DISRUPTION IN THE AUTOMOTIVE ECOSYSTEM: What to Expect, and How to Survive and Win

  For the purposes of this paper, and to explain the codependencies and inter-industry impacts, we’ve chosen to define the auto ecosystem as including all business segments affected by the automobile, including: auto manufacturing, auto buyers and drivers; collision repairers; aftermarket suppliers, including parts providers; auto insurance companies and their policyholders; and the deep and extensive claims and services supply chain that supports them, such as the technology and information provider segments. Given the broad scope and complexity of the component topics, we have identified and provided a degree of depth on each one, but by no means should this information be considered exhaustive. The entire auto ecosystem is in the midst of significant disruption, and the dizzying pace of change will only continue to accelerate. This disruption is the result of the convergence of upstream upheaval in these sub-segments of the auto ecosystem:

In the not too distant past, consumers went to independent agents for all of their insurance needs – whether simple or complex – because insurance was often an elusive concept to the man on the street. At the same time, insurance coverage was considered something everyone must have, so when insurance-related questions came up, many consumers’ initial instinct was, “I have to talk to my agent.” Over the past few years, this paradigm has shifted toward consumers being much more willing and able to build an understanding of their needs. This trend is broadly seen across nearly every industry and is accelerating in insurance. While the trusted relationship with an agent is often still crucial, insurance consumers today are researching, purchasing and interacting with the insurance industry in new ways, and increasingly on their own terms. In working with agencies and end consumers around the industry, we think the shifting behavior of consumers can be summarized in two key ways:

• The Knowledgeable Consumer This consumer actively researches insurance online and consults his peer network prior to purchasing policies – either online or in person. How can you quickly and effectively service these consumers before they research other options or take their business elsewhere?
• The Always-On Consumer This consumer wants information anytime, anywhere via any device, be it smartphone, tablet or desktop computer. These consumers don’t want to stop by your office for an auto ID card or certificate of insurance. How can you give them access to their insurance information when and where they want it?

One thing these two types of consumers have in common is the expectation for instant access to information. From an agent’s perspective, providing a mechanism for online service allows for an improved experience by allowing consumers the flexibility to interact with your agency when and how they want. And while there may still be a window of opportunity for this to be considered as a differentiator for the agency, the day is approaching where nearly every consumer will expect and demand it of the agency. Consumers who don’t get this immediate accessibility and flexibility will take their business elsewhere. Further, by pushing common transactions online, agencies can free resources to focus on higher-value service interactions with consumers. As seen across nearly every industry, advanced technology should be a key element of the agency strategy to meet these business objectives and the evolving expectations of insurance consumers. Agencies and brokerages are able to become more productive with relative ease thanks to enhanced data, mobility, better communication and increased adoption of third-party apps and other tools. As an agency considers its business strategy, I’ll suggest there are three key considerations when it comes to the role technology solutions can play:

1. Standardize and Dissect Your Data

• Standardized Workflows To the extent it makes sense for your business, workflow consistency can yield real productivity gains and help capture comprehensive and better customer risk and demographic information your agency can use to better market, account round and engage customers. By leveraging standardized workflows, agency owners are ensuring data entry is consistent across an agency – regardless of location. Additionally, standardized workflows reduce the number of workarounds conducted by staff – increasing productivity at the outset and reducing any potential time spent rectifying workarounds at the back-end. The result will be improved quality and completeness of the underlying data.
• Business Intelligence Over time, agencies and brokerages generate an immense amount of data – yet it can be difficult to access, analyze and understand that data in meaningful ways. Business intelligence (BI) solutions are one way to help turn all of that data into information. For example, principals can identify which producers are using their time most efficiently and driving the most revenue for the business. Principals can also evaluate how effectively their business is cross-selling and quickly identify new market opportunities. While traditional reporting can take hours if not days, BI solutions present your information in immediate and visual ways that drive new insights, enabling you to make more effective decisions to improve productivity and business growth.

2. Think Easy Access

• Mobile Technology New mobile technology affords producers all of the benefits associated with management system access within an office, without having producers tethered to a desk. This allows them to be more productive and to respond to clients and prospects more quickly and in the manner that current and prospective customers want and expect. For smaller agencies, where employees wear multiple hats within the organization, giving your employees access to tools when they’re away from the office is critical.
• Online Access Consider how your business can leverage the cloud to drive productivity gains. The ability for service staff to work from home via the cloud, when needed, supports work-life balance and allows business to go on regardless of unexpected events. 

3. Time Is Money

• Paper No More Evaluate ways to become an all-digital agency and eliminate paper. Agencies and brokerages should leverage electronic signature and delivery of client documents, which reduces the time and expense of mailing paper copies.
• Carrier Information Exchange Productivity gains have increased over the years as carriers improved their interface and as agencies better understood how and where to enter data in carrier systems. The vast majority of agencies use personal lines policy detail download to reduce rekeying of data, saving, on average, 81 minutes a day per employee. In addition to download, using real-time for service and rating saves agency employees as much as an hour per day. Policy download yields daily time-savings of nearly an hour and a half per department employee for personal lines and nearly an hour for commercial lines. Take the time to automate communications with your carrier on the front end to save more time over the long term.
• Online Client Self-Service As mentioned, today’s insurance consumer increasingly expects information anytime, anywhere. Agencies need to provide clients the ability to access policy and billing information on their terms, which helps strengthen relationships, ensures high retention rates and drives revenue gains. Self-service capability can increase staff productivity and decrease costs in commercial lines, as well as personal.

Technology will allow you to work faster and, in turn, will redefine the products and services you offer to your clients. While working faster is one thing, using technology to provide mobile access, enhanced communication and streamlined procedures to more quickly serve clients will also drive new business and customer retention. For additional insights on how to use technology to bolster agency productivity, check out our eBook, “Working Smarter: Finding Agency Productivity Gains.”

