The New Insurance Is No Insurance

Insurers are aware that technology will help to reduce claims drastically and therefore finally run premiums down to unsustainable levels. Time to move on “Insurance is a cornerstone of modern life. Without insurance, many aspects of today’s society and economy could not function. The insurance industry provides the cover for economic, climatic, technological, political and demographic risks that enables individuals to go about their daily life and companies to operate, innovate and develop.” Source: Insurance Europe I fully support this, but the way this cornerstone fits into modern life needs attention. It’s time to move on. See also: Insurance Coverage Porn   The Third Wave Twenty years ago, I set up the first digital insurance. Ten years ago, I set up (again the first) mobile insurance Now we’re heading for the third wave: connected insurance. Real connected insurance with the new opportunities that technology brings is what I (with a few former colleagues) believe in and have been working on for some time now. Of course: "IoT," "data science," "AI," "customer-centric" and "on-demand" are the buzzwords. But let me add two: "holistic" and "transversal." "Holistic" refers to the complete modern household with a connected lifestyle and "transversal" to the consumer who is completely not interested in our industry verticals. Insurance has to stay but with an overall and fresh approach. Hundreds of insurtech initiatives are currently taking pieces and add sometimes compelling features. See the Sherpa-Neos-Interpolis-Trov-CBien-Metromile-Vitality-Clark-Knip-PolicyGenius-Lemonade-Inshared-like initiatives. The real challenge is to bring it all together to a compelling, simple, transparent and engaging full service offer to the customer. Focus on prevention The new insurance is no insurance -- meaning the focus should not be on pushing insurance products but on offering prevention services. For this we developed an international concept for smart protection called InConnect, with the household as hub connecting all smart devices, vehicles and wearables and with technology and data used to improve prevention. Safety and Peace of Mind Unbiased personal risk management tools (Primes) help reduce insurance to what is really needed in one universal personalized policy without redundancies and gaps, dynamically adjusted to the actual situation and needs with:

• On-demand add-ons
• Built-in loyalty and reward system
• Ready connections for sharing cars, rides and homes
• Easy combining or splitting households
• Privacy and cyber risk recognized

and backed with a one of a kind insurance and claims IT platform. Startup The overall concept is quite ambitious. Although we’ve successfully done ambitious businesses before and have qualified people and technology on our side, we’ll start on a controllable scale. A startup will kick off in three European countries with home, motor and travel. As soon as we’ve completed our search for the right partners, we’ll start proving the concept, do the learning and keep you posted. Of course we’re always looking for enthusiastic and good individuals. Feel free to give me a buzz. See also: The Insurance Model in 2035?   Finally Insurers are experts in risk and capital management, and that is what they should keep doing, but in a different perspective. Deploy that expertise in the new environment of connected lifestyles.