Incumbents and InsurTechs must embrace each other’s unique strengths and work together

Publié le par hanswillertbleuazurconsultingeu

Executive summary

New challenges, changing business dynamics have set off a tectonic shift in the insurance industry

  • Customer expectations are evolving, offers are becoming more innovative, and new players are making their presence known.
  • Fundamental and significant challenges will require insurers’ immediate and considered attention.
  • As a result of these changing dynamics, incumbents and InsurTechs agree that collaboration with other industry players is necessary to create an integrated portfolio of offerings.

Insurers must support a platform that serves a broad spectrum of customer needs

  • The future marketplace will showcase a bouquet of offerings that caters to customers’ financial and non-financial needs.
  • Insurers need a structured approach to marketplace development that includes proper identification of customer preferences and relevant offerings, evaluation of best-fit partners, and an effective GTM strategy.
  • Today’s operating model will undergo a fundamental transformation as part of the inevitable path forward.

Experience-led digital offerings and seamless collaboration with ecosystem players will drive marketplace success

  • Insurers will need to tear down internal silos, seamlessly connect with ecosystem players, and be more inventive.
  • Our Inventive Insurer profile includes key characteristics:
    • intelligent insurer,
    • open insurer,
    • deep customer,
    • and product agility.

Incumbent-InsurTech collaboration can shore up competencies in preparation for the future

  • InsurTechs’ unique capabilities and agility make them ideal partners for incumbents aiming to carve out a substantive role in the new marketplace.
  • A successful holistic collaboration will focus on long-term benefits.

New ecosystem roles will evolve as the industry transitions toward the marketplace model

  • Industry players must decide how to successfully and profitably contribute to the new ecosystem based on their most compelling competencies, as well as market needs and the external environment.

There’s no looking back for today’s digitally-empowered consumers

Throughout the past decade, as smart technology tools became mainstream, consumer interaction with the world changed dramatically. Changing lifestyles, behavior, and preferences have created a digital-age paradigm. As smartphones and the internet unlock information and decision power, interconnectivity, personalization, and seamless omnichannel access have become must-haves.

So, what does this mean for insurers?

Policyholders seek new offerings: Traditional insurance policies may not fully meet customers’ changing needs and desire for add-on services, personalization, and flexible offerings. In fact, for nearly half of policyholders, the decision to continue with their insurer is influenced by the availability of these features and benefits, according to the World Insurance Report (WIR) 2019.1

The demand for digital transaction channels is up: The popularity of digital channels is gradually growing. More than half of insurance customers (nearly 52%) interviewed as part of the WIR 2018 placed high importance on the mobile and internet or a website channel for conducting insurance transactions.

Simplicity is the rationale behind genuinely digital products

Digital channels work best when insurers streamline and standardize products and processes so customers easily understand features and benefits and can make direct purchases online with ease. In short, insurers must simplify offerings to create genuinely
digital products.

  • Easy to understand: Policy details should be redesigned and reformatted for straightforward interpretation so customers can quickly make a buy/ no-buy decision. For example, Berkshire Hathaway’s Insurance Group (BiBerk) launched a comprehensive insurance product for small businesses that combines multiple coverages. Dubbed THREE, the new product is three-pages long and links coverage for workers compensation, liability (including general liability, errors and omissions, and cyber), property, and auto.
  • Automated processes: Straight-through processing and other ease-of-use tools can simplify underwriting, claims processing, and more across the value chain. Cake Insure, a subsidiary of Colorado-based Pinnacol Assurance, launched in late 2017 with an algorithm that produces a bindable quote in less than a minute and a bound policy in fewer than five minutes for small businesses seeking workers’ compensation insurance. New York-based property and casualty InsurTech Lemonade uses artificial intelligence to automate claims processing. Lemonade showcases a 2016 case in which it crossreferenced a claim against a user’s policy, ran 18 anti-fraud algorithms, approved the claim, and sent wiring instructions to the bank in three seconds to demonstrate ease of use.
  • Straightforward policy wording: Descriptions of policy coverage and expenses (which ones are payable and which do not qualify) must be explained clearly in everyday language. Similarly, insurance industry players should work together to standardize definitions, exclusions, and processes.
  • Interactive customer education: Gamification, interactive videos, and social channels are ways to educate customers about risks, their need for coverage, and policy details. Interaction can also improve customer engagement and experience.

The marketplace of the future can holistically focus on customer needs

HomeFlix is a virtual assistant offering renters and homeowners insurance underwritten by Zurich Connect, the digital arm of Zurich Italy, and powered by on-demand digital broker Yolo, a Milan-based InsurTech. In addition to insurance coverage, the policy, introduced in July 2019, offers laundry service – washed and ironed after a few days and paid directly on delivery. Access to concierge maintenance services such as plumbing and electric also is available. Next, HomeFlix plans home delivery, babysitting, and cleaning services.

New York-based Generali Global Assistance (a division of Italy’s Generali Group, which provides travel insurance-related services) strategically partnered with San Francisco-based rideshare company Lyft in late 2017 to improve customer service and contain costs for clientele of its insurance companies and multinational corporations. Later, Lyft
collaborated with CareLinx, a US professional caregiver marketplace that helps find, hire, manage and pay caregivers online, to create CareRides, a door-to-door transportation service for special-needs individuals in 50 US metro areas. Generali Global Assistance also partnered with CareLinx to provide value-added services for existing policyholders in times of need.

The marketplace of the future can offer emerging-risk coverage

Working with Cisco, Apple, and Aon, Allianz launched a comprehensive cyber insurance product for businesses in early 2018. The product includes a solution comprised of cyber-resilience evaluation services from Aon, secure technologies from Cisco and Apple, and options for enhanced cyber insurance coverage from Allianz. The product aims to help a broader range of organizations manage and protect themselves better from cyber risks associated with ransomware and malware-related threats.