There once was an immutable law in business: to increase quality, you must increase cost. In other words, to make something better, you must spend more. The principle seems quaint now given the generally held expectation that we should get more and pay less at the same time. One reason for this change in mindset is a collection of business disciplines often referred to as total quality management. Throughout the 1980s, ’90s, and into the 2000s, businesses across the world introduced techniques such as statistical process control, kaizen, quality circles, employee involvement, the Toyota Way and the teachings of W. Edwards Deming into multiple areas of their business. What does this have to do with today and with financial services? Businesses everywhere are now challenged with delivering consistent, meaningful innovation to meet customers’ growing expectations. New technologies offer the promise of different business models that simultaneously deliver higher value to both companies and consumers. Companies making progress with innovation adjust their traditional business processes to include an “innovation perspective.” This is particularly true in the annual planning process used to select which strategic projects will be funded and which will not. One approach is similar to portfolio management, where a set of choices are profiled according to different factors. The result is then reviewed to determine which factors are overweight, which are under and which are not addressed at all. The first step is to select 20 to 25 projects considered to be the most important strategic business initiatives in the organization for the coming planning horizon. There is no magic to this number, but there is a practical limit within which choices can be made efficiently. Second, each project should be reviewed to identify its strategic intent. This is defined as the principal reason that an initiative is undertaken. Many high-profile projects are pursued for a multiple of reasons; however, it is important that one central, driving motivation be chosen for each item. Next, identify which type of change each project seeks to make. To label these, the company must have agreed-upon definitions for different types of changes. Again, it is important to limit the number of labels. What has proven successful is a three-tiered model of improvement, innovation and disruption. Once these two dimensions are identified for each project, plot the results on a 2x2 matrix or on a graph showing the intersection of different strategic levers and types of projects. The visual will clearly show where there are clusters of initiatives and where there is no representation at all. Teams of senior leaders can then challenge their results and ask a number of questions, including:

• Given our strategic intent, are our “bets” the right ones?
• Are our resources aligned against the right initiatives?
• Are we being bold enough regarding innovation?
• Are there disruptive technologies that should be tested?
• Where are we at risk of losing ground against competitors?
• What trade-offs in the portfolio need to be made?
• Is the organization ready for the changes required?

Research in insurance has shown a predictable concentration of initiatives that are improvement projects related to the strategic lever of efficiency and expense reduction. Disruptive efforts are not prevalent, but where they are present are usually related to product and market strategies. This model is not intended to replace current budgeting tools or planning methods used by project management offices or finance teams but is meant to introduce the concept of innovation into the control process. The desired outcome is a plan that considers the impact of more, or less, innovation in an approved project portfolio. As the annual budgeting cycle begins for firms on a calendar-year reporting schedule, companies are encouraged to include an innovation perspective in their deliberations.

The need to improve customers’ experiences in interacting with insurers strikes me as so acute that I’m going to take a shot at the issue here, even though we’ve been hitting it hard in a series of articles from Capgemini and Salesforce over the past month. (The articles are here, here, here and here, and a related white paper is here.)

I want to share what I found to be some keen insights from a webinar I hosted last week with executives from the two companies and with Donna Peeples, a member of our advisory board who was the chief customer experience officer at AIG and who is currently the chief engagement officer at Motivated, a consultancy she founded to help improve experiences.

The basis argument goes like this: Customer ratings of their dealings with insurers are bad and getting worse, putting hundreds of billions of dollars of premiums at risk. Insurers need to solve the problems and even find ways to start delighting customers. Technology must play a huge role.

But a lot lies behind that straightforward argument, and a lot of art, as well as science, needs to be applied to the problem. Thus the insights from the webinar, whose panelists, in addition to Peeples, were Nigel Walsh, vice president, insurance, at CapGemini, and Jeffery To, senior director, insurance, at Salesforce.

The insights are too long to fit on bumper stickers but are still plenty pithy and deserve careful thought.

The Problem

Peeples:

“Let's face facts. Who really gets excited about buying insurance? It's just not that much fun.”

“We think of claims as our product, when in actuality peace of mind is really our product.”

To:

“There's $400 billion in premiums across P&C and life that is at stake. That's because 70% of policyholders are making renewal decisions in the next 12 months.”

“You lose, not just the customer for that one policy, but you lose the lifetime value of that customer.… The second thing that insurers will suffer from when a customer leaves is brand erosion, because in this day and age, with social media and mobile and so forth, bad news travels fast.”

Walsh:

“Insurers get compared to every other retail product or retail approach that consumers make. More often than not, of course, those are retail purchases that you make. They're joyful, they're delightful, they're exciting.”

What Customers Want

Walsh:

“GAFA -- or Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple: If I could describe the ideal experience every one of us wants, we almost want data like Google have it, supply chain like Amazon have it, a community like Facebook have and a brand like Apple….This whole concept of GAFA to me gives you the ideal framework for what a great experience would look like.”

The Key Words to Focus On

Walsh:

Convenience: “Let me pick on Amazon and Amazon Prime, specifically. I'm still in awe that someone turns up on Sunday morning, first thing, with my package I ordered the day before, and it's just there…. The speed at which they operate and are able to fulfill those things, we need to apply that to a claims scenario or a mid-term adjustment.”

Relevance: “We need to be relevant to customers time and time again, as opposed to approaches that we do once a year or at certain points in the year….Day in, day out. ADT and Nest is an example about how you become relevant to your customer by doing more than just insurance.”

To:

Seamlessness: “Customers are expecting the Apple-like experience….You want to provide that effortless experience to policyholders across all phases in their journey.”

Stickiness: “If you can provide agents and brokers with the latest product updates, support and expertise with the same ease as in a community like Facebook, you're creating loyalty and stickiness.”

Integrated: “Insurers have grown through acquisitions….I've worked with insurers who've got hundreds of different legacy systems, back-office claims, policy billing systems that they have to deal with, and you can't achieve a true single view of a customer without integrating all of these various pieces."

The Solution

Peeples: 

“Always start with the people. We have to stop thinking about sorting data, and we have to start thinking about beating hearts.”

“We all talk about busting silos, but silos are like cockroaches. They're going to outlive us all.”

“How do you think about those verticals where we all take such good care of the customer and say we own them, when in fact we're all just caregivers for a certain amount of time along that customer's journey? The elegance, or lack thereof, of those hand-offs is where I would also focus.”

