Question: Why do insurers struggle to launch products and how can underwriters differentiate themselves in the crowded market place and achieve better economics.
Insurance carriers have always needed to develop innovative products, get them to market in a timely fashion and manage risk. Those are key ingredients to enjoy ongoing success, top line growth and market share.
Keys to survival
With the fight for new customers growing more competitive, carriers’ focus on achieving differentiation in the market while creating acceptable economics has taken a seat at the head of the table. Today, developing targeted products, getting them into distribution, attracting the right customers for those products, and keeping them satisfied are also keys to survival.
Insurance underwriters participate in many roles, but few are as important as product development. Streamlining the underwriting process has become a critical component to attracting buyers and reducing dropout rates while maintaining sound financial footing for the health of the organization.
Determining the risk profile, creating specific underwriting rules, developing a targeted application form and identifying relevant exclusions are critical pieces to the product development process. Carriers are adopting new technologies and using analytics to help manage known and ever evolving risks while addressing the changes in what the market wants and the products available. Underwriters can differentiate themselves, make an impact on both the top and bottom line, and keep an insurance company relevant through better information, tools and technologies which lead to more precise positioning of products.
- Companies can improve targeted marketing with a deeper understanding of current and potential customers to reach under-penetrated segments
Insurance companies have access to enormous amounts of data, much of which is stored on internal computer systems. There is a significant and increasing amount of publicly available data, and customers and prospects are more willing than ever to share data about themselves when asked. The ability of an insurer to capture relevant data from numerous sources, make it consistent and consolidate it in meaningful ways help capture market share.
The use of analytics is helping insurance companies figure out which demographic is buying certain products as well as help them understand where gaps in product availability exist, create a product that meets that need, and directly market it the people that match the demographic. This can allow an insurer to capture a market before other companies know a potential market exists.