The marketplace of the future can deliver simple to understand, easy-access offerings

Berlin-based startup FRIDAY offers innovative, digital automotive insurance with features like kilometeraccurate billing, the option to terminate at month’s end, and paperless administration. The InsurTech’s technologies and partnerships include:

  • Telematics support from the BMW CarData platform and from TankTaler, which tracks vehicle location as well as data such as battery voltage, mileage, and other statistics
  • Automotive services through the mobility hub of ATU, a German chain of vehicle repair franchises
  • Drivy, a peer-to-peer car rental marketplace that enables consumers to lease vehicles from private individuals
  • Friendsurance, a peer-to-peer InsurTech that pays out a percentage to customers who do not use (or use very little) annual insurance also sells FRIDAY policies

Prudential Singapore and StarHub partnered to create FastTrackTrade (FTT), Singapore’s first digital trade platform for small and midsized business (SMBs) that uses blockchain technology. FTT helps SMBs find business partners and distributors, buy and sell goods, track shipments, receive and make payments, access financing, and buy insurance via a single platform. FinTech startup Cités Gestion developed the pioneering platform with funding from Prudential.

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Structure supports success

Insurer success in the future marketplace will rely on a structured approach (see Figure 3).

  • Understanding customer preferences and conceptualizing product portfolios: Insurers can tap new data sources such as social media channels and use behavioral analytics for better understanding and more accurate estimation of their customer’s preferences and risk profile. With a deeper understanding of customers, they can conceptualize personalized product portfolios for each customer segment.
  • Recruiting the right partners: Once the product portfolio is finalized, insurers should look for partners that align with their business objectives and strategic vision. Cultural fit, ease of integration of systems, and seamless channels of communication are key success factors.
  • Structuring the offerings portfolio: Insurers should closely collaborate with partners while assembling their portfolio. A winning product/service mix offers a hyper-personalized one-stop solution for all the needs of the customer.
  • A compelling go-to-market strategy: Insurers should be able to communicate the value of the marketplace by touting human-centric offerings that customers find simple to understand and easy to access.
  • Capturing feedback: Through advanced analysis of sales data, direct customer input, social media, etc., insurers can capture feedback about their offerings. The process should be continuous rather than on an ad-hoc basis. More importantly, the input should be immediately acted upon to enhance current products or to conceptualize a new product.

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To realize the full potential of the structured approach, four fundamental shifts in the current operating model are critical

For an insurer to realize the full potential of the structured approach and ensuring the successful creation of the marketplace of the future, four fundamental shifts in the current operating model are critical (see Figure 4). The importance of these areas is borne out by the research. For example:

  1. Experience: More than 70% of insurers and InsurTechs said a focus on holistic risk solutions for customers was critical to establishing a future-state insurance marketplace.
  2. Data: More than 70% said advanced data management capabilities are critical.
  3. Partnerships: 90% of InsurTechs said partnerships were critical while 70% of incumbents said the same. Both insurers and InsurTechs have a hearty appetite for collaboration with other sectors, such as healthcare providers and players from the travel, transportation, and hospitality space (see Figure 5).
  4. Shared access: However, an emerging area in which views are evolving is the transition to a shared economy. Here, less than 40% of established insurers and InsurTechs say they consider shared ownership of assets to be critical.

Industry players should understand that the four shifts – focus on experience, data, partnership, and shared access – are interrelated and critical for partnering with other entities to develop bundled offerings. Concentrating on one at the expense of others may stymie the overall efficiency of the marketplace.

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Digital maturity does not match aspiration

While insurers realize the importance of these fundamental shifts, there is a significant gap between their expectations and their current digital maturity. Lack of digital maturity is the biggest concern for incumbents. While 68% of insurers said they believe partnerships are critical, only 32% are currently collaborating with ecosystem partners (see Figure 6).

Less than 40% of insurers have a holistic digital transformation strategy and are collaborating with ecosystem players to provide value-added services. Only 11% of insurers say they leverage open architecture, which is critical for working with other industry players.

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Experience-led digital offerings and seamless collaboration with ecosystem players will drive marketplace success

We call firms prepared to excel in the future marketplace Inventive Insurers because they have strategically updated their product portfolios, operating models, and distribution methods. They have outlined their distinctive capabilities as well as their competency gaps and are ready to deliver end-to-end solutions in the manner customers prefer.

Pragmatic assessment (and subsequent enhancement) of a firm’s digital maturity is critical to connecting with ecosystem players seamlessly. Figure 7 shows the steps companies need to take to establish the marketplace of the future.

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1. Prioritize digital agility

The critical first step in the future marketplace journey is boosting digital agility. The more quickly initiatives are implemented, the more quickly firms will enhance their digital maturity and actively participate within a connected ecosystem. Insurers must holistically adopt these critical capabilities to optimize their digital agility and seamlessly connect with partners to develop digitallyintegrated ecosystems (see Figure 8).

  • Real-time data gathering
  • Advanced analytics
  • Re-engineering complex processes and automating them

CG7

2. Build an integrated ecosystem

Seamless collaboration between insurers and their strategic partners is the backbone of a digitally integrated ecosystem. As new players enter the insurance value chain (aggregators, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), one-stop policy management apps, and third parties such as repair stores), incumbents must strengthen their position through strategic partnerships.

Our proposed digitally-integrated ecosystem seamlessly interconnects insurers with customers and partners to enable the efficient flow of information and services (see Figure 9).

CG8

In the digitally-integrated ecosystem, customers can access insurers over various channels through extended multi-device, multi-platform, and mobility offerings. Digital integration with partners will play a crucial role as insurers seek to increase their reach and provide customers with convenient and seamless services.

Integration with aggregators and intermediaries offers insurers a choice of distribution channels. As insurers connect with individual customers through devices, real-time data can be captured and used to provide personalized offerings and value-added services.

Insurers will move beyond traditional touchpoints to become their customers’ constant risk control advisory and partner. For that to happen, however, insurers will need to join forces with third-party vendors for efficient claims management and payout, and with OEMs for real-time customer data.

APIs, cloud-based storage, and blockchain can foster insurance ecosystem integration by enabling the seamless and secure transfer of data between diverse systems. A digitally-integrated ecosystem – both within and outside the organization – will support the real-time, personalized services that customers already demand. Digital mastery can benefit top- and bottom lines and propel insurers forward.

Grasping the art of teamwork with close ecosystem players – and relevant offerings based on core capabilities – will lay the groundwork for insurers to partner profitably.

