In business, as in politics and war, we too often yearn for heroic leaders. A smart book argues, instead, that leaders need to act more like humble gardeners. Stanley McChrystal and his coauthors write in Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement For A Complex World that “we unrealistically demand the apogee of heroic leadership—omniscient, fearless, virile and reassuring.” We expect leaders to be like Napoleon, crafting brilliant strategies, deftly maneuvering troops and distributing precise commands—all while looking regal on horseback. We demand high-level strategic vision and an unerring ability to anticipate broad market trends. We celebrate leaders for encyclopedic mastery of every aspect of their business and ridicule them when they do not have it. We expect all this even though we know that it is entirely unrealistic. See also: Better Way to Think About Leadership   What’s more, the authors observe, too many leaders compound the problem by trying to live up to this expectation. They strive to stay informed, to always have the right answers and deliver them with force. They construct rigid, hierarchical organizations, which they then try to control like a thousand marionettes on many stages. They fear that failure to do so reflects weakness and irrelevance. McChrystal, a retired four-star general, tells of his own temptation to view war, the ultimate real-life competition, as if it were like chess—“the ultimate strategic contest.”

Empowered with an extraordinary ability to view the board, and possessing a set of units with unique capabilities, I was tempted to maneuver my forces like chess pieces. I could be Bobby Fischer or Garry Kasparov, driving my relentlessly aggressive campaign toward checkmate… I felt intense pressure to fulfill the role of chess master for which I had spent a lifetime training.

The problem is that the chess metaphor quickly breaks down. Chess is an orderly game, with clear rules and alternating moves between players. In real life, the competition is free to move multiple pieces and pummel you on multiple fronts, without waiting respectfully for your next move. Events unfold faster and with more complexity than one person can master, or for hierarchical decision processes to monitor, assess, decide and act. The speed and connected nature of the competitive battlefields render both heroic leaders and hierarchical organizations too slow to survive. Instead of heroic leaders, McChrystal argues, we need leaders who act more like humble gardeners. Master gardeners know they do not actually “grow” tomatoes, squash or beans—they can only foster environments in which the plants do so. Similarly, leaders need to understand that competitive success cannot depend on move-by-move control. It requires consistent nurturing of the structure, process and culture of one’s organization to enable subordinate components to function with “smart autonomy.” Smart autonomy is the ability, responsibility and authority of every part of the team to take action as best it sees fit in pursuit of the overall strategy. That doesn’t mean total autonomy, however. Every part of the team must be tightly linked to common strategies and mission. They must be enabled with “shared consciousness” and have ready access to information from across the organization. See also: Best Insurance? A Leadership Pipeline Becoming a gardener, rather than a chess master, changes the role of the leader but does not diminish the need for one. McChrystal argues that leadership is more critical than ever. Here are key elements of “leading like a gardener” that he and his coauthors lay out:

1. Shift focus from moving pieces to shaping the ecosystem
2. Create and maintain the teamwork conditions
3. Keep the team of teams focused on clearly articulated priorities
4. Demand free-flowing conversation
5. Reinforce empowered execution
6. Lead by demonstration
7. Keep eyes on, hands off

Whether you lead grand armies, a multi-national conglomerate or a small team, Team of Teamsis well worth putting on your summer reading list.

Plaintiffs' attorneys have discovered a new, rich litigation vein to exploit, potentially yielding a treasure of targets to sue. Using Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and applying it to a modern societal institution (the internet) that was not in existence or contemplated when that law was enacted, lawyers may have hit pay dirt again by claiming that websites are not accessible to the disabled. Title III of the ADA requires places that are open to the public to not discriminate against individuals due to their disability or otherwise deny them “the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations of any place of public accommodation.” These rules apply to any company that permits “entry” by the public. Although traditionally Title III of the ADA has been applied to physical structures, recent cases have raised issues as to whether these rules may apply to websites, as well. To date, the case law addressing these issues is very limited and has been mixed. Case law from the Seventh Circuit has applied the ADA to websites, and the First, Second and Eleventh Circuits have applied the ADA beyond physical structures, providing ground for plaintiffs to argue that the ADA can extend to a virtual space such as websites. Meanwhile, the Third, Fifth and Ninth Circuits have applied the ADA provisions to physical locations only. See also: Broad Array of Roles for Disability Coverage   The Department of Justice, which is responsible for interpreting and enforcing Title III of the ADA, says that Title III does apply to websites. However, in typical government fashion, the DOJ has delayed releasing its “accessibility” guidelines for webpages, with an anticipated release date in 2018. While the regulations and laws on website accessibility may be unclear, a few law firms are nonetheless sending out demand letters targeting specific industry sectors nationwide (for example, private universities and real estate brokerage firms) and demanding compliance with onerous website standards. The letters ask the recipient to hire the plaintiff's law firm (or their preferred vendor) to help reach an “acceptable level” of compliance. In addition, several national retailers, including Patagonia, Ace Hardware, Aeropostale and Bed Bath & Beyond have been named in lawsuits regarding accessibility to their sites. According to Bloomberg’s BNA reports, 45 of these type of lawsuits were launched in 2015. That number is expected to increase substantially in 2016. With the law so unclear on this topic, how should businesses navigate these murky waters? First, if you receive one of these demand letters, you should consider contacting an attorney and should avoid engaging in discussions with the plaintiff or their law firm without representation. Then, along with your attorney and an IT representative (in-house or a vendor), develop a strategy to bring your webpage into accessibility compliance. Although there is no “one-size fits all” approach to move toward compliance, depending on what is on your website, businesses can consider providing audible text on each webpage and providing audible captions for pictures. Ultimately, to play it safe you may want to take all reasonable steps to improve navigation and access on your website. See also: New Products and Combined Approaches Takeaway Lawsuits related to website accessibility could likely be next cash cow for plaintiffs' attorneys. As the early case law on this issue is so mixed, there is little guidance as to who has to be compliant and what exactly compliance would look like. Until the DOJ gets around to issuing guidelines (assuming they provide much guidance), businesses should consider reviewing their websites and documenting reasonable efforts to make the sites accessible to the disabled. Further, companies should consider purchasing a robust employment practices liability (EPL) policy with broad third-party coverage that can potentially pick up the defense of claims related to website access claims. This article was co-written by Marty Heller.