To:

“If I'm a service agent or a sales agent, regardless of what device I'm using, whether it's a desktop or a mobile device, I want a single view of that policyholder that pulls together things like claims history, policy changes, interaction history, and add all of that in addition to policyholder profile information…. If I'm a life provider, it's important for me to know who the spouse and the children are because they could be potential dependents or beneficiaries. Tying all these pieces together requires more than just a unified front-end user experience. You need to actually unify the underlying pieces.”

Walsh:

“[The three most important areas for focus are] connecting elegantly, engaging regularly and seeing completely.”

“Engaging regularly is actually a tough challenge for insurance organizations because ultimately, why would I want to talk to my insurance provider unless it's a time of crisis? …There are some great examples, from the connected car, the connected home, the connected self, where we can actually regularly engage with each of our individuals that we want to market to and talk to. That's really, really key.”

“Millennials want to connect the way that says, “We actually have no clue what we've bought. We're worried about what we've bought. Therefore, can we speak to someone that's going to give me the assurance and confidence and walk me through the process?”

Peeples:

“The call center folks generally, not always, are some of the lowest-compensated. Maybe some of the least-trained. But they still represent the brand every single day as surely as the senior executives when they're speaking on analyst calls or to Wall Street. Those people are really where the rubber hits the road. If you haven't gone out and stood in the retail locations and seen the interactions, if you haven't sat at the caller processing centers… these are the warriors of your brand and of your company.”

“There was a study that was conducted around call centers that found that, in 2013, the average number of screens that a CSR would have to pull up to get to what you and I as a customer would think is a relatively simple answer, was five. That number jumped in 2014 to seven…. I would encourage just a very thoughtful process around connecting those systems.”

“We have to recognize that we no longer have the benefit and control of a monologue at the customers or stakeholders. It's no longer ‘word of mouth’; it's a ‘world of mouth’ out there.”

“We talk a lot about the customer's journey, but there's also equally as important an employee journey that creates this double helix that is the corporate DNA.”

Walsh:

“You can actually break the problem down into some quick hits. We've got some clients that launch products in 30 to 40 days. I say that to most people, and they almost fall of their chair because the usual time for these things is six, 12, 18 months….You need to tweak it, or it's going to fail. But with modern technology at least you can try and prove it and move it into a full rollout or move on to a different thing.”

Peeples:

“We need to listen to our customers, get out of our focus group of one, out of our own head.”

To:

“It simply will not work to turn to the predefined business process maps that you've done in the past. Don't turn to those. Think first about the customer and agent experience, what their goals are, and design the customer experience around those goals. Don't pave the cow path.”

“Rationalize. Make those tough decisions about what systems that you have in your spaghetti factory of legacy systems, which ones of them are strategic and which ones are you going to sunset.”

“Unify. Before you can even take the first few steps toward actually deploying or designing, you need to get basic blocking and tackling stuff done, like governance. Like having a common data model in place so that everyone agrees on what the data is, how it's defined and where it's going to come from. Unify the visions across the various levels in the organization.”

“You want to be able to measure your results. At the end of the development and after we've let it run for a little while, have we met our objectives?”

“Before problems even arise, you want to be so in tune with where that policyholder is in their interactions with you or in their life events that you are able to actually provide value-adding services and information before it even has to be requested.”

Walsh:

“Think big, start small, act quickly.”

“The cross sale, up sale is a constant, constant challenge. Most companies that I work with right now have an average of 1 to 1.1 products per customer. Best in class will tell you that it's probably 3 products per customer. What's the route for 1 or 1.1 to 3?”

Final Words

Walsh:

“Believe me, it's absolutely possible to do some crazy things out there.”

Peeples:

“Let's be honest here, we talk about hearts and minds, but it's really about hearts, minds and wallets.”

“By the numbers, 55% of our customers tell us that they would pay more for guaranteed better service, and 82% of our customers would buy more from us if we just made it easier for them. 89% of our customers said that they would quit doing business with us after a bad experience.”

“Stop thinking about transactions and start thinking about relationships. Whether they're customers or they're employees or they're part of the bigger universe of stakeholders including the intermediaries and the legislators and the regulators, it's about the people.”

“Always keep the people in mind. Be data-informed and technology-enabled, but always think about the people.”

To hear the full webinar, click here. To see the slides, click here. If you want the full transcript, email me at paul@insurancethoughtleadership.com.