3. Create tomorrow’s marketplace

Firms must develop Inventive Insurer competencies to contribute to the successful development of tomorrow’s marketplace. These competencies include intelligent processes, open platforms, customer centricity, and an innovative mindset among team members ( see Figure 10).

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Intelligent insurer. Automation, analytics, and artificial intelligence can prioritize customer experience within all operations.

  • Process efficiencies can support top-notch service with quick turnaround times.
  • Analytical competencies help insurers understand customer needs and act swiftly.
  • Robust digital governance provides monitoring and ensures compliance within today’s dynamic regulatory environment.

Open insurers leverage open platforms to build an ecosystem of partners through seamless collaboration with third parties and enable firms to participate in the value chain of third parties. Insurers with open platforms can access and integrate new data streams to cater to customers’ evolving needs, reaching them in the way they prefer via new distribution channels. Modern platform with open architecture for providing bouquet of offerings also allow firms to take a fail-fast approach to product development and innovate at a faster pace.

Deep customer competencies allow insurers to leverage data and channels for enhancing the customer experience across all touchpoints. Deep customer insights generated using advanced analytics and AI enable insurers to keep the customer at the center of all decisions.

Product agility is crucial for insurers to create new products at a faster pace and gain a competitive edge from an increased speed-to-market. Creative culture and ability to innovate at scale are critical components for achieving product agility. A creative culture
encourages novel thinking from employees and spurs openness to change.

Innovation labs and design thinking can encourage a fresh approach, especially within cultures that are hard-wired with conventional processes and culture.

Leadership support and vision are also critical. While Inventive Insurer status may be an aspirational future state, each firm’s journey is unique. An open platform used as a sandbox is an excellent place to begin developing new competencies and learning how to innovate at scale. Inventive Insurers create digital, experience-led offerings by collaborating seamlessly with other ecosystem players.

Incumbents and InsurTechs will benefit from strategic collaboration

For the most part, the industry sees InsurTech collaboration only as a means to drive growth and transform the customer experience. For example, 84% of insurers and 80% of InsurTechs say they are focusing on “developing new offerings.”

However, when it comes to the critical building blocks for the new insurance marketplace – such as developing holistic technology infrastructure and advanced data management capabilities – there are significant gaps in the expectations of insurers and InsurTechs. For example, fewer than 40% of incumbent insurers want to build holistic technology infrastructure by collaborating with InsurTech firms, while more than 60% of InsurTechs wish to work with insurers to create such a foundation.

What’s more, while data security remains a crucial concern when establishing partnerships with other industries, only around 10% of incumbents and 25% of InsurTechs say they want to focus collaborative efforts on data security.

Industry players should focus on a holistic approach while venturing into an insurer-InsurTech collaboration to prepare for the future and consider tactical plans for quick wins that may offer short-term benefits.

External partners can facilitate incumbent-InsurTech collaboration

After clearly outlining collaboration objectives, insurers must select a partner. The World InsurTech Report 2018 took a deep dive into the InsurTech landscape and offered ways in which incumbents can assess the success potential of short-to-medium term partnerships with InsurTech firms as well as longterm relationship feasibility. Finding a partner that can address technology capability gaps may require specialized third-party support.

Incumbents and InsurTechs can optimize their structured collaborative efforts by keeping four guiding pillars in mind: People, Finance, Business, and Technology (Figure 13).

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People (The right individuals in the best-fit positions): Employees are a firm’s most essential assets when it comes to driving innovation, growth, expansion, and fruitful collaboration. Both partnering entities must be flexible and strive for a balance between the hierarchical nature of many traditional insurers and the flat organizational structure favored by InsurTechs.

Finance (Allocate optimal capital, realistically forecast returns): Without a defined investment and revenue model, it may be difficult to articulate a compelling value proposition. Participants need adequate capital to invest in the partnership and a proven revenue generating model to maintain positive cash flow in the not-too-distant future.

Business (Early traction, measurable success): Business traction, a proven business model, customer adoption, and value creation are must-meet goals for any potential collaboration. A new business model should solve the needs and challenges that were difficult to tackle independently. A collaborative partnership should produce a value proposition with quantifiable results.

Technology (Collaboration tools and technologies): Technology tools should be secure and enable frictionless collaboration, as well as scalability. Partner systems should securely integrate with the help of technology. Accessed information must be accurate, timely, and be regulatorily compliant. It should be scalable without affecting current systems.

New ecosystem roles will evolve as the industry transitions toward the marketplace model

As the insurance industry advances, new specialist roles are developing. In addition to the traditional integrated business role, new functions include that of Supplier, Aggregator, and Orchestrator. Close collaboration will enable incumbents and InsurTechs to maximize opportunities in each.

These roles are not business-model exclusive but business-case specific. Each ecosystem entity may mix and match positions depending on the business model in play (see Figure 15).

Established insurers and InsurTechs can also play multiple roles within an ecosystem. For example, a firm can act as both supplier and orchestrator. Similarly, one firm may be a supplier in an ecosystem, but be an orchestrator in another ecosystem.

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Optimize for both Social and Business Value – Building Resilient Businesses, Industries, and Societies

Publié le par hanswillertbleuazurconsultingeu

Why Is Corporate Capitalism at a Tipping Point?

Stakeholders are beginning to pressure companies and investors to go beyond financial returns and take a more holistic view of their impact on society. This should not surprise us. After all, we have lived through two decades of hyper-transformation, during which rapidly evolving digital technologies, globalization, and massive investment flows have stressed and reshaped every aspect of business and society.

As in previous transformations, the winners created new dimensions of competition and built innovative business models that increased returns for shareholders. Many others found their businesses at risk of being disrupted, with familiar formulas no longer working. To meet the unwavering demands of Wall Street, many companies relentlessly optimized operating models, streamlined and concentrated supply chains, and specialized their assets and teams — leaving them less resilient and less adaptable to shifting markets and trade flows. The resulting waves of corporate restructuring, consolidation, and repositioning have fractured companies’ cultures and undermined their social contracts.

Furthermore, this hyper-transformation cascaded beyond individual companies and created socio-economic dynamics that left many people and communities economically disadvantaged and politically polarized. Combined with the increasing shared anxiety that the earth’s climate is changing faster than the planet can adapt, a global zeitgeist of risk and insecurity has emerged. We will enter the 2020s with more citizens, investors, and leaders convinced that the way business, capital, and government work must change — and change quickly.