If you hear employees talking about spending their stardust and candies, chances are they’re caught up in the latest pop culture fixation: Pokémon Go. The mobile phone game sensation has fans roaming the country with their handhelds out to capture the “Pocket Monsters” scattered virtually throughout the real world. The kid in me chuckles at this innovative use of augmented reality (AR) technology. But my cyber risk side looks at AR and sees potential issues involving malware, privacy, data disclosure and employee safety. Real-World Risks Computer and online games become instant targets for malware, through such things as fake and cracked versions in app stores. Hackers could gain control over a phone and thus a wealth of data about its user. For companies with bring your own device (BYOD) programs, enterprise email accounts and other data could be exposed. See also: Better Way to Assess Cyber Risks? Of course, BYOD risks are not limited to Pokémon Go. For example, sensitive information can be exposed through employees’ social media postings and other activities.  But apps that are addictive and seemingly innocent can blind users to the risks of downloading. AR technology combines elements of the digital and physical worlds into a single view, allowing data, text or images to be superimposed on a live video feed. In Pokémon Go, AR allows for the game map to align with a real-world map and players to find and even photograph their monsters in physical locations. What if a Pokémon is located inside your company’s office? If a user shares a photo or screenshot of such a location, it poses a risk of inadvertent loss of sensitive company or customer information. And there are issues around invasion of privacy for people/places that don’t want to be involved in the game. Managing Risk As surely as Pikachu evolve into Raichu, technology like AR will morph and bring new risks. Businesses may try to block or limit employees’ access to AR and similar technology, but that may only provide temporary relief before the next threat emerges. See also: Cyber Risk: The Expanding Threat   So as with all cyber risks, when it comes to Pokémon Go, organizations should make sure they don’t focus only on prevention. Among the steps to bolster response and recovery, businesses can:

• Educate employees about the risks.
• Conduct regular cyber risk assessments and audits to identify threats and assets at risk.
• Develop and test disaster recovery, business continuity and incident response plans in conjunction with law enforcement, regulators and others.
• Purchase cyber insurance to deal with the inevitable risks that slip through the cracks.

AR and other disruptive technologies are here to stay, and promise to benefit companies and consumers. Risk professionals will need to be nimble as they manage the accompanying risks.

Certainly some forms of insurance like health, home, auto, life or long-term disability coverage are probably necessary components to your wellbeing and security. But many people fall victim to fear or slick salesmanship to be convinced of the need to purchase some kind of special insurance coverage that is redundant, unnecessary, impractical or downright wasteful. It sounds good at the time, but in reality many insurance policies cost too much, have an unrealistic deductible or are simply frivolous coverage. You have to ask yourself in each case what the loss ratio is based upon each dollar of premium versus dollars paid for claims. For example, various kinds of credit insurance typically pay out 10 to 15 cents on the dollar versus auto insurance that typically pays out 80% to 85% of premium dollars. See also: The Most Effective Insurance Policy Here are my picks for the top 10 most useless insurance policies in alphabetic order:

• Accidental Death Insurance

If you need life insurance, buy an amount that you deem necessary to cover you for all the ways you could die accidentally whether it’s by accident, disease, assault or old age. Accidental death insurance is often referred to as Las Vegas coverage – like a bonus to your heirs if you die in car crashes. Your heirs may have a civil negligence lawsuit to pursue in such cases anyway.

• Cancer Insurance

Dreaded disease insurance policies like this cover you only if you die from one or more specific diseases. This is like playing specific numbers on the roulette wheel. Buy a term life insurance policy that covers you for the widest range in causes of death.

• Cell Phone Coverage

New cell phones come with a manufacturer’s warranty covering defects or malfunctions. Consumer groups don’t recommend buying this monthly supplemental coverage due to consumer complaints including “fine print” exclusions, hidden deductible fees and refurbished replacement phones.