The need to improve customers’ experiences in interacting with insurers strikes me as so acute that I’m going to take a shot at the issue here, even though we’ve been hitting it hard in a series of articles from Capgemini and Salesforce over the past month. (The articles are here, here, here and here, and a related white paper is here.) I want to share what I found to be some keen insights from a webinar I hosted last week with executives from the two companies and with Donna Peeples, a member of our advisory board who was the chief customer experience officer at AIG and who is currently the chief engagement officer at Motivated, a consultancy she founded to help improve experiences. The basis argument goes like this: Customer ratings of their dealings with insurers are bad and getting worse, putting hundreds of billions of dollars of premiums at risk. Insurers need to solve the problems and even find ways to start delighting customers. Technology must play a huge role. But a lot lies behind that straightforward argument, and a lot of art, as well as science, needs to be applied to the problem. Thus the insights from the webinar, whose panelists, in addition to Peeples, were Nigel Walsh, vice president, insurance, at CapGemini, and Jeffery To, senior director, insurance, at Salesforce. The insights are too long to fit on bumper stickers but are still plenty pithy and deserve careful thought. The Problem Peeples: “Let's face facts. Who really gets excited about buying insurance? It's just not that much fun.” “We think of claims as our product, when in actuality peace of mind is really our product.” To:  “There's $400 billion in premiums across P&C and life that is at stake. That's because 70% of policyholders are making renewal decisions in the next 12 months.” “You lose, not just the customer for that one policy, but you lose the lifetime value of that customer.… The second thing that insurers will suffer from when a customer leaves is brand erosion, because in this day and age, with social media and mobile and so forth, bad news travels fast.” Walsh: “Insurers get compared to every other retail product or retail approach that consumers make. More often than not, of course, those are retail purchases that you make. They're joyful, they're delightful, they're exciting.” What Customers Want Walsh: “GAFA -- or Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple: If I could describe the ideal experience every one of us wants, we almost want data like Google have it, supply chain like Amazon have it, a community like Facebook have and a brand like Apple….This whole concept of GAFA to me gives you the ideal framework for what a great experience would look like.” The Key Words to Focus On  Walsh: Convenience: “Let me pick on Amazon and Amazon Prime, specifically. I'm still in awe that someone turns up on Sunday morning, first thing, with my package I ordered the day before, and it's just there…. The speed at which they operate and are able to fulfill those things, we need to apply that to a claims scenario or a mid-term adjustment.” Relevance: “We need to be relevant to customers time and time again, as opposed to approaches that we do once a year or at certain points in the year….Day in, day out. ADT and Nest is an example about how you become relevant to your customer by doing more than just insurance.” To: Seamlessness: “Customers are expecting the Apple-like experience….You want to provide that effortless experience to policyholders across all phases in their journey.” Stickiness: “If you can provide agents and brokers with the latest product updates, support and expertise with the same ease as in a community like Facebook, you're creating loyalty and stickiness.” Integrated: “Insurers have grown through acquisitions….I've worked with insurers who've got hundreds of different legacy systems, back-office claims, policy billing systems that they have to deal with, and you can't achieve a true single view of a customer without integrating all of these various pieces." The Solution  Peeples:   “Always start with the people. We have to stop thinking about sorting data, and we have to start thinking about beating hearts.” “We all talk about busting silos, but silos are like cockroaches. They're going to outlive us all.” “How do you think about those verticals where we all take such good care of the customer and say we own them, when in fact we're all just caregivers for a certain amount of time along that customer's journey? The elegance, or lack thereof, of those hand-offs is where I would also focus.” To: “If I'm a service agent or a sales agent, regardless of what device I'm using, whether it's a desktop or a mobile device, I want a single view of that policyholder that pulls together things like claims history, policy changes, interaction history, and add all of that in addition to policyholder profile information…. If I'm a life provider, it's important for me to know who the spouse and the children are because they could be potential dependents or beneficiaries. Tying all these pieces together requires more than just a unified front-end user experience. You need to actually unify the underlying pieces.” Walsh: “[The three most important areas for focus are] connecting elegantly, engaging regularly and seeing completely.” “Engaging regularly is actually a tough challenge for insurance organizations because ultimately, why would I want to talk to my insurance provider unless it's a time of crisis? …There are some great examples, from the connected car, the connected home, the connected self, where we can actually regularly engage with each of our individuals that we want to market to and talk to. That's really, really key.” “Millennials want to connect the way that says, “We actually have no clue what we've bought. We're worried about what we've bought. Therefore, can we speak to someone that's going to give me the assurance and confidence and walk me through the process?” Peeples: “The call center folks generally, not always, are some of the lowest-compensated. Maybe some of the least-trained. But they still represent the brand every single day as surely as the senior executives when they're speaking on analyst calls or to Wall Street. Those people are really where the rubber hits the road. If you haven't gone out and stood in the retail locations and seen the interactions, if you haven't sat at the caller processing centers… these are the warriors of your brand and of your company.” “There was a study that was conducted around call centers that found that, in 2013, the average number of screens that a CSR would have to pull up to get to what you and I as a customer would think is a relatively simple answer, was five. That number jumped in 2014 to seven…. I would encourage just a very thoughtful process around connecting those systems.” “We have to recognize that we no longer have the benefit and control of a monologue at the customers or stakeholders. It's no longer ‘word of mouth’; it's a ‘world of mouth’ out there.” “We talk a lot about the customer's journey, but there's also equally as important an employee journey that creates this double helix that is the corporate DNA.” Walsh: “You can actually break the problem down into some quick hits. We've got some clients that launch products in 30 to 40 days. I say that to most people, and they almost fall of their chair because the usual time for these things is six, 12, 18 months….You need to tweak it, or it's going to fail. But with modern technology at least you can try and prove it and move it into a full rollout or move on to a different thing.” Peeples: “We need to listen to our customers, get out of our focus group of one, out of our own head.” To: “It simply will not work to turn to the predefined business process maps that you've done in the past. Don't turn to those. Think first about the customer and agent experience, what their goals are, and design the customer experience around those goals. Don't pave the cow path.” “Rationalize. Make those tough decisions about what systems that you have in your spaghetti factory of legacy systems, which ones of them are strategic and which ones are you going to sunset.” “Unify. Before you can even take the first few steps toward actually deploying or designing, you need to get basic blocking and tackling stuff done, like governance. Like having a common data model in place so that everyone agrees on what the data is, how it's defined and where it's going to come from. Unify the visions across the various levels in the organization.” “You want to be able to measure your results. At the end of the development and after we've let it run for a little while, have we met our objectives?” “Before problems even arise, you want to be so in tune with where that policyholder is in their interactions with you or in their life events that you are able to actually provide value-adding services and information before it even has to be requested.” Walsh: “Think big, start small, act quickly.” “The cross sale, up sale is a constant, constant challenge. Most companies that I work with right now have an average of 1 to 1.1 products per customer. Best in class will tell you that it's probably 3 products per customer. What's the route for 1 or 1.1 to 3?” Final Words Walsh: “Believe me, it's absolutely possible to do some crazy things out there.” Peeples: “Let's be honest here, we talk about hearts and minds, but it's really about hearts, minds and wallets.” “By the numbers, 55% of our customers tell us that they would pay more for guaranteed better service, and 82% of our customers would buy more from us if we just made it easier for them. 89% of our customers said that they would quit doing business with us after a bad experience.” “Stop thinking about transactions and start thinking about relationships. Whether they're customers or they're employees or they're part of the bigger universe of stakeholders including the intermediaries and the legislators and the regulators, it's about the people.” “Always keep the people in mind. Be data-informed and technology-enabled, but always think about the people.” To hear the full webinar, click here. To see the slides, click here. If you want the full transcript, email me at paul@insurancethoughtleadership.com.