We now must rethink the sustainability of the whole system in the face of extreme externalities — or risk losing social and political permission for further progress. The 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identify the moral and existential threats that we must meet head-on. While some question the SDGs’ breadth and timeline, most agree that, if achieved, they would create a more just, inclusive, and sustainable world.

Goal 17 calls for new engagement by companies and capital in partnership for collective action across the public, social, and private sectors. Five years into the SDG agenda, there is ample evidence that governments, investors, and companies are beginning to exercise their capacity to create much-needed change.

Change Is Underway but Is Hardly Sufficient

Many institutional investors are racing to integrate ESG (environmental, social, and governance) assessments into their decision making, and they are expecting companies to report on how they deliver on those metrics. New efforts promote radical disclosure, like the Bloomberg/Carney TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures), which encourages signatories to report on the climate risks of their financial holdings.

New standards initiatives are creating a foundation for nonfinancial performance accounting, and the prospect of widespread “integrated reporting” seems realistic. Companies are investing in “purpose” and defining their contributions to society against material ESG factors and SDG goals. Corporate sustainability and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) functions, historically on the sidelines, are now being integrated into line business activity, with progressive companies expanding the scope of competition to include differentiation on environmental and societal dimensions. And through industry consortia, many companies are taking collective action on issues that both threaten their right to operate and open up new opportunities for their industries.

Such examples are important early signals that the context for business is changing. However, for all the progress on commitments, agreements, metrics, and policies, there has been little aggregate progress against top-level goals, like

  • reducing CO2 emissions,
  • cutting plastics waste,
  • or narrowing social and economic inequality within nations.

Without demonstrable impact and collective progress, social and political pressure will only build, further threatening the legitimacy of corporate capitalism.

A New Societal Context for Business

Companies will face escalating social activism by investors, stakeholders, social mission organizations, and policymakers on issues of

  • climate risk,
  • economic inequality,
  • and societal well-being.

Governments and local communities will set a higher bar for a company’s right to operate, and in a connected world a company’s local performance will quickly affect its global reputation and trigger social and regulatory consequences. Stakeholders will expect radical transparency on ESG performance.

This will shift investors’ perceptions of a company’s risk and opportunity, skewing capital toward those that deliver both financial returns and positive societal impact. To satisfy a growing demographic of socially minded consumers and businesses, companies will need to demonstrate “good products doing good” and anchor their brands and identity around a credible purpose.

Talent will gravitate toward companies that give employees a line-of-sight to making the world better while also providing a fulfilling career. To win, companies will need to define competition more broadly, adding new dimensions of value through

  • environmental sustainability,
  • holistic well-being,
  • economic inclusion,
  • and ethical content.

This will require radical business model innovation

  • to enable circular economies for precious resources;
  • to provide assets that are shared rather than owned;
  • to broaden access and inclusion;
  • and to multiply positive societal impact.

At this critical moment for corporate capitalism, business is more trusted than government, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer. Farsighted corporate leaders will see the opportunity for their industries to

  • mitigate environmental and societal threats,
  • catalyze collective action to discover new solutions,
  • shape wider ecosystems,
  • and expand trust with stakeholders.

Such actions will be indispensable to strengthen social permission for corporate capitalism before it is further undermined.

CEOs Need an Agenda for Value and the Common Good

We frame the journey to new corporate value and the common good around six imperatives.

It begins with reimagining corporate strategy, then

  • involves transforming the business model,
  • reframing performance and scorekeeping,
  • leading a purpose-filled organization,
  • practicing corporate statesmanship,
  • and elevating governance.

BCG 1

While challenging to execute, we argue that this agenda will be essential to create a great company, a great stock, a great impact, and a great legacy.

Reimagine Corporate Strategy

We believe few companies have strategies for this new era of business. The following exhibit illustrates the ambition of such a strategy, which establishes competitive advantage at the intersection of

  • shareholder value,
  • corporate longevity,
  • and societal impact.

The “quality” of the strategy is thus judged by how it delivers both total shareholder returns and total societal impact.

BCG 2

Consequently, it widens the scope of competition to encompass creating rich differentiation and relative advantage in multiple areas of societal value. It embeds “social value” into new business constructs, shared value chains, and reconstructed ecosystems.

It also opens, broadens, and deepens markets to enable access and inclusion. And it expands the scope of business by calling for coalitions for collective action that address existential risks to environmental and societal ecosystems.

This new type of strategy flips leadership’s perspective from “company-out” to “societal needs-in,” by asking how a specific SDG target could be met by extending the company’s capabilities, assets, products, services, and ecosystem—and those of its industry. The following exhibit lists ten questions that strategists should incorporate into their strategy processes to ensure that they embrace the opportunity to create both shareholder returns and societal impact.

BCG 3

However, these new strategies cannot simply be grafted onto existing business models. Business models themselves will need to be transformed. Sustainable business model innovation (S-BMI) takes a much wider perspective than traditional business model innovation by considering

  • a broader set of stakeholders;
  • the system dynamics of the socio-environmental context;
  • longer time horizons for sustaining adaptable advantage;
  • the limits of business model scale, viability, and resilience;
  • the cradle-to-grave production and consumption cycle;
  • and the points of leverage for profitable and sustainable transformation.

Transform Business Models

We can already observe seven topologies for sustainable business model innovation, sometimes in combination, all with the potential to increase both financial returns and societal benefits.

  • Own the origins. Compete on capturing and differentiating the “social value” of inputs to production processes, products, or services. For example,
    • pursue cleaner energy,
    • sustainable practices,
    • preserved biodiversity,
    • recycled content,
    • inclusive and empowering work practices,
    • minimized waste,
    • digitized traceability,
    • fair trade, and so on.

Performance here will require differentially advancing the societal performance of the supplier base and its stewardship of resources, communities, and trade flows. Achieving this may require backward integration to ensure fast and complete upstream transformation and then holding and using these new capabilities for competitive advantage and differentiation.