• Credit Card Insurance

By law, most credit card fraud losses are capped at $50 per card with prompt notification, and most banks or credit unions have a zero-liability limit of stolen credit cards. Review your monthly statements regularly. Furthermore, the insurance schemes that offer to pay off of your credit card “balance owed” due to disability or death is better avoided, in favor of a traditional long term disability or life insurance policy.

• Extended Warranties

These “policies” are often sold as a scare tactic that typically provides additional commissions or spiffs to retail sales people. Who can remember which items you bought such coverage for and until when? Why buy an extended warranty from a reputable retailer or manufacturer that should provide a reasonable warranty to begin with? Moreover, with the pace of technological changes, most consumer products, whether appliances or electronics, are greatly improved or less expensive after two to three years.

• Homeowner’s Scheduled Property Insurance

Review your homeowner’s insurance policy carefully as most policies include overall personal property losses in an amount shown as a percentage of the value of the insured home. Singling out valuables as scheduled items, such as jewelry or fine art, typically requires appraisal and documentation, to be worthwhile. Furthermore, such items are often underinsured over time due to the fact you have to periodically purchase higher specific coverage limits for each scheduled item that may appreciate in value.

• Identity Theft Insurance

Federal protections can leave you paying little to nothing if your identity is stolen. Regulators have slapped the ID protection industry several times for deceptive marketing practices. Furthermore, most stolen name, birth dates or Social Security numbers are used to open new credit card accounts or to file a bogus tax return in your name to get a refund. 80% of stolen identities involve credit card fraud or check forgery. See also: Insurance at a Tipping Point (Part 1)

• Mortgage Insurance

Private mortgage insurance uses the same sales approach as credit card or dreaded disease life insurance policies. Unless PMI is required by the lender (when you put less than 20% down on purchase), buy adequate term life insurance to cover these kinds of financial obligations. The only exceptions may occur if you are unable to obtain life insurance due to age or illness and want to ensure that your property’s mortgage is paid off at your death.

• Pet Insurance

This often cost more overall than it will pay out due to various terms and conditions as well as exclusions, including inconveniently located designated veterinarians or clinics. Explore any nearby veterinarian universities as well for excellent low-cost medical treatment options.

• Rental Car Insurance

In most cases, this coverage is provided by other sources such as your own auto insurance carrier, your credit card company or your employer, if you are on business.