“Baseball is a game of inches” – Branch Rickey Property damage because of flooding is quite different from any other catastrophic peril such as hurricane, tornado or earthquake. Unlike with those perils, estimating losses from flood requires a higher level of geospatial exactness. Not only do we need to know precisely where that property is located and the distance to the nearest potential flooding source, but we also need to know the elevation of the property in comparison to its nearby surroundings and the source of flooding. Underwriting flood insurance is a game of inches, not ZIP codes. With flood, a couple feet can make the difference between being in a flood zone or not, and a few inches of elevation can increase or decrease loss estimates by orders of magnitude. This realization helps explain the current financial mess of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). In hindsight, even if the NFIP had perfect actuarial knowledge about the risk of flood, its destiny was preordained simply because it lacked other necessary tools. This might make the reader believe that insuring flood is essentially impossible. Until just a few years ago, you’d be right. But, since then, interesting stuff has happened. In the past decade, technologies like data storage, processing, modeling and remote sensing (i.e. mapping) have improved incredibly. All of a sudden it is possible to measure and store all topographical features of the U.S. -- it has been done. Throw in analytical servers able to process trillions of calculations in seconds, and all of a sudden processing massive amounts of data is relatively easy. Meanwhile, the science around flood modeling, including meteorology, hydrology and topology, has been developed in a way that the new geospatial information and processing power can be used to produce models that have real predictive capabilities. These are not your grandfather’s flood maps. There are now models and analytics that provide estimates for frequency AND severity of flood loss for a specific location, an incredible leap forward from zone or ZIP code averaging. Like baseball, flood insurance is also a game of inches. And now it’s also a game that can be played and profited from by astute insurance professionals. For the underwriting of insurance, having dependable frequency and severity loss estimates at a location level is gold. There is no single flood model that will provide all the answers, but there is definitely enough data, models and information available to determine frequency and severity metrics for flood to enable underwriters to segment exposure effectively. Low-, moderate- and high-risk exposures can be discerned and segregated, which means risk–based, actuarial pricing can be confidently implemented. The available data and risk models can also drive the design of flood mitigation actions (with accurate credit incentives attached to them) and marketing campaigns. With the new generation of models, all three types of flooding can be evaluated, either individually or as a composite, and have their risk segmented appropriately. The available geospatial datasets and analytics support estimations of flood levels, flood depths and the likelihood of water entering a property by knowing the elevation of the structure, floors of occupancy and the relationship between the two. In the old days, if your home was in a FEMA A or V zone but you were possibly safe from their “base flood” (a hypothetical 1% annual probability flood), you’d have to spend hundreds of dollars to get an elevation certificate and then petition the NFIP, at further cost, hoping to get a re-designation of your home. Today, it’s not complicated to place the structure in a geospatial model and estimate flood likelihood and depths in a way that can be integrated with actuarial information to calculate rates – each building getting rated based on where it is, where the water is and the likelihood of the water inundating the building. In fact, the new models have essentially made the FEMA flood maps irrelevant in flood loss analysis. We don’t need to evaluate what flood zone the property is in. We just need an address. Homeowners don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars for elevation certificates; the models already have that data stored. Indeed, much of the underwriting required to price flood risk can be handled with two to three additional questions on a standard homeowners insurance application, saving the homeowner, agent and carrier time and frustration. The process we envision would create a distinctive competitive advantage for the enterprising carrier and one that would create and capture real value throughout the distribution chain, if done correctly. This is what disruption looks like before it happens. In summary, the tools are now available to measure and price flood risk. Capital is flooding (sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves) into the insurance sector, seeking opportunities to be put to work. While we understand the skepticism of the industry to handle flood, the risk can be understood well enough to create products that people desperately need. Insuring flood would be a shot in the arm to an industry that has become stale at offering anything new. Billions of dollars of premium are waiting for the industry to capitalize on. One thing the current data and analytics make clear is this: There are high-, medium- and low-risk locations waiting to be insured based on actuarial methods. As long as flood insurance is being rated by zone (whether it is FEMA zone or Zipcode), there is cherry-picking to be done. Who wants to get their ladder up the cherry tree first? And who will be last?

You've heard it before, "It's not the tip of the iceberg that cost you so much; it's what you can't see. It’s what's below the water level that costs you real money." We hear that the total loss to a company from a workers’ comp loss is six to 10 times the value of that work comp loss. But risk managers have neither the right tools to understand and measure the loss, nor the right tools to improve productivity to capture the cash flow that comes from preventing that loss. During my initial journey into lean sigma consulting, a seasoned Japanese colleague shared an important concept. While this principle was developed to improve the quality and efficiency of output in manufacturing, it has many other applications, including in improving safety and reducing workers’ comp costs. Understanding and applying the rule has improved the profitability of many companies. Dr. Genichi Taguchi, a Japanese engineer, theorized (and ultimately proved mathematically) that loss within any process or system develops exponentially–not linearly--as we move away from the ideal customer specification or target value. An example of Taguchi's Loss Curve is shown below: Another way to look at it is this: Anything delivered just outside the target, (labeled as LTL and UTL in the diagram above) creates opportunity for exponential financial improvement as we move toward the center of the U-shaped curve. And the farther away from the target we are, the greater the opportunity. I explain Taguchi's principle using an example from a kaizen event that dramatically improved machine setup times within a CNC shop. For years, our client assumed it took 46 minutes to set up and change over machinery. After all, for 10 years, it did take 46 minutes. But our kaizen team was hired to challenge this thinking. If the CEO and his team were right, setup times couldn't be completed any faster. But if setup times could be better, loss had been occurring beneath the water line, which meant the iceberg was growing, but no one knew. Machine setup time is loss because no value is produced during the setup process. And setup times can represent 35% of the total labor burden, so there's a lot at stake. While employers can compute labor and overhead costs easily, when their assumptions are incorrect about setup times, they're losing big money. But rarely do they know it or how much. Here's our client’s story: Our client used people and machinery to produce aircraft parts. Machines were not dedicated to product families or cycle times. In other words, the client could build a Mack Truck or Toyota Corolla on the same machinery. And because setup times were slow, the client built large batches of products. When defects struck, they struck in large quantities, and, financially, it was too late to find causes. The costs were already sunk. Our client borrowed capital to purchase nine machines, leased the appropriate space to house them and purchased electricity, water, and cutting fluids, as well. Each machine had affiliated tool and dies, and mechanics to service them. In other words, when you own nine machines, you need the gear, people and money required to operate and maintain nine machines. And all of this cost was based on 46-minute setups. Think about that for a moment. If the client didn't need nine machines, it wouldn't have had to spend all of that money and for all of those years! And a wrong assumption in setup times could be leading to loss that never appeared on any income statement. What would show would be the known labor, materials, machinery and overhead costs. But what wouldn't show would be what wasn't needed if the team could complete a setup in less than 46 minutes. After videotaping, collaborating and measuring cycle times on the existing operations and processes, it was evident: The team had ideas that would challenge the 46-minute setups. After some 5S housekeeping, the team produced a 23-minute setup. One more day of tweaking, and the team got it down to 16. By the last day, the team was consistently producing 10-minute results. Now let's talk about the impact. Under the better state, the client could indeed produce parts faster. It also needed far less capital, insurance, labor, gear, electricity, fluids, tooling, floor space, etc. And because our client's customer would now get parts faster, the company would get paid faster. While banks may not like these facts, clients and employees do. Employees can do their jobs more efficiently, and the company makes more money while borrowing less. Here's an explanation of the 5S tool the team used to make their setup times faster. This tool–when used properly––not only improves operating efficiency but removes or reduces safety hazards like: tripping, standing, walking, reaching, handling, lifting and searching for lost items. In addition, the kaizen event itself creates an opportunity for employees to improve their own job conditions and use their curiosity and creativity to solve production-related problems. The event also creates a more engaged employee, one less likely to file future work comp and employment-related claims. The 5S Process consists of five steps.

