Fuel global growth: increase the speed of insurance product deployment across international lines

We live in a global economy. Goods and services flow freely—for the most part—across borders every minute of every day. To keep themselves and their customers protected, insurers must make sure they have the correct coverage in every region where they currently do business or plan to operate in the future.

Trade may be global, but standards and requirements are not similarly universal. Differing regulations, interpretations, market and physical conditions mean that insurance must be flexible enough to account for these differences. But, as many carriers will recognise, meeting complex policy regulations is complicated enough in a single market as convergence drives multiple new lines of business and sees businesses expand across borders. Maintaining agility and accuracy across multiple markets is an even bigger challenge.

In a Commercial Lines Europe session titled “Fuel global growth: increase the speed of product deployment across international lines”, on October 13th at 2:35pm BST, Jess Hurley, P&C, general insurance markets leader at EIS, will discuss how to overcome the challenges of working internationally, including why global growth is important to many commercial insurers, why it’s challenging and how to thrive.

Intelligent Insurer spoke to Hurley ahead of the event.

Why is accelerated international growth so important?

There is convergence in the insurance industry that is tied to customer-centricity. More lines of service offered increases revenue, but how can you enable systems that allow you to easily cross-sell to your existing customers and businesses efficiently that positions insurance products to customers when and where they need them?

The bancassurance model combines banking and insurance products while traditional life carriers look to offer non-life products. Further, there is the opportunity to localise and embed certain lines of insurance based on the industry specifics or lifestyle to retail customers or commercial B2B markets.

Simply put, if insurers don’t find ways to increase revenue with existing customers and identify new markets to operate in, they will face stiff competition from a wide range of new and existing competitors that include insurtechs and non-traditional insurance companies.

Growing internationally is a necessity for many insurers. One of the best ways for these insurers to grow is to test and launch new insurance products in new ways to new markets through a diversity of channels. Many platforms and policy administration systems are insurance product-centric, and often unique product definition and functionality is hard-coded to the currency and language in which they primarily operate.

This can be limiting as you launch products into new markets across geographies. The Holy Grail is to use or build a customer-centric system that uses a single policy template across multiple countries and regions that can be easily modified to support a variety of products, currencies and local languages.

How difficult is it for insurers to globalise?

International expansion is challenging. The barriers to entry can be daunting. When it comes to deploying insurance products across different geographical regions, localisation and regulations are the biggest challenges. Traditional approaches that involve IT and long cycles of product customisation can hinder progress.

Customer-centric systems with low-code configuration tools that allow for persona-based customisation put business users in direct control, allow for quick deployment of products and centralise customer information. This approach makes call centres more efficient and agent portals more effective and engaging, and enables customer self-service across any device, language, or currency.

Why are customer relationships important for international growth?

Our research into customer behaviours and B2B markets showed that it can cost between five to 10 times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. As large non-insurers with strong customer relationships such as Amazon or Tesla start to enter insurance markets, insurance companies who build strong customer and business partner relationships across multiple products will perform at a higher level as brand loyalty rises.

In our Customer Compass report in 2020, we learned that close to 60 percent of customers said they were more likely to change carriers if they didn’t have multiple products from one insurance provider.

So, thriving in international commercial markets is dependent upon customer-centricity, fast execution, and flexibility to identify new products to offer when and where new and existing customers need them.

Jess Hurley, P&C, general insurance markets leader at EIS, will discuss how to overcome the challenges of working internationally in a Commercial Lines Europe session titled “Fuel global growth: increase the speed of product deployment across international lines”, on October 13th at 2:35pm BST.

The event is free for insurers and brokers, to register click here:  https://www.commercial-lines-innovation-europe.com/home