What’s a great, differentiated customer experience really worth to an insurance carrier? It’s a vexing question for the insurance industry, where the idea of investing in a better customer experience is often met with skepticism. Carriers may publicly affirm the importance of customer-centricity, but many in the C-suite privately question the value of customer experience differentiation, unsure of the financial return it really delivers. In an industry where actuaries are kings and numbers rule the day, the seemingly “soft” benefits of a great customer experience don’t carry much weight. As a result, carriers continue to subject their customers to complex purchase processes, unintelligible policy documents, cluttered websites, dizzying 800-line menus, disempowered service representatives, confusing claims communications and archaic business practices. The irony is that the benefits of a better customer experience are far from soft—it’s just that companies aren’t well-versed in the cross-silo economic calculus needed to measure them. For example, the benefits of a plain-language policy summary from an underwriter may only manifest themselves downstream, by reducing customer confusion and preempting phone calls to a service center. What many numbers-oriented insurance executives seem to crave is quantifiable evidence that, at least at a macro level, a great customer experience really does pay dividends. And now they have that evidence. Quantifying the Impact of Customer Experience To help industry leaders understand the overarching influence of a great customer experience (as well as a poor one), my firm aimed to elevate the dialogue and avoid getting mired, at least for a moment, in the cost/benefit calculations of specific types of improvement projects. We sought to illustrate the macro impact of an effective customer experience strategy by describing it in a language that every insurance executive should understand: shareholder value. So we sharpened our pencils and compiled years of data from what’s arguably the most well-regarded source of insurance carrier customer experience rankings: J.D. Power and Associates’ annual Insurance Satisfaction Studies. See also: How to Redesign Customer Experience Our approach was simple: We calculated the cumulative total stock returns for two model portfolios, comprised of the Top 5 (“Leaders”) and Bottom 5 (“Laggards”) publicly traded companies in J.D. Power’s annual study. (A white paper about the study, referenced at the end of this article, includes a more detailed description of how the analysis was conducted.) We went through the exercise twice—once for auto insurers, where J.D. Power rankings were available from 2010-2016, and once for home insurers, where rankings were available from 2009-2015. In both cases, our model portfolios tracked the stock performance of the carriers for the year-earlier period of their designation as a Leader or Laggard (for example, J.D. Power’s 2016 Leaders were used, retroactively, to build our 2015 stock portfolio). This approach was consistent with our thesis that the market would already be rewarding/penalizing the Leaders/Laggards in the full-year period preceding the release of J.D. Power’s consumer survey (given the customer experience the carriers were already delivering). It also helped ensure that the model portfolios’ performance was not at all influenced by the publication of the J.D. Power study itself. The results of our analysis were quite compelling. As Figure 1 shows, over the seven-year period studied, the portfolio of Auto Insurance Customer Experience Leaders far outperformed the industry, generating a total return that was 129 points higher than the Dow Jones Property & Casualty Market Index. Three carriers had the distinction of making it into the Leaders category for each of the seven years examined (in alphabetical order): Ameriprise, Erie Insurance and GEICO. (Editor’s Note: For insurers that are not publicly traded but are owned by a publicly traded holding company, such as GEICO and Berkshire, the performance of the holding company is used in the Watermark Consulting analysis.) The Customer Experience Laggard portfolio lived up to its name, posting a total return that was 75 points lower than that of the broader P/C market. As with the Leaders, there was some year-to-year consistency in the Laggards list, with three firms showing up in that category every year of the study: MAPFRE-Commerce Insurance, The Hanover and 21st Century (in alphabetical order). To underscore the disparity in performance between the Leader and Laggard portfolios, consider this: The Auto Insurance Customer Experience Leaders generated an average annual return that was nearly triple that of the Laggards. The Home Insurance Customer Experience Leader portfolio outperformed the industry, generating a total return that was 42 points higher than the Dow Jones Property & Casualty Market Index. See also: Keen Insights on Customer Experience   While several home insurance carriers made it into the Leader category multiple times, only one achieved that distinction for every year of the study: Erie Insurance. The industry’s Customer Experience Laggards again trailed behind, posting a total return that was 15 points lower than that of the broader P/C market. The Laggard category, too, was generally consistent year-to-year, though only one company placed in those ranks every year of the study, and that was Travelers. To again illustrate the wide gap in Leader/Laggard performance, consider this: The Home Insurance Customer Experience Leaders generated an average annual return that was double that of the Laggards. Interpreting the Results Let’s start with what the results don’t mean. A great customer experience does not guarantee carrier success. There are a whole host of factors that influence insurer performance, such as underwriting discipline and regulatory compliance. Customer experience is a necessary but not sufficient ingredient for carrier success. Despite that caveat, there’s no denying that this study’s results—reflecting over half a decade of carrier performance—are intriguing, to say the least. The findings imply that the much theorized connection between customer experience and financial performance isn’t a purely academic concept and can actually be observed within the insurance industry. The results point to the benefits enjoyed by carriers that invest in, and effectively execute on, a customer experience strategy: higher revenues (due to better retention, less price sensitivity, greater wallet share and positive word-of-mouth) and lower expenses (due to reduced acquisition costs, fewer complaints and the less intense service requirements of happy, loyal customers). Conversely, the study also provides a sober reminder of how customer dissatisfaction saps business value by depressing revenues and inflating expenses. See also: Best Way to Track Customer Experience   The bottom-line implication is that the marketplace believes carriers that deliver a great customer experience over the long term are simply more valuable than those that do not—and that’s a finding that should be of interest to public and private insurers alike. Takeaways for Insurance Carriers Perhaps the most important takeaway from this study is that insurance firms shouldn’t resign themselves to delivering just a mediocre customer experience (at best). The results suggest there is competitive advantage to be gained by differentiating along this axis, but it requires that carriers embrace some key realizations before setting a path forward:

• Retention is not a good proxy for loyalty.

Insurance providers often rely on retention to gauge the quality of their customer experience. While retention is a valuable metric, it can be a misleading indicator of customer perception (after all, a retained policyowner may not necessarily be a loyal one). As a result, many firms tend to overrate the quality of their customer experience.

• Insurance can be more than a “grudge” purchase.

Some question the viability of a customer-focused business strategy in insurance, given it’s an intangible product that people must buy, never knowing if they’ll get any benefit in return. Smart carriers overcome this perception by engaging customers with value-added services that transcend traditional insurance coverage.

• It’s essential to focus on more than just claims.

As the ultimate moment-of-truth in insurance, it’s critical that the customer claims experience be exceptional. However, the vast majority of insureds won’t experience a claim in any given year. For this reason, it’s essential that experience improvement programs go beyond claims—targeting other, more common customer touchpoints.

• The mundane things matter.

Insurance is a low-interaction business, which amplifies the impact of routine, recurring transactions on customer perceptions. Firms often treat these interactions (policy delivery, billing, renewal, etc.) as mundane administrative tasks—and it shows in the resulting experience. However, for many insureds, these mundane touchpoints are the entire experience, which is why these routine interactions deserve close attention from carriers. Insurance companies are struggling to set themselves apart in a marketplace that increasingly views their products as commodities. As the Insurance Leaders in this study demonstrate, the best way to break out of that “sea of sameness” is to deliver an end-to-end customer experience that turns everyday policyholders into true raving fans. Note: A white paper describing Watermark Consulting’s 2016 Customer Experience ROI Study (Insurance Industry Edition) is available for complimentary download at http://bit.ly/CX-ROI-INSURE. This article originally appeared on Carrier Management.