  • Own the whole cycle. Compete by creating societal impact through the whole product usage cycle, from creation through end of life. This competitive typology puts a wide aperture on the business and requires systems analysis to uncover business models that offer the richest competitive and financial options. For example,
    • designing for circularity, recyclability, and waste to value;
    • creating offerings that enable sharing rather than owning to ensure high utilization of resources and end-of-life value;
    • constructing infrastructure to facilitate circularity and repurposing;
    • integrating into other value chains to capture societal value;
    • educating and enabling consumers to choose whole-cycle propositions on the basis of value to people and planet.

To achieve these ends, expect to reposition operations, reinvent supply chains and distribution networks, pursue new backward or forward integration, acquire business adjacencies, or undertake unconventional strategic partnering.

  • Expand “social value.” Compete by expanding the value of products or services on six dimensions:
    • economic gains,
    • environmental sustainability,
    • customer well-being,
    • ethical content,
    • societal enablement,
    • and access and inclusion.

Then advocate new standards, increase transparency and traceability, tune marketing and segmentation, engage customers on the product’s wider value and their involvement in bigger change, and seek premium pricing. In business-to-business offerings, help customers integrate the full social value of your products, services, and business model into their own differentiation and ESG ambitions.

  • Expand the chains. Compete by extending the company’s value chain, layering onto other industries’ value chains to extend the reach of your products and services and the societal impact for both parties, while changing the economics and risks of doing so. For example,
    • use the reach of a consumer products distribution system to extend payments and financial services to small merchants;
    • layer one company’s health services onto another company’s physical supply chain to benefit its workers and their families while expanding markets for health services;
    • or use the byproducts of one company’s operations as feedstock in other companies’ value chains.
  • Energize the brand. Compete by digitally encoding, promoting, and monetizing the full accumulated social value that is embedded in products and services, along the whole value chain— from origins to customer, from cradle to grave. Use such data to rethink differentiation, the brand experience, customer engagement, pricing for value, ESG reporting, investor engagement, and even potential new businesses. For example,
    • strengthen the brand with promotions that showcase the business’s performance on the open, clean, green, renewable, and inclusive attributes of its operations;
    • and increase customer engagement and loyalty by using data on the product’s environmental and societal footprint to empower customers in choosing how their lifestyle affects the planet and its people.
  • Relocalize and regionalize. Compete by contracting and reconnecting global value chains to bring societal benefits closer to home markets in ways stakeholders value. For example,
    • build local and regional brands that better express local tastes and values;
    • source from smaller local producers to minimize logistics emissions and strengthen local economies;
    • reimagine production networks against total environmental and societal costs;
    • capture local waste streams as feedstocks for other activities;
    • or reconstitute jobs for microwork to use local talent.
  • Build across sectors. Compete by creating models that include the public and social sectors to improve the company’s business and societal proposition, particularly in emerging and rapidly developing economies. For example,
    • work alongside governmental bilateral aid institutions and NGO development organizations to improve the agricultural capacity of small farmers so they become reliable sources of agricultural inputs to the agro-processing value chain;
    • partner with global environmental organizations and governments to promote the reuse of ocean plastics as feedstocks to production systems;
    • partner with governments to strengthen social safety nets and prevent corruption through digitization and electronic payments;
    • or partner across sectors to restructure recycling systems to enable higher penetration of waste-to-value business models.

Extend this into industry coalitions for collective action that reshape broader rights to operate and generate new opportunities.

All seven types of S-BMI create new sources of differentiation, operating advantage, network dynamics, and societal value — enabling more durable and resilient businesses that benefit shareholders and society. But to assess and improve the performance of these business models and communicate their value, we need to expand today’s scorecards.

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Can Data and Technology Support the Insurance Industry to Regain Lost Relevance?

Publié le par hanswillertbleuazurconsultingeu

Since the start of the Third Industrial Revolution in the 1980s, the world has changed in many different ways:

  • rapid introduction and adoption of technological innovation (global internet; social networks; mobile technologies; evolving payment solutions; data availability);
  • new economic realities (volatile and shorter economic cycles; interconnected financial climate; under utilisation of assets);
  • structural shifts in society’s values (desire for community; generational altruism; active citizenship);
  • and demographic readjustment (increasing population; urbanization; longer life expectancy; millennials in the work force).

While these changes have been happening, the Insurance industry has seemingly preferred to operate in a closed environment oblivious to much of the impact these changes could bring:

  • Resistance to change,
  • Failure to meet changing customer demands
  • Decrease in the importance of attritional risks

has led the Insurance industry to reduce its relevance.

However

  • the availability of data,
  • the introduction of new capital providers,
  • the impact of new business models emerging from the sharing economy
  • and the challenge of InsurTechs

are affecting the industry complacency. Collectively, these factors are creating the perfect storm for the incumbents allowing them to re-evaluate their preference for maintaining the status quo. There is an ever increasing expectation from the industry to be more innovative and deliver a vastly improved customer experience.

As data and emerging technology are accelerating the need for change, they are also opening doors. The industry is at cross roads where it can either choose to regain relevance by adapting to the new world order or it can continue to decline. Should it choose the latter, it could expose the US$ 5 trillion market to approaches from large technology firms and manufacturers who have the access to customers, transformational capabilities and more than enough capital to fill the void left by the traditional players.

Insurance industry is slow to evolve

The Insurance industry has historically lacked an appetite to evolve and has shown reluctance in adopting industry-wide changes. A number of key elements, have created high barriers to entry. New entrants have found it difficult to challenge the status quo and lack appetite to win market share from incumbents with significantly large balance sheets. Such high barriers have kept the impact of disruption to minimal, allowing the industry to stay complacent even when most other industries have undergone significant structural shifts. In many ways ‘Darwin’ has not been at work.

  • A complex value chain

The Insurance industry started with a simple value chain involving four roles – the insured, a broker who advices the insured, an underwriter who prices the risk and an investor who provides the capital to secure the risk. Over centuries, the chain has expanded to include multiple other roles essential in helping the spreading of large risks across a broad investor community, as shown below.

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These new parties have benefitted the chain by providing expertise, access to customers, secure handling of transactions, arbitration in case of disputes and spreading of risk coverage across multiple partners. However, this has also resulted in added complexities and inefficiencies as each risk now undergoes multiple handovers.