1. Sort the work area out.
2. Straighten the work area out, putting everything in the right place.
3. Clean the entire area, scrub floors, create aisle ways with yellow tape, wash walls, paint, etc.
4. Create standardized, written work processes.
5. Sustain the process

Using the tools like 5S, I continue to improve my thinking relating to identifying, and managing work comp risks. But during each kaizen event, I also gain perspective about why stakeholders rarely change their ways. What I’ve learned is this: Clients typically need to have one of two conditions met for good change to occur.

1. They need to have something to motivate them––which often means facing a crisis.
2. They need to physically see and experience things to believe them.

If you're like me, you probably need proof, too. Here it is: A reduction in setup times from over two and a half hours to just over ten minutes. What the Lean Assessment Does The lean assessment helps find improvement opportunities. That’s because assessments study and measure cycle times, customer demand, value-adding and non-value-adding activities. The assessment helps everyone—including the executive team— see how people physically are required to do their work and understand why they are required to do it the way they are. In the week-long assessment process, we're no longer studying the costs of just safety; we’re studying all of the potential causes that drive productivity and loss away from the nominal value. Safety is not necessarily why we are measuring outcomes. Safety is the benefactor from learning how and why the company adds value, and precisely where it creates loss. That is the power of good change. And good change comes from the power of lean. “The best approach is to dig out and eliminate problems where they are assumed not to exist.” – Shigeo Shingo

For those of us wondering what Google plans to do in insurance -- isn't that all of us? -- it's worth looking at the company's Project Sunroof. The project uses exceptionally sophisticated mapping data to determine which homeowners would most benefit from solar panels and, in the process, may provide some insight into how Google is approaching insurance.

To me, there are two key aspects of Project Sunroof. The first is that Google is taking a bottom-up approach that could inform a lot of decisions about insurance (while insurers traditionally go top-down). The second is that Google is being unusually smart about combining layers of information -- some proprietary, some in the public domain; some new, some long-available -- to produce what my frequent co-author Chunka Mui has, with a little help from me, labeled "emergent knowledge." ("Big data" is the term commonly used, but data isn't very interesting, while knowledge is. And the size of the database doesn't matter. What matters is using developments in technology to look in the right places to find the right data to answer the right questions so that revelations emerge.)

Top-down vs. bottom-up

Insurers typically start with pools of risk. They're getting much more sophisticated about subdividing those pools into ever smaller groups, but the thinking is still along the lines of "drivers without moving violations who travel 11,000 to 12,000 miles a year in generally suburban conditions." Insurers will keep getting more and more specific and produce more and smaller pools but are still going from the top down.

Now look at Project Sunroof. Google is modeling the world in three dimensions and using that model to generate information house by house based on totally personalized criteria: on the square footage on the roof that would be available for solar panels, on the amount of cloud cover that is expected to obscure the sun above that house, on the effectiveness of the sunlight that will hit the roof (incorporating calculations based on temperature and on how the angle of the sun changes each day) and on any shade that would be cast on those panels from other structures. Although the article doesn't say so, I assume Google calculates potential savings on solar based on the rates of each local utility. In any case, there are no pools in sight for Google -- unless you want it to tell you about those in the backyards.

That same model of the world could be the basis for a house-by-house, car-by-car, person-by-person approach to insurance for Google. And, if this approach works, Google will gain the sort of information advantage that has proved to be almost impossible to overcome. Even the largest insurers would have a hard time spending the money that Google has to map the U.S. by having cars drive every single street to take pictures and collect data, by making a series of acquisitions of data providers and by employing a small army of people to manually fix errors and update maps -- and Google would still have a years-long head start in developing its model of the world. Microsoft has thrown billions of dollars at search engines, but even Microsoft couldn't overcome the fact that Google's dominant share meant it was always learning and improving faster than Microsoft's Bing. Apple's map services were ridiculed, by comparison with Google's, when Apple launched them in September 2012. Apple is now at least in Google's ballpark on mapping, but no insurer can come close to Apple's resources -- a $646 billion market valuation and $202.8 billion of cash in the bank. That's "billion," with a "b."

Emergent knowledge

Google obviously begins with a huge asset because of its prescient decision years ago to map the entire U.S. and because of the recent work that has made that map 3D.  But Google is also taking data wherever it can get it.