At SMA we have long been tracking the rise of smart things and their implications for the insurance industry. A variety of emerging technologies has been rapidly advancing to make everything imaginable smart. But participating in the ESRI User Conference in San Diego this year has driven home one key point: Geospatial solutions will have a critical role in making sense of all those smart things. The notion of a connected world is not an academic pursuit – possibilities to ponder about sometime in the future. It is a here-and-now issue affecting every industry, including insurance. See also: Insurance and the Internet of Things   The Internet of Things is already upon us. Sensors and embedded chips are present in buildings, infrastructure, agricultural settings, vehicles, devices in the home, medical facilities and government operations. Add to that billions of mobile phones and the capability to track location, movement and environmental conditions, and the result is many connections and massive amounts of data already measuring, monitoring and acting on the world around us. Predictions about the adoption of connected things vary widely, but, by any measure, the connection points and the data volumes will continue to increase exponentially. The problem, then, is not deploying smart things or collecting data from the smart things. The fundamental problem is the ability to combine and analyze data to gain some insights. In some cases, those insights might trigger decisions with global implications, solving some of humanities thorniest problems. In other cases, the insights might lead to a small action that improves the life of one individual. Enter geospatial solutions. Analytics and big data, in general, have essential roles to play in understanding the data generated in the connected world. But visualizing that data in a way that tells a story and reveals insights is the province of geospatial solutions, an area that has much to contribute to the connected world. Unfortunately, old impressions of geographic information systems (GIS) linger, especially in insurance. Most insurers have GIS solutions to do geospatial analysis, but they tend to be used by a small number of specialists for very specific applications. Today, the advances in 3D; animation; digital capture through drones, satellites, or LiDAR; and other technologies offer new opportunities. Tools for spatiotemporal analysis (understanding changes over time), crowdsourcing of real-time data and cloud-based collaboration platforms for maps and apps have elevated the discipline and provided government and industry with the potential to gain a deep understanding of the world to aid in addressing both new and old problems. See also: How Connected Will Connected World Be? Many insurers are considering the implications of the connected world and how it will affect their particular lines of business. Connected cars, smart homes, the quantified self, smart cities, autonomous commercial fleets and many other new areas create both threats and opportunities for insurers. Evaluating how geospatial capabilities can be harnessed to gain a better understanding of these emerging areas should be part of every insurer’s strategy and planning initiatives.

As new technologies like mobile are used and the need for agility and speed rises, so does the need for new testing techniques; otherwise, testing will hold implementations and organizations back. Just as today’s systems are modernizing, new testing methods and tools are rapidly advancing the quality and speed of development and implementation. To assess the current state of testing and reassess the need for insurance-specific testing, Majesco recently reviewed modern testing processes. What we found makes a case for modernizing enterprise-wide testing. Moving from static to dynamic Insurers need to have core systems that will be able to add capabilities, products, workflows and more through configuration. They will need an overall approach to system quality that will allow for continuous updates. Robustness and stability will need to be tested to bolster quality assurance (QA), and a whole new world of testing will arise to cover the various software areas that will be added to the enterprise. Not only will testing needs grow, but also a dynamic framework for understanding enterprise-wide testing will be mandatory. See also: Baseline Testing Provides a Win Minimizing risk Many organizations are worried about the risks involved in transformation and their inability to have clarity around operations, development, migration and the investments involved. Insurers are realizing that they need a well-designed QA process. Three key components are coming to light:

• Previously tried-and-true approaches are no longer best practices in testing. (For example, the waterfall approach to development and testing will no longer provide the results needed.)
• A single testing partner with a framework and methodology and domain expertise is vital.
• The end goal is to employ a single platform that works with a variety of approaches and tools in a way that enables agility and speed.

Reaping the benefits As digital enhancements grow and system touchpoints and channels are on the rise, test types are also becoming broader. Manual testing is still needed. Automated testing is more frequently employed. Performance testing and digital testing are more important than ever. To cover all types of testing, insurers need an automation framework that is structured, simplified and process-based. They need a system that “learns” and provides long-term efficiency by allowing for the repeatability of tests while increasing the speed with which tests can be executed. See also: Inventing Your Future: A 3 X 3 Approach A modern testing framework will give insurers prompt developer feedback and will support agile development. Testers will have the capability to build automation in parallel to application development. They will give users the ability to conduct continuous and recurring regression tests. Business analysts will be able to get more involved in testing. Scriptless automation techniques will provide business users with their own test automation capabilities. These are just a few of the ways that a modern testing platform will bring insurers into the future and give them a competitive edge. To dig more deeply into the benefits of expert testing in the transformation process and beyond, download Majesco’s recently released white paper, Putting Insurance Testing to the Test. In addition to Majesco’s testing overview, supplemented with industry perspectives from the research firm Novarica, readers will find a valuable example of an agile-friendly test automation approach as well as a helpful list of distinct service elements that should be taken into consideration when picking an IT testing partner. This article was written by Dan Mets.

I usually approach conferences with mixed emotions, whether attending, learning and networking or speaking. Ultimately, for me, conferences and events are about connecting people and ideas and moving the debate and understanding forward. To this end, I was delighted to join some great folks over at EXEC Insurtech in Cologne, which for me ticked all the boxes. It had a really interesting mix of folks attending, old and new, a serious number of VCs (AXA Strategic Ventures, Commerz Ventures and many more), There were angel investors and more and, importantly, a whole host of new start-ups, many very early-stage. There were some really great ideas from outside the U.K. market, so new to me personally. And it's always great to see SPIXII, RightIndem and other graduates from the InsurTech StartupBootcamp in London with Sabine VanderLinden. See also: InsurTech Boom Is Reshaping Market   In addition to a number of panels where I was able to share the latest views from the Capgemini 2016 World Insurance Report, I was asked to share some perspectives with the group on InsurTech. I wanted to share the same here.