While a longer value chain offers opportunities to new entrants to attack at multiple points, the added complexities and the importance of scale reduces opportunities to cause real disruption.

  • Stringent regulations

Insurance is one of the highest regulated industries in the world. And since the global financial crisis of last decade, when governments across the globe bailed out several financial service providers including insurers, the focus on capital adequacy and customer safety has increased manifold.

While a proactive regulatory regime ensures a healthy operating standard with potential measures in place to avoid another financial meltdown, multiple surveys have highlighted the implications of increased regulatory burden, leading to increased costs and limited product innovation.

  • Scale and volatility of losses

The true value of any insurance product is realised when the customer receives payments for incurred losses. This means that insurers must maintain enough reserves at any time to meet these claims.

Over the years volatility in high severity losses have made it difficult for insurers to accurately predict the required capital levels.

In addition, regulators now require insurers to be adequately capitalised with enough buffer to sustain extreme losses for even the lowest probability of occurrence (for example 1-in-100 years event or 1-in-200 years event). This puts additional pressure on the insurers to maintain bulky balance sheets.

On the other hand, a large capital base gives established insurers advantage of scale and limits growth opportunities for smaller industry players/new entrants.

  • Need for proprietary and historical data

Accurate pricing of the risk is key to survival in the industry. The insurers (specifically underwriters supported by actuaries) rely excessively on experience and statistical analysis to determine the premiums that they would be willing to take to cover the risk.

Access to correct and historical data is of chief importance and has been a key differentiating factor amongst insurers. Since the dawn of Third Industrial Revolution in the 1980s, insurers have been involved in a race to acquire, store and develop proprietary databases that allow them to price risks better than the competitors.

The collection of these extensive databases by incumbent insurers have given them immense benefits over new entrants that do not typically have similar datasets. Additionally, the incumbents have continued to add on to these databases through an unchallenged continuation of underwriting– which has further widened the gap for new entrants.

Struggling to meet customer needs

Despite years of existence, the Insurance industry has failed to keep up with the demand for risk coverage. For example the economic value of losses from all natural disasters has consistently been more than the insured value of losses by an average multiple of 3x-4x.

The gap is not limited to natural disasters. As highlighted by Aon’s Global Risk Management Survey 2019, multiple top risks sighted by customers are either uninsurable or partially insurable leading to significant supply gap.

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Six of the top 10 risks, including Damage to reputation/brand and Cyber, require better data and analytical insights to achieve fully effective risk transfer. However, current capabilities are primarily applied to drive better pricing and claims certainty across existing risk pools, and have not yet reached their full potential for emerging risks.

This inability to meet customer need has been driven by both an expensive model (for most risks only 60% of premiums paid are actually returned to the insured) and a lack of innovation. Historically, the need for long data trends meant insurance products always trailed emerging risks.

Status Quo is being challenged

While the industry has been losing relevance, it is now facing new challenges which are creating pressure for change. While these challenges are impacting the incumbents they also provide the potential for insurance to regain its key role in supporting innovation. Creating opportunity for lower costs and new innovations.

The insurance customer landscape has changed considerably: traditional property and casualty losses are no longer the only main risks that corporations are focused on mitigating. The importance of intellectual property and brand/reputation in value creation is leading to a realignment in the customer risk profile.

Value in the corporate world is no longer driven by physical/ tangible assets. As technology has advanced, it has led to the growth of intangibles assets in the form of intellectual property. The graph below shows that 84% of market capitalization in 2018 was driven by intangible assets. While the five largest corporations in 1975 were manufacturing companies (IBM; Exxon Mobil; P&G; GE; 3M), that has completely changed in 2018 as the first five positions were occupied by Tech companies (Apple; Alphabet; Microsoft; Amazon; Facebook). Yet, organizations are only able to secure coverage to insure a relatively small portion of their intangible assets (15%) compared to insurance coverage for legacy tangible assets (59%).

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This shift represents both a challenge and an opportunity for the Insurance industry. The ability to provide coverage for intangible assets would enable insurance to regain relevance and support innovation and investment. Until it can, its importance is likely to remain muted.

InsurTech

The Insurance industry has had traditionally manual processes, and has been a paper driven industry with huge inefficiencies. While customers´ needs are evolving at an unprecedented quick pace, the incumbents´ large legacy systems and naturally conservative approach, make them slow to reach the market with new products and an improved customer experience.

InsurTechs are companies that use technology to make the traditional insurance value chain more efficient. They are beginning to reshape the Insurance industry by targeting particular value pools or services in the sector, rather than seek to provide end-to-end solutions.

InsurTechs have seen more than US$ 11 billion of funding since 2015, and the volume in 2018 is expected to reach US$ 3,8 billion (FT PARTNERS). While Insurtechs were originally viewed as a disruptive force competing with traditional insurers to gain market share, there is a growing collaboration and partnership with the incumbent players. Most of them are launched to help solve legacy insurer problems across the organization, from general inefficiency in operations to enhancing underwriting, distribution, and claims functions, especially in consumer facing insurance. More recently they are also moving into the commercial segment focusing on loss prevention and efficiency. (CATLIN, T. et al. 2017). Incumbent insurers have managed to leverage InsurTechs to speed up innovation (DELOITTE, 2018: 11). From a funding perspective most of the US$ 2.6 billion that went into the InsurTechs in the first nine months of 2018 came from incumbent Insurers. (MOODY`S, 2018: 6).

The accelerated use of technology and digital capabilities again represents both a challenge for the industry but also an opportunity to innovate and develop more efficient products and services.

Data and technology with potential to transform

Traditionally, the Insurance industry has used proprietary historic data to match the demand from risk owners with the supply from capital providers. Focusing on relative simplistic regression analysis as the main approach.

While robust, this approach is reliant on a long data history and limits insurers ability to move into new areas. Increasingly the transformative power of data and technology is changing this relationship, as shown in the graph below. While underwriting data used to be in the hands of the incumbents only, emerging technologies, new analytical techniques and huge increases in sensors are enabling usage of new forms of data that are much more freely accessible. In addition, these technologies are supporting instant delivery of in-depth analytics that can potentially lead to significant efficiency gains and new types of products.