I know from some work I did at the Department of Energy in 2010 that national maps of sunlight have been available for years, and they have surely become far more detailed as the interest in solar power has spread, so I assume Google didn't have to generate those maps on its own. Temperature maps are also in the public domain. (Especially high or low temperatures degrade the performance of solar panels.) Those maps will become increasingly granular as they incorporate data from smartphones and other widely used devices that can act as sensors -- temperature will no longer be what the weather station reports from the Detroit airport; temperature will be known house by house. Overhead photos from satellites and, in some cases, drones are widely available, so Google can use those to check square footage of roofs, to see which direction the solar panels would point and so on. Google can collect information on rates from state utility commissions, where utilities have to make regular filings.

It's easy to imagine Google layering similar types of information onto its map of the world for insurance purposes. In response to the federal Data.gov initiative, governments at all levels are making more information available digitally, so Google could incorporate lots of data about where and when accidents occur, where break-ins happen, where and when muggings occur and so on.

Google could incorporate private work that is taking a 3D approach to flood risk (whether your house is three feet higher or lower than the average in a neighborhood can make all the difference) and is being much more discriminating about earthquake risk. Google could add information, from public or private sources, on the age of homes, type of pipes used, appliances, etc. to flesh out its understanding of the risks in homes.

And, of course, Google will have lots of very precise information of its own to add to its model of the world, based on, for instance, what it knows about where your smartphone is and can infer about where you park your car, where and when you drive, etc.

Once you take all this information and map it to such a precise model, there will surely be some non-obvious and highly valuable insights.

WWGD: What Will Google Do?

Looking at Project Sunroof still doesn't say a lot about how Google will attack insurance. Will it just sell increasingly targeted and valuable ads? Will it sell leads? Will it become a broker? Will it do more?

But I think it's safe to say that, whatever Google does, its starting point will the most sophisticated model of the world -- and that model will always be improving.

Shopping for and eventually purchasing auto insurance is not the most enjoyable experience. It’s difficult because each state varies in terms of which specific types of coverage are required and which are not, i.e. luxury coverage. Even more trying is deciding which type of additional coverage you need. Most auto insurance companies profit from the sheer ignorance of the consumer. If you drive one of the 10 vehicles mentioned below, and you are paying quite a bit more than the upper limits, you have a solid case for changing policies. If you do not drive one of the 10 vehicles and are curious about how much you are paying versus what other auto insurers are willing to charge, compare auto insurance now! Data is derived from compare.com

This is the last in a series of three articles. The first is here. The second is here. From the impact of analytics, digitization and more exacting customer expectations to the disruptive effect of regulation, geopolitical instability and two-speed global economic growth, the insurance marketplace will look very different in 2020. With the industry at a tipping point, the future belongs to businesses that can make sense of the gathering transformation and act strategically rather than simply reacting to events. While some of the drivers of change in the insurance industry are common to all business lines, we believe that the impact will be seen in different ways and occur at different speeds. So what are the implications for each key insurance segment and how can businesses capitalize on them? Property and casualty personal lines

• A combination of automated underwriting and competition from aggregators and new entrants will drive down prices and accelerate the commoditization of motor, property and other core business lines. At the same time, new opportunities
 will continue to open up through new information-based models, both within traditional areas of insurance coverage and new fields, such as maintenance and concierge services. This "home intelligence" could pave the way for a broader range of concierge services built around a combination of customer knowledge and sensor technology.
• Some customers might go further by giving the insurer – or information company, which might be a better description for this evolving business model – access to much of their personal data, which the company would use to tender for a range of personalized services on customers’ behalf.
• Pressure on costs will make agency channels less economically viable and could lead to digital becoming increasingly dominant. But there will continue to be 
a strong role for agents in helping people to understand and manage what can often be complex protection needs. People may own more but have less time to manage the risks, be this damage, theft or breakdown, making the agent a valuable partner.
• Opportunities for partnerships exist with travel companies and motor manufacturers, with insurance forming part of a bundled service. However, such partnerships could limit the insurer’s opportunities to build customer relationships and take advantage of policyholder data.
• Data from car and equipment diagnostics, along with user behavior, will be exchanged with manufacturers and repairers, breaking down commercial boundaries and opening up further opportunities in design and maintenance. Further instances of this new ecosystem of information and assets include the integration of home sensor data with utilities’ and emergency services’ systems.
• We estimate that the reduction 
in accident, personal injury and
other auto-related claims as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technology becomes more widespread could reduce annual auto insurance losses in a developed market such as the U.S. by at least 10% by 2025. But the risk and claims profile would be more complex as the driver switches between self-driving (and hence driver liability) on the one side and ADAS driving (and hence product liability) on the other. While there 
are regulatory prohibitions on autonomous driving at present, it may eventually not just be permitted in many countries, but even be obligatory, especially in high-risk situations.
• Revenue models will shift from premiums to premiums plus subscriptions in offerings such as maintenance, prevention and vehicle management.

Commercial lines

• As the risk environment and client demands continue to evolve, commercial lines insurers have considerable growth opportunities in areas such as cyber risk and supply chain risk. Holistic analyses open the way for broader risk prevention and mitigation discussions with both agents and policyholders.
• Alternative risk transfer will continue to develop and expand, moving beyond catastrophe into areas such as cyber and supply chain risk.
• Advanced analytics that help to quantify exposure change patterns could help to mitigate the frequency of accidents, business interruption and other losses.
• Given the potential for sharply rising losses and ever more complex loss drivers, there will be a growing need for coordinated risk management solutions that bring together a range of stakeholders, including corporations, insurance/reinsurance companies, capital markets and policymakers across the globe. For some of these risks, such as cyber risk, some form of risk facilitator, possibly the broker, will be needed to bring the parties together and lead the development of effective solutions.