1. We are in a bubble. By "we," I mean, those who are here at EXEC InsurTech and see the opportunity. Not everyone sees the world this way, yet! Many of you know I'm a firm believer that disruption is here and now, coming at us thick and fast.
2. Stand out. Whatever reports you read, be it the tech journals, insurance news or the traditional annual reports from existing carriers, they all talk to the disruption of the traditional insurance carrier (following the "unbundling" of the banks). There are now hundreds of start-ups in this space. It always amazes me to hear Sabine and theStartup Bootcamp team talk to how many start-ups they talk to prior to shortlisting to their final cohort. Make sure that when you are on stage and you have three minutes to pitch, you stand out. Don't be the me-too.
3. There have been no really big failures yet. There is excitement and buzz around what people are up to, where disruption is coming from and what part of the insurance value chain people are attacking (sales, underwriting, distribution, etc.). Given this, there has been record investment in the sector; the prize is huge, with a $5 trillion market opportunity. Matthew Wong and the folks over at CB Insights continue do an amazing  job at tracking deal flow, more than $1 billion so far in 2016. The example nearest to a failure that I called out was Zenefits, given its recent re-valuation. Another one was mentioned from the audience -- CSS in Switzerland, I believe, but please correct me if I have this wrong.
4. Partnering is key.  Given the history, tradition and especially the speed of the industry, my view is it's best to partner and work with the traditional players as opposed to going all out head-to-head today. This may, of course, change over time. There are some really great examples of partnership already.
5. Evolution or revolution? This is one of my favorite topics. Unlike banking, where I believe #FinTech has unbundled individual services ofmatthew  a bank, insurance start-ups have taken a different approach. Underwriting, for example, is not a category all unto itself nor one that I have seen folks go after in isolation. All need other parts of the insurance value chain to be successful. There are great examples of start-ups evolving each part of the value chain, across products, distribution, sales, etc. Matteo Carbone put together some good thinking a while back on this with his mental framework covering awareness, choice, purchase and use, as did Venture Scanner here in a series of visuals. For now, we are primarily digitizing and simplifying the existing approach and process.
6. Product mindset. We simply need to move away from this. It will take generations for a complete mindset change. It will happen, in my view, when start-ups move to an "all risks" or truly customer-centric approach (not just better service experience). My two golden rules here remain: relevance and convenience. At what point does insurance become frictionless?
7. Every carrier is partnering. Pick your partners carefully. I was talking to one of the start-ups that has now engaged in 30-plus pilots. While this is really encouraging and great for the start-up, every carrier is a) partnering, b) building a lab c) working with an accelerator. Make sure you don't become part of a badge-collecting journey. Are your and the insurance carrier's ambitions, culture and outcomes aligned? Make sure we are all walking into these partnerships with eyes wide open and with a clear plan of what happens if a partnership is successful.
8. AI/data/bots are big and cool. That is all! There are some great use cases and examples developing here. We heard from SPIXII and Insuragram, just two examples of how AI and bots are looking to solve some of the business and engagement challenges.
9. Don't be the fad. See #7 and #8. Over the last few years, I've seen the rise and rise of big data. Then came digital. Now it's blockchain and chat bots. My point here is that these are all great technologies. But don't be the technology looking for a business problem to solve -- sage old advice you will hear again and again.
10. Beware of the silos. Many start-ups are working with global carriers. Just because we work with them in one country doesn't mean they all talk, are connected seamlessly internally and exchange ideas and key learnings. The same is true for in-country and across lines of business. Many people operate in silo'ed P&L models where you may end up doing multiple different engagements with the same global carrier. Joining the dots may not always be right for you. Think speed! You're in a relay race. Moving parts of an organization to the start line is often easier than moving the whole team at once. As the saying goes,"think big, start small, act quickly."
11. Customers (end customers) need to be ready.  With all these cool new ideas and apps that can disrupt traditional insurance, our challenge is often not whether something can be done but whether customers will be ready. We know it can be done; everything is possible! But there are many reasons why customers take a while, often a long while. Telematics is 25-plus years old, but it's only now becoming more widely adopted. Even now, take-up is still relatively slow (except in Italy).
12. Talent. Above all, there is an arms race for talent out there. Bringing together InsurTech and traditional insurers is one of the best ways of ensuring (no pun intended!) that we continue to attract and leverage some of the greatest talent in the marketplace, promoting Insurance along the way as a great place to excel and challenge the status quo.