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  • Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence – Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Cognitive Intelligence (CI) – is know as any system that can perceive the world around it, analyse and understand the information it receives, take actions based on that understanding and improve its own performance by learning from what happended.

Artificial Intelligence not only gives the opportunity to reduce costs (process automation; reduction of cycle times; free up of thousands of people hours) but improves accuracy that results in better data quality. For insurers this offers significant potential to both enable new ways of interpreting data and understanding risks. As well as reducing the costs of many critical processes such as claims assessment.

This dual impact of better understanding and lower costs is highly valuable. Insurers’ spend on cognitive/artificial intelligence technologies is expected to rise 48% globally on an annual basis over five years, reaching US$ 1.4 billion by 2021. (DELOITTE, 2017: 15).

  • Internet of Things

The Internet of Things refers to the digitization of objects around us. It works by embedding advanced hardware (e.g. sensors, cameras and meters) into everyday objects and even people themselves, linking those objects further to online networks. (MOODY`S, 2018: 11).

For example, connected devices in the homes such as water leakage detectors, smoke alarms, C02 readers and sophisticated home security systems will support prevention and reduction in losses from water damage, fire and burglary, respectively.

The Internet of Things has the potential to significantly change the way that risks are underwritten. The ability to have access to data in ‘real time’ will provide greater precision in the pricing of risk and also help insurers to respond better to the evolving customer needs. Consider the example of home insurance; customers will be forced to resconsider the decision to buy home insurance as packaged currently when their house is already monitored 24/7 for break-ins and the sensors are constantly monitoring the appliances to prevent fires. The insurers could utilise the same data to develop customised insurance policies depending on usage and scope of sensors.

The Internet of Things applies equally to wearable devices with embedded sensors for tracking vital statistics to improve the health, safety and productivity of individuals at work. It is predicted that the connected health market will be worth US$ 61 billion by 2026.

The Internet of Things offers the Insurance industry an opportunity to reinvent itself and to move from simply insuring against risk to helping customers protect the properties / health. This integration of insurance with products through live sensor data can revolutionise how insurance is embedded into our every day lives.

  • Blockchain

All disruptive technologies have a “tipping point” – the exact moment when it moves from early adopters to widespread acceptance. Just as it was for Google in the late 1990s and smartphones in the 2000s, could we be approaching the tipping point for the next big disruptive technology – blockchain?

Essentially, blockchain is a shared digital ledger technology that allows a continuously growing number of transactions to be recorded and verified electronically over a network of computers. It holds an immutable record of data, stored locally by each party to remove the barrier of trust. Through smart contacts, blockchain can enable automation of tasks for more efficient processing. It made its debut in 2009 as the system used to track dealing in the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and, since then, organisations around the world have spotted blockchain’s potential to transform operations.

Most industries are currently experimenting with blockchain to identify and prove successful use cases to embrace the technology in business as usual. IDC, a leading market intelligence firm, expects the spend on blockchain to increase from US$ 1.8 billion in 2018 to US$ 11.7 billion in 2022 at a growth rate of 60%.

With all the aforementioned benefits, blockchain also has potential to impact the Insurance industry. It can help Insurers reduce operational and administrative costs through automated verification of policyholders, auditable registration of claims and data from third parties, underwriting of small contracts and automation of claims procedures. Equally, it can help reduce the fraud which would contribute to reduce total cost.

In an industry where ‘trust’ is critical, the ability to have guaranteed contracts, with claims certainty will help the take-up of insurance in new areas. BCG estimates that blockchain could drastically improve the end-to-end processing of a motor insurance policy and any claims arising thereof as shown in the graph below.

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Conclusion

The relevance of insurance, which has declined over the last few decades, after peaking in the early 1980s, is set to increase again:

  • Big shifts in insurance needs, both in the commercial and consumer segments,
  • New sources of cheap capital,
  • Prevelance of cheap and accessible data and the technology to automate and analyse

will transform the Insurance industry.

Not only is this important for insurers, it is also important for all of us. Insurance is the grease behind investment and innovation. The long term decline in the Insurance´s industry ability to reduce risk could be a significant impediment on future growth.

However we believe that the reversal of this trend will mean that insurance can once again grow in its importance of protecting our key investments and activities.

Click here to access Aon’s White Paper

 

Accelerated evolution – M&A, transformation and innovation in the insurance industry

Publié le par hanswillertbleuazurconsultingeu

Strong appetite for deal activity

Today’s insurers know that maintaining the ‘status quo’ is not a recipe for sustainable growth. They feel the pressure of disruption in the market from

  • new competitors,
  • new technologies,
  • new customer demands
  • and new sources of capital.

They feel the pain of

  • continued low interest rates,
  • volatility in underwriting losses
  • and pressure on profitability,

as investment portfolio yields continue to decline.

Organic growth has been challenging across most of the mature insurance markets. Consider this: Since the start of this decade to 2016, global gross domestic product (GDP) increased by more than 20 percent. Yet the global premium market grew by just 9 percent over the same period. Insurers recognize that things must change if they want to maintain or grow their market share.

“In an era of anticipated disruption of legacy business and operating models, global insurance executives realize that their strategy cannot be about pursuing growth for growth’s sake. When it comes to growth strategy, more of the same is not necessarily the best answer. What may have been a core business in the past may not be in the future,” notes Ram Menon, KPMG’s Global Insurance Deal Advisory Leader.

Today’s insurance leaders are taking a more strategic view of the value of M&A. According to a recent global survey of 115 insurance CEOs conducted by KPMG International, more than 60 percent of insurers now see disruption as more of an opportunity for growth than a threat. And they are using their capital and their M&A capabilities to maximize those opportunities — often by strategically deploying capital towards emerging technology as a competitive advantage to

  • engage customers,
  • generate cash flows
  • and enhance enterprise value.

The good news is that — for the most part — capital and surplus levels are at record highs across life, non-life and reinsurance markets. And most insurers plan to tap into that capital to make deals. In fact, our survey suggests that close to three-quarters of insurers expect to conduct an acquisition and two-thirds expect to seek partnership opportunities over the next 3 years. Eighty-one percent say they will conduct up to three acquisitions or partnerships in the same period. More than 70 percent said they are hoping their deals will help transform their organization in some way. As a top priority,

  • 37 percent hope to transform their business models,
  • 24 percent want to transform their operating models,
  • and 10 percent are looking to acquire new innovation capabilities and emerging technologies

through their acquisitions.

