In our last two blogs, we discussed why
consumer playbooks and
SMB playbooks have such an effective application for business. Insurers, especially, can use the idea of a playbook to put together a package of viable “plays” that will help them on their shift from Insurance 1.0 into Digital Insurance 2.0 — the second wave of technological and business model advancement within insurance.
In our pregame analysis, we looked at Majesco’s research into consumer and SMB behaviors and expectations. In this blog, we’re going to look specifically at the kinds of offerings that may be ideal for consumers. Of course, we won’t be developing low-level product detail, like an insurer would. Instead, we’ll connect high-level consumer indicators to the types of product and service attributes that could yield insurer differentiation and advantage.
New Consumer Behaviors and Expectations
Across all businesses, including insurance, disruption and change is driven by people. At its simplest, an offering can be created in two ways. First, we might observe changing behaviors and unserved or underserved needs that people have in today’s digital world to come up with an innovative idea that improves outcomes. Second, we might develop a new idea through some other inspiration or observation that meets a need or expectation — one that people didn’t even realize they had until the new idea came along — like Steve Jobs famously did at Apple. With either of these, we can create a value proposition that supports a new Ideal Offering.
See also: Digital Insurance 2.0: Benefits
In 2017, Majesco set out to confirm consumer trends, across generational segments, looking at the attributes of new products and new business models in the marketplace. Using data from our 2016 research, we gauged increased use of new, digital activities that are influencing expectations and behaviors, highlighting year-over-year growth in today’s consumer practices.
The results can be found in our thought-leadership report,
The New Insurance Customer — Digging Deeper: New Expectations, Innovations and Competition; a synopsis of areas of digital impact would include:
Sharing Economy: Ride-sharing, home-sharing and room-sharing are on the rise.
Connected Devices: Fitness trackers are gaining incredible traction across all generations. Telematics, though maturing, are still increasing in growth, especially among Boomers.
Payment Methods: Both use of company app payments (Amazon, Starbucks, etc.) and ApplePay and SamsungPay saw strong year-on-year growth among Gen Z and millennials.
Channels: Across all generations, 22% to 38% of individuals purchased insurance from a website.
Products: Between 25% and 30% of individuals had purchased on-demand insurance in 2017.
Other Emerging Technologies: Items such as drones and 3D printers are growing in use.
If we were in front of a whiteboard, we might use a word cloud to place some of these capabilities side by side and in groupings. For the purposes of the blog, we’ve created a list with many of the relevant concepts an organization will find, that will touch or likely touch Digital Insurance 2.0 offerings. This is the type of exercise that insurers may want to use during product brainstorming sessions. Included in the list are both the technologies themselves and the contexts that will drive the use of these technologies. In creating an Ideal Offering, insurers will want to take many of these capabilities and context drivers into account.
- On-demand
- Sharing
- Telematics
- Fitness tracking
- Property monitoring
- Pay-as-you-go
- Mobile account management
- Digital security
- Digital assistant
- Bundled insurance
- Data-driven pricing
- Gig employment
- Peer-to-peer insurance
- Artificial intelligence
- Preventive services
- Mobile messenger app-based communications and transactions
Given the pronounced generational patterns identified in Majesco’s research, it becomes clear that Ideal Offerings must take into account that different market and product strategies are necessary for each generation. To facilitate this thinking, we developed generational playbooks that summarize the attributes (the “ingredients”) that constitute the ideal insurance offerings (“the innovations”) for each segment (the “recipe model”).
We also identified behavioral targeting opportunities for specific product, service and process offerings for sub-segments within the generations, based on experiences with certain technologies and trends. Here are just a few of our findings:
Gen Z Offerings
Gen Z tops the list for groups that are ready to purchase Digital Insurance 2.0 offerings. These offerings would use highly ranked attributes such as preventive services, rewards-based products, messenger apps, mobile quoting, charitable sharing, on-demand products, bundled products and usage-based products. They are also a prime market for targeting products based on usage of new technologies. For example, those Gen Z members who use fitness trackers (41%), are more interested in having health and life insurance premiums that are partially based on their tracking data. They are also willing to join an affinity group that shares their interests, especially if it helps them reduce the cost of insurance.