See also: InsurTech Forces Industry to Rethink So back to one of my initial comments -- what conferences do for me. At this one, particularly, I was delighted to meet with so many folks looking at the market from different angles. Conversations about Europe were especially interesting given the recent U.K. BREXIT decision. Finally, getting to exchange ideas with Matteo Carbone of Bain and Florian Graillot of AXA Strategic Ventures in person was the icing on the cake. Gentlemen, until next time. My thanks to Robbie Boushery, Moritz Delbrück and the team at Pirate Summit for bringing this all together. So what do you think? Good sage advice? Something missing? What would you add/remove from my list? Looking forward to continuing the debate!

The insurance sector, which is considered to be fairly traditional and resistant to change, is currently being overtaken by a macro trend of digital transformation. This is causing institutions with hundreds of years of tradition to rethink their insurance business models, by identifying modules within their own value chain that need to be transformed or reinvented with the help of technology and data usage. InsurTech represents a macro trend destined to take on an ever-growing relevance in a world that tends toward hyperconnectivity and the infiltration of technology into all aspects of society. The insurance business will become more InsurTech-oriented, and technology will have a decisive role in reaching strategic goals. This applies to insurance companies, reinsurers, intermediaries and newcomers. During 2015, InsurTech start-ups received around $2.5 billion in funding, according to LTP.

Investors liked B2C #insurtech I saw > potential on B2B2C to concretize innovation@Minh_Q_Tran which is your view? pic.twitter.com/g6F6VOMMQn

— Matteo Carbone (@MCins_) 25 March 2016

The number of innovative initiatives is growing exponentially, raising interest for all phases of the customer journey and all steps in the insurance value chain. This reveals a very crowded map of innovations that were introduced by the incumbents of the insurance sector or by start-ups. The innovations can be divided into seven macro areas: awareness, choice, acquisition, use, recommendation, Internet of Things (IoT) and peer-to-peer (P2P). One of the main challenges for analysts, incumbents, start-ups and investors is identifying the degree of relevance that these innovations represent for the insurance sector. See also: InsurTech Start-Ups: Friends or Foes? After many discussions with venture capitalists and insurance thought leaders, I’ve come up with my own answer for the following question: What is the potential of each InsurTech initiative? My approach is based on four axes related to the fundamentals of the insurance business:

• Profitability: Impact that an innovation may have on the level of profitability of the insurance portfolio, acting on the loss-ratio level or on the cost level without an increase in volume.
• Proximity: Contribution for creating improved relationship that is based on numerous touchpoints during the customer journey. Bain’s international research reveals that the customer satisfaction (measured with the Net Promoter Score approach) of those clients that have interacted directly with the insurance company is markedly superior to those who have not. Obviously, there is a predictable relationship between satisfied clients and their economic effects.
• Persistence: The reach of the new initiative in terms of renewal rate increase, and thus of stabilization of the insurance portfolio.
• Productivity: Evaluation of the contribution that a certain InsurTech approach can have at the top-line insurance level in terms of client acquisition, cross-selling or additional fee collection for services.

These considerations refer to a specific innovation initiative and are not absolute. On the contrary, they should be customized to each specific market, line of business and client segment. In a similar manner, an insurance company has to make these considerations by taking into account both the contribution brought toward the achievement of strategic priorities and the coherence with its distribution approach. I am convinced that evaluating InsurTech opportunities based on this pragmatic approach clarifies the rationale behind each innovation initiative. It facilitates the prioritization of initiatives and ultimately helps focus investors’ and innovators’ efforts. If we consider some connected-insurance use cases, it is easy to understand the reason why the World Economic Forum identified connected insurance as one of the main insurance innovation trends:

• Profitability: From this perspective, the experience of the Italian insurance market in motor telematics (which is the most advanced market at an international level, with a 16% penetration for private use vehicles) shows how this approach is able to generate actual value for the insurance bottom line by acting on risk selection and the claims management process.
• Proximity: Nowadays, within the connected car line of business, there are dozens of different services based on data collected from black boxes—services that the insurance company offers to the final client. By focusing instead on health insurance, the Chinese insurer Ping An has built an initiative based on connected health that recently raised a round A financing of $500 million, with an valuation of $3 billion.
• Persistence: The experience of Discovery Holding in the field of protection has shown relevance when it comes to reducing the lapse rate by using the Vitality approach—which works by identifying and rewarding healthy behaviors.
• Productivity: The data recorded by sensors represents a great opportunity for getting to know customers and to send personalized offers at the best moment possible. This potential, which is yet to be explored, is precisely the driver that helped create the start-up Neosurance, recently awarded the IoT Newcomer award at the Insurance IoT Europe Summit.

