatic drop in tourists.

Future of work

The current pandemic has done nothing less than create a worldwide work-at-home experiment.

Normally, when we talk about the future of work, or work sustainability, we talk about reskilling and preparing today’s workers for tomorrow’s jobs.

But overnight, millions of employees who commuted daily to offices or traveled for sales jobs were forced to stay at home and continue working. For many white-collar employees, their work experience may never again be the same when the health crisis is over.

Companies that provide collaborative technology, like videoconferencing, will benefit from the evolution of work life. Ultimately, that’s good news for the planet and those on the front lines of the climate change battle. Working from home requires less travel, less paper usage and less heating and cooling of office buildings.

For those employees who can best manage their time working in isolation, the hours that used to be spent stuck in traffic can now be applied to personal endeavors, like physical fitness, hobbies or family gatherings. Still, others will struggle with knowing when to shut down their computers and stop working. As such, employers will need to keep their remote workers engaged and ensure they don’t feel isolated or unappreciated.

Many companies, like Zurich, have already introduced flexible work schedules, allowing employees to work out of the office some days or adjust their hours to accommodate their personal lives. These companies are ahead of the curve, and their early action is paying off now.

Digital safety

In today’s digital world, trust depends on cyber security and data stewardship. Many businesses today need to collect customer data to provide goods and services. Protecting that data is important to maintain trust.

Since the spread of COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of coronavirus-themed cyber attacks. According to cyber security firm CYE, cybercriminals have been increasingly exploiting the new situation caused by the global pandemic, citing a fivefold increase in cases.

At Zurich, we promise to never sell our customers’ personal data or share it without being transparent about it, and to keep it safe and secure as we put it to work so we can deliver better services. Other companies have made similar promises, but with so many employees working from home on networks that may not be as secure as those in the office, it is becoming harder to protect data.

Remote work on the scale we’re experiencing now heightens digital perils like never before. For financial, healthcare and other businesses, as well as federal and state agencies that deal with sensitive data, there’s little room for cracks in cyber security systems.

There is an increased likelihood of employees using unsecure networks to retrieve sensitive information when working from home or in remote locations. As quarantines become more prevalent and more people are authorized to work remotely, businesses will need to ensure they’re maintaining proper controls to protect customer data.

See also: 10 Moments of Truth From COVID-19  

ESG investing

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) is at the core of how Zurich interacts with its customers, brokers and communities at large, and is also reflected in our portfolio management. We work with stakeholders to ensure responsible and sustainable business practices and to protect reputations while promoting best practices in managing ESG risks. While global financial markets whiplash from daily record gains and to record losses, ESG investing is playing the long game.

Investing in ESG funds is on the rise, according to Morningstar. The Wall Street Journal reports that the coronavirus outbreak has given rise to a number of factors that are important to ESG investors, including disaster preparedness, continuity planning and the treatment of employees through benefits such as paid sick leave and work flexibility.

Sustainability

For many, “sustainability” is the catch phrase of our time. For Zurich, the time is now to stand behind the promises we’ve made to support a sustainable future for our business, our customers and our communities.

In 2019, Zurich signed up as the first insurer to the Business Ambition for 1.5°C Pledge, which is aimed at limiting average global temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2030. We’ve also committed to using 100% renewable power in all global operations by the end of 2022.

In addition, we are preparing today’s workers for the challenges of tomorrow, protecting the personal data our customers entrust with us, and investing in businesses that make the world a better place to live.

As insurance carriers and agencies continue to adjust to new ways of working due to COVID-19, we are working with them to better understand the challenges and opportunities they are facing, including how:

• consumer behavior is trending; 
• advertising is changing; 
• carrier and agent personnel are distributed; 
• digital capabilities are doing more of the heavy lifting; and
• product development and innovation are advancing. 

Carriers want to stay well informed, and we’re providing an additional, broader perspective to help guide their marketing activities and campaigns with greater levels of confidence. We would like to take this opportunity to provide a high-level overview on the pulse of insurance. 

Trends by Segment 

Overall, the current state of insurance online shopping activity remains strong and has trended higher than normal (for this time of year). Providers have reacted quickly and are still aiming to achieve or surpass their 2020 growth plans and, in most cases, leaning into the performance marketing ecosystem to capture more mid-funnel prospects to fill excess capacity. Consumers are home and in a “money-saving” mode, and reports are that they are more responsive to inquiries (e.g., contact rates are up).  

Here is a look by segment:

P&C

P&C entered the pandemic from a position of strength. We expect consumers on the preferred end of the risk spectrum are shopping more than usual for auto and home insurance. Non-standard consumers face difficult financial decisions on where to cut expenses (expect less shopping activity and higher than average churn). Overall, even with the discounts—refunds and relaxed payment requirements that carriers have announced—shopping levels are above what we typically see this time of year. Carriers are spending less on traditional advertising campaigns and, consequently, seeing fewer organic inbound inquiries; therefore, many are spending more on leads, clicks and calls. Most disruption will be in commercial lines because of increased claims and difficult coverage decisions in the business interruption, event cancellation, workers' comp and travel insurance policies. Overall, P&C remains strong and stable.

See also: COVID-19: Stark Choices Amid Structural Change  

Life

Carriers are navigating through a revised process or product mix to fulfill demand, investing in resources to fulfill underwriting or shift to “automated underwritten” products. Consumer demand is high. Never has there been more unsolicited interest in acquiring life insurance, particularly in younger age segments. Fulfillment is hard because critical underwriting data, such as that gleaned from medical exams, are paused. Carriers are driving higher-volume policy sales with lower face amounts or shorter-term products with simplified issues and no medical exams. We expect carriers and agencies are reducing or pausing direct mail where the economics are not supported by policies that have a lower lifetime value.

Health

We’ve seen similar increases in shopping activity across health insurance. In the under-65 market, record unemployment is driving shopping, as those without coverage investigate COBRA and other options. Additionally, reduced-hour workers are much more sensitive to what once were manageable premiums. Eligible consumers are considering STM (short-term medical) plans as a viable alternative, now that federal regulations permit plans as long as 364 days in some states. In the senior market, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has relaxed regulations that govern out-of-network costs for Medicare Advantage. Increased uncertainty about what Medicare does and does not cover regarding COVID-19 has driven seniors to educate themselves. Rapid changes in the economy, uncertainty about the future and research about the current state are causing marked increases in online shopping activity in the health space.

Adjustments Carriers Are Making

We’re also seeing brands contend with the obvious sensitivities of marketing during this time. It’s a fine needle to thread as consumers want help and guidance from a trusted source. Insurers have the opportunity now to build trust and improve the customer experience with thoughtful, well-timed, engaging conversations.

See also: Business Continuity During COVID-19

Insurers can lead with data to better understand how behavior drives decisions so they know where to focus their time and dollars. Now more than ever, it’s critical for marketers to be thoughtful. It’s important to understand where consumers are in their buying journey to send the right message at the right time while mitigating compliance risk all along the way.