Life, annuities and pensions

• The focus of life coverage will shift from life benefits to promoting well-being and quality of life. This new model will combine digital data and partnerships with gyms, diet and fitness advisers and healthcare providers. Well-being benefits are likely to appeal to typically affluent segments that tend to focus on staying fit and healthy, including both younger and active older customers. For a sector that has had significant challenges attracting young, single, healthy individuals, this represents a great opportunity to expand the life market, as well as attract older customers who normally would think it is too late for them to purchase life products.
• Advanced analytics will enhance
 the precision, customization and flexibility of financial planning and risk protection, paving the way for solutions that easily adapt to life changes and stretch beyond insurance to cover a comprehensive range of financial needs.
• Sensor technology will lead to increasing integration between insurers and healthcare providers, marked by information exchange, better understanding of risks and costs and the potential to not only make cover for people with pre-existing conditions more accessible but also improve health and prolong life.
• Life coverage will shift to shorter-term contracts. At present, typical life insurance contracts are for the long term. However, this is a deterrent
 to most customers today. Moreover, behavioral economics shows us 
that individuals are not particularly good at making long-term saving decisions, especially when there
 may be a high cost (i.e. surrender charges) to recover from a mistake. Therefore, individuals tend to delay purchasing or rationalize not having life insurance at all. With well-being benefits, contract durations can be much shorter – even only one year.

To help dramatize how the different markets may look, here are three possible scenarios: Scenario One: Property and Casualty in 2025 All-'round prevention and protection “I got a text in the morning saying there’s a potential fault with the boiler. But by the time I got home it was fixed,” says Akil Badem from Istanbul. “I don’t worry about breakdowns anymore, because I know that my insurer will have it all sorted out.” Akil’s boiler, security and other home equipment are all connected to automated sensors that optimize performance and minimize fuel usage. The connected devices can also detect potential faults and, if they can’t be put right automatically, alert the nearest repair and maintenance team. No more breakdowns, no more waiting. The comprehensive coverage provided by market leader, There When You Need It, also takes care of all Akil’s transport requirements, including best-price bus and rail fares, a car when he needs one and insurance that automatically adjusts to how far he travels, his speed, the road type and other risks, and whether he or the automated driving system is in control of the car. “It’s just so easy. A couple of clicks on my mobile, and it’s all up and running. I can’t believe how people got along before,” he says. Grace Nkomo, CEO of There When You Need It, says, “In 2015, we saw that everything was changing in our marketplace, be this how auto insurance is underwritten or the possibilities opened up by the Internet of Things. We knew that if we use the technology to change how we connect with and serve our customers, we could create an early-mover advantage that we’ve maintained ever since.” Scenario Two: Life, Annuities and Pensions in 2025 Fit for the future “I’ve never felt better,” says Karen O’Neil from Seattle. “Every time I go to the gym, the cost of my health insurance and life coverage comes down. My insurance company even got me a great deal on trainers.” Karen’s lifestyle, health and financial planning coverage is designed to make it easier to stay healthy, manage her finances and plan for the future. A wearable sensor monitors key aspects of her health and alerts her to fitness advice and any medical issues that need following up. The healthcare and life insurance package includes tie-ups with gyms, well-being counselors and sports-wear providers, putting the emphasis on how to stay fit and healthy, as well as medical and life benefits when they’re needed. There is also a savings plan that puts aside any money left over from the rent, food and other spending and automatically adjusts investments to market movements and Karen’s investment goals. “At 29, I thought that these kind of schemes were for people a lot older and wealthier than me,” Karen says. “But my personalized package helps me to feel good now – and I know I can adjust as my needs change.” Scenario Three: Commercial Insurance in 2025 Advanced risk detection averts cyber attack Remote monitoring centers operated by a major insurance company have thwarted a coordinated attack on a retail group’s online network. Cyber gangs were planning to bring down the group’s server and then hack into the accounts of its millions of customers. The insurance company’s monitoring centers were able to not only detect the breaches but protect the server from damage and ensure business carried on as usual. The cyber protection forms part of a comprehensive "business as usual" risk management package, which automatically anticipates and responds to any problems in supply, customer service and reputational integrity. The service is designed to zero in on any threats and take preemptive action. Advanced risk evaluation and pricing analytics enable the insurer to take account of multiple existing and emerging risk factors and determine a dynamic price based on the cost of reducing and mitigating the risks, as well as transferring the risks in alternative markets. Monitors continuously track real-time events (e.g. geo- political, technology, environmental and social events) around the world to build an accurate and evolving qualitative profile of the exposures facing clients and how they can be managed. How to Design Your Strategy to Face the Future For many – if not most – insurers, this changing market is likely to require a significant change in products and the redesign of long-established business models. This will not be easy. It’s important to develop a clear vision of where and how the business intends to compete. For some, it could include a wholly new value proposition. For life insurers, this could include a broader and more compelling offering built around quality of life and well-being on the one hand and the targeting of untapped segments on the other. For P&C companies, this could include assessing opportunities to enhance data and risk monitoring and looking at how this information could apply to a broader range of risk-prevention and protection needs. Having established strategic intent, it’s important to determine how to target individuals through different messages and channels, simplify product design and re-engineer distribution and product economics. Further considerations include how to reshape the underwriting process to capitalize on new analytics and sensor information, as well as steps to make the sales and policy administration process more straightforward and real-time. Such is the speed of market developments that it’s virtually impossible to predict what customer demand will look like in a few years’ time. Old approaches to strategic planning and execution may be too slow to keep up with the pace of change. Instead, we propose a four-step LITE (Learn-Insight-Test-Enhance) approach to marketing, distribution, product design, new business, operations and servicing.

• Learn your target segments’ needs
• Build the models that can provide insight into customer needs
• Test innovations with pilots to see whether they resonate with customers and refine the value proposition
• Enhance and roll out the new value proposition for specific segments

Using this approach, developments that would have taken years can be brought to market in a matter of months, if not weeks, and then assessed, adapted, and discarded/expanded to meet changing market needs. The result will be a much faster and more responsive business, capable of keeping pace with customer demands and capitalizing on unfolding commercial opportunities. In conclusion, the future should be bright for insurers. They have opportunities to engage more closely and become a much more valued and intrinsic part of people’s lives, be they individuals, families or businesses. Insurers will have more information upon which to base smart solutions and serve a broader range of needs. The challenge is how to make sure insurers capitalize, as the marketplace will be much more open and potentially less loyal. For the full report from which this article is excerpted, click here.