These insurance approaches suggest the use of sensors for data collection for different business lines. This data refers to the status of an insured risk, and to the telematics for remote transmission and informatics management, alongside the insurance value chain of the collected data. These approaches represent a great opportunity for connecting the insurance sector with its own clients and their risks. See also: Secrets InsurTechs Need to Learn Italy is today one of the most advanced ecosystems of connected insurance, encompassing 4,9 million auto insurance contracts, which include a box provided by the company, and almost 50,000 home insurance contracts, which are characterized by the use of sensors communicating with the company. In this context, the Connected Insurance Observatory was born: a think tank dedicated to spreading the culture of insurance innovation. I put together the Observatory at the beginning of 2016 with the support of the Italian National Association of Insurance Companies (ANIA). The Observatory has made it possible to unite 30 primary Italian and international insurance groups and some 15 other interested players to bring a contribution to the InsurTech story in the making. https://youtu.be/yYIfhe6f0pQ?t=42s

Amid the merry-go-round of new objectives, targets and budget allocation that keep many a leader of an insight team busy, there is a question of “Who?” Who will do the work? That is probably accompanied by “how many people will there be in my team?” and “do they have the skills and motivation they need?” At first, this can all feel rather daunting. But it will be helped by, first, being clear on your goals. If you know what matters most and why, you're in a better place to make those ever tricky people decisions. Staffing your team has more potential options than in years past, with more data, analytics and research agencies, consultancies and contractors. Determining which route to take requires some thought. In my conversations with leaders, it sounded like different businesses favored different resourcing models, but it was unclear which was most popular. For that reason, we ran a survey among our readers about customer insight team resourcing models. Thanks to all of you who took part. The time has come to share those results. First, we asked about how customer insight leaders currently resourced their four technical teams that make up holistic customer insight:

• Customer Data: For this team, as you can see, most leaders (67%) replied that all members of the team were employed by their company. The only alternative resourcing approach captured was a mixture of employed and contractors — but still all part of an in-house team. Perhaps it's the greater ease of recruiting these skills, or the sensitivity with regard to customer data, but this team doesn't appear to be a focus for outsourcing at the moment.

• Customer Analytics: For this team, there was a similar picture, with an even bigger majority of leaders (80%) stating that all the members of the team were employed by their company. Once again, the only other alternative captured was a mixture of employed and contractors as part of an in-house team. These results were perhaps more surprising, given the much-touted difficulty recruiting analysts or data scientists. Perhaps many businesses are still recruiting rounded analysts rather than the more limited pool of data science graduates. The result certainly flies in the face of advertising by many outsourcing analytics providers.

• Customer Research: Here, we began to see a slightly different picture. Only 50% of leaders replied with the most popular resourcing model thus far, that all the members of the team were employed by their company. The other half were split between outsourcing their research provision entirely and a mixture of both approaches. Sadly, this doesn't surprise me. I've found many a CMO or CEO who assumes that research is an ideal candidate for outsourcing and just asks the agency to “do more.” Sometimes, this is down to the internal team not demonstrating clearly enough the value they provide, so they are simply being perceived as “research buyers.”

• Database Marketing: Last, but definitely not least, is this commercially focused insight team. This category showed the most variation in resourcing models. More leaders (40%) still chose the most popular option; all the members of the team were employed by their company. But all the options we have seen so far were also used — contractors, outsourcing and a mixture of all of them. Given the more visible dependency that most businesses have on this team to hit income targets, I was slightly surprised by this.

As always in business, past approaches are no guarantee of business strategy, funding priorities or resourcing model preferences going forward. So we added a couple of questions to capture personal preferences. Experience has taught me that the preferences of two key parties tend to influence the way customer insight teams are resourced. First is the CEO and any recruitment policies he mandates; second is the customer insight leader who is leading the recruitment. See Also: Leveraging the Power of Data Insights So, how did you vote for those two personal preferences in resourcing models, and does that give us any clues as to how customer insight teams may be resourced now?

• CEO preference: This reflects that CEOs value customer insight and view it as a potential competitive advantage, so the majority prefer all the members of the team to be employed by their company. There were also votes for use of contractors within in-house teams, a mixture of both and “no preference” (it depends on the team). This appears to be a continued opportunity for customer insight leaders to build on in 2016, to demonstrate to their CEOs that they offer that competitive advantage and are a key internal skills within their business.

• Your preference: So, we finally come to the resourcing model that customer insight leaders themselves favor. What has given them the best results, that they would prefer to have at their disposal to achieve 2016 targets? Well, based on votes, it would seem the answer is definitely in-house teams. 60% favor all the members of the team being employed by their company, with the other 40% voting for a mixture of employed and contractors making up this internal team. For what it's worth, that was my own experience, too. Growing your own talent internally worked best.

I hope you found the results useful. Do they accord with your experience? One final thought, if you are seeking to build a strategic insight capability within your business, one that will empower your company for years to come, are you thinking long-term? Rather than be at the mercy of whether the jobs market has the candidates you require or graduates have the skills and aptitudes you're seeking, why not shape the latter? I know a couple of businesses that have seen real value through building strategic partnerships with local universities. See Also: A Wedding's Lessons on Customer Insight If you are fortunate enough to have a local university with a good reputation for numerate graduates (from business school or maths/stats faculties), why not work with them? Are there opportunities for internships to try out potential future employees? Would it benefit the university for you to go in and speak to students, even teaching them some of the skills they will need within business? How much better would it be for you to know  that students are being trained in the skills you require? A great example of building this kind of partnership was the Data Talent Scotland event. I'm proud to have delivered a workshop at this gathering of data science students, academics, industry experts and businesses, helping to forge the kind of partnerships customer insight leaders will need. Please let me know if you have built a sustainable pipeline of talent to resource your insight team for years to come. What's working for you?