So, an insurer trying to identify an Ideal Offering for Gen Z should consider that real-time, personal data tracking tied to fluctuating usage and variable-premium products (premiums based on behavior/activity levels) may be highly attractive to this group. And on-demand products fit their lifestyle needs. They are the industry’s newest buyer that aligns with the new products and models, reflecting the opportunity to capture and engage them today as they emerge as a dominant buyer.
Millennial Offerings
Millennials are likewise open to having personal data drive usage-based insurance. They are mobile users who will be happy transacting via messenger apps. They like the idea of telematics-based auto insurance. They like on-demand offerings and any service that can prevent or minimize accidents and claims. They are willing to share their data if it improves pricing and service. If they have ever used a device that monitors driving, they are highly likely to consider on-demand, device-tracked insurance for other areas of insurance.
Because millennials are also experience-seeking consumers, an insurer looking to capture millennials may want to create products that match up with experiences and trackability. Marine insurance, motorcycle and ATV insurance and any products that can employ both telematics and a mobile-based on/off switch will be highly valued. Because personal watercraft and ATVs are often rented and borrowed instead of owned, on-demand personal liability insurance could be an excellent product, sold both D2C and through rental companies.
In general, all generations, including pre-retirement Boomers, are showing signs that using insurance to cover an event with a specific duration will be a desired capability.
See also: Global Trend Map No. 6: Digital Innovation
Gen X Offerings
There is really very little difference between Gen X consumer desires and those of millennials, reflecting the rapid adaptation to digital by this generation. However, there is greater growth in the Gen X segment regarding mobile payments. Year over year, more of the Gen X cohort paid for transportation through a ride-sharing service like Uber or Lyft, and more of them began using ApplePay and SamsungPay. Though some of this is driven by work/life maturity and lifestyle, it shows a general acceptance regarding mobile transactions and a desire to make transactions as simple as possible.
Ideal Offerings for Gen X will concentrate highly on ease of use and seamless functionality between quotes, admin, payments and claims. Much of this, clearly, is less product-based and more service-based, but when it comes to Digital Insurance 2.0, the two should never be separate considerations, rather should be an integrated offering. Back-end capabilities, front-end digital capabilities and lifestyle-relevant products are all part of the same agile environment.
Pre-Retirement Boomers
It was once thought that pre-retirement Boomers would simply be happy with traditional insurance products serviced in traditional ways. Once again, active lifestyles and our research are proving this to be false. The greatest jump in online insurance purchases falls within the pre-retirement Boomer segment. Because they tend to drive fewer miles, they have also latched onto the idea of usage-based auto insurance, leading the wave of growth in this area as well. Year over year, they are using substantially more fitness trackers, 3D printers and drones — and they are much more likely to have worked as an independent contractor or freelancer. This is not your previous generation of retirees!
Because they tend to travel more, they are excellent candidates for property-monitoring devices as well as on-demand insurance. They want to protect their earnings, so they are price-conscious. When we tested business models against generational segments, pre-retirement Boomers were highly receptive to online life insurance products that included quick quoting and simplified issue.
“DIY” Ideal Offerings for Insurers
Ideas are business tools. They are just as important as systems and processes. Ideas, however, rely on capabilities. Insurance offerings are obviously constrained or enabled by the digital readiness of an insurance company. In other words, to make the playbook work, there must be a foundation in place. For insurers, that foundation is Digital Insurance 2.0.
Digital readiness opens insurer doors to rapid testing of ideas and rollout. It allows a greater amount of freedom in product development, easier business configurability and exponentially better data gathering and digital service. Digital efforts provide speed to value, converting ideas to offerings while opportunities are fresh.
In our next blog in this series, we’ll look at Ideal Offerings within the SMB market.