“Insurers increasingly recognize their days of operating business-as-usual numbered. And it’s not small changes market going to be undoing — big ones,” says Thomas Gross with KPMG Germany. Auto insurers, for example, looking at rapid adoption of mobility models and wondering how they add value when car manufacturers or leasers own relationship customer.”

On their path to transformation, insurance companies expect to strategically deploy capital against a range of specific inorganic growth opportunities:

  • transforming their business models for sustainable growth;
  • modernizing their operating models for profitable growth;
  • enhancing customer engagement;
  • and gaining access to innovation and emerging technologies.

“The top factor that will drive insurance acquisitions will be the need for emerging technologies. Insurance companies are all looking at how to put their operations on digital platforms in order to save time and resources both for the company and the customers,” notes the Head of Finance at a China-based property and casualty (P&C) insurer. At the same time, a significant number of insurers also hope to rebalance their portfolio of businesses. Many plan to evaluate whether they should fix or exit businesses that are struggling to achieve returns in excess of their longterm capital rates. This should allow them to remain focused on transforming businesses they consider core for the future while freeing up additional capital for reinvestment into new lines of business and technology capabilities.

As the director of finance at a UK-based non-life insurer notes, “Units that are consistently performing poorly will be segregated to further analyze their positions and whether or not they still fit in the company’s planned structure. We discourage force-fitting any product or company unless it has great potential for generating revenue. If it does not, we look for suitable buyers for the business.”

Our data indicates, insurance executives expect to exit non-core businesses, enter new markets and gain access to new technology infrastructure and operating capabilities via M&A and partnerships, as a way to further diversify their global risks and earnings profile.

Looking beyond the borders

Our survey suggests that the majority of insurers will be involved in some sort of non-domestic deal: 68 percent say they expect to conduct a cross-border acquisition, partnership or divestiture over the next 3 years. Just 32 percent say their top priority will be on domestic activity.

“Over a period of 3 years, we expect to see a lot of M&A transactions overseas. We are looking to expand into regions that are new for us and with acquisitions, you can get going without having to set up a base from scratch or encounter a lot of unforeseen risks,” notes the senior VP for M&A at a global insurance brokerage firm. Perhaps not surprisingly, our data suggests that insurers expect to see the most activity in North America — the US in particular. Given that the US is still the largest insurance market in the world with around 30 percent of the global premium market share, many insurers see the US as a source of steady market growth and relative premium stability.

“The volume of M&A in North America will increase the most in the coming years. With the new tax reforms, insurance companies will pay lower taxes — these new regulations will provide insurers opportunities to grow. Companies from other markets will also want to take advantage of the lower tax rate and will look for ways to expand into the US market,” suggested the CFO at a Bermuda-based reinsurer. Changes to US tax laws will certainly create significant disruption and opportunity for insurers both onshore and offshore. “The reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21 percent makes US assets much more compelling,” notes Philip Jacobs, leader of the Insurance Tax practice with KPMG in the US. “The lower US tax rate has also eliminated some of the offshore tax advantage; the large Bermuda players may still be operating with relatively low effective rates, but the tax differential between operating in the US versus Bermuda has narrowed.”

Latin America, however, expects relatively lower levels of deal activity. “It’s a sellers’ market in Latin America,” notes David Bunce, Senior Client Partner with KPMG in Brazil. “Lots of international insurers want to get into certain Latin American markets, but nobody is really ready to sell.”

At the other end of the spectrum — and the other side of the world — Asia-Pacific is widely viewed as a region of massive growth potential and innovation. China has already become the world’s second largest insurance market (with around 10 percent of
global premium market share) and premiums have more than doubled since 2010. Singapore and Hong Kong have long been key centers of insurance innovation growth.

Asia-Pacific was identified as the geographic region where insurers would most likely seek partnership opportunities. “As insurers seek to expand outside of their traditional distribution networks in Asia, digital partnerships are emerging as a fairly quick way to tap into new customer segments without significant upfront capital investment,” adds Joan Wong with KPMG China. “A digital partnership could unlock significant new growth, which would tip the balance for those making a ‘go or grow’ decision about their businesses.”

The director of investment at a Korea-based international insurer agrees. “Asia has become one of the biggest markets for insurers, and the region’s growing population along with changes in capital regulations will give insurers the backing they need to grow. In China alone we have seen a major increase in the number of companies seeking out new ventures in the insurance sector.”

While the majority of our respondents say they are looking across their borders for growth, those in Asia-Pacific are much more likely to be focused on domestic acquisitions instead. “Most of the markets in Asia are still fairly domestically oriented and there is still significant fragmentation and inefficiency that could be eliminated,” adds Stephen Bates with KPMG in Singapore. “Given the growth potential across the region, it’s not surprising that Asian insurers are thinking about taking advantage of opportunities at home before investing further into foreign markets.”

Somewhat tellingly, insurers expect most of the divestiture activity to originate from Western Europe. As the head of finance and investments at a large French insurer argues, “The persistent compression in global interest rates continues to be a challenge for the insurance industry, and many companies in Europe are aiming to divest in part to cope with this. When you add in the factors of changing regulation and customer demographics, it means that insurance business models have evolved and companies are reshaping themselves accordingly.”

“Insurers in Europe are very interested in diversifying their risk and see adjacent markets as an opportunity to do just that,” notes Giuseppe Rossano Latorre, Head of Corporate Finance at KPMG in Italy. “There are a number of life insurers that are looking at the asset management business, for example, as a potential growth opportunity in the future.”

Our data indicates that in the Life sector, acquisitions will likely focus on finding lower-risk, higher-growth, higher-return assets, particularly around capital-light retirement, investment management and group benefits businesses. However, greater levels of activity should be expected in the Nonlife sector, driven by a growing appetite for more profitable specialty risks and commercial risks, with a preference for commercial risk in the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector.

What this survey makes clear is that global insurance companies recognize they now have a window of opportunity to strategically allocate their capital across the globe towards achieving and accelerating their transformation strategy.

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Click here to access KPMG’s detailed study