TOWARDS A SOCIAL COMPANY
MILLENNIALS CHOOSE THEIR OWN PATH
SHIFT TO MOBILE -FIRST APPROACH
A CHANGE OF THE BUSINESS MODEL IS NEEDED
SOMESOCIAL MEDIA INSURANCE MONITOR 2016 BY ITDS
GLOBAL EDITION
32
54
INDEX
ITDS MEASURES INSURERS’ USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ALL OVER THE WORLD
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
8 Conclusions: Active, but many chances are not
yet being exploited
14Johan van den Neste:
(InShared);The personal approach
20Ranking
and analyses
44Innovators:
Global initiatives show courage
30Neil Hiltz
(Facebook): Consumers first
68Frank van Wessel
(Delta Lloyd):Transformation is crucial
58Millennials first
52Olav Cuiper (RGA):
Insurance is meaningful
74Vision:
To survive withSocial Media
7
FOREWORD
nce again, we’ve taken the next step. Last year, for the first time, we presen-ted a study into the use of Social Media in the European insurance market. And what you are now holding is a report of the first global survey. Within the framework of our independent Social Media Insurance Monitor, earlier
this year we surveyed no less than 20 leading international insurers. We did so because, as ITDS Business Consultants involved in this sector, we know that we are active in a rapidly changing world. “To survive with Social Media” is the bottom line, and that’s something that transcends all borders, in every which way.
Our initiative − which was launched six years ago in the Netherlands, extended to cover Europe last year and went global this year − is highly appreciated internationally. This year, for the second time in a row, we were nominated for Social Agency of the Year at the annual Corporate Social Media Awards in New York. Nearly 500 leading companies from around the world vie for these prestigious awards. Our Monitor and SoMe magazine garnered the honour of “Highly Commended” during the awards gala. This puts us at the international leading edge of Social Media, with our research being valued at an interna-tional level, something we are justifiably proud of.
The insurer that achieved the highest score of all the 20 surveyed insurers to claim our top ranking also has reason to be proud. The facts and figures lead to a number of conclusions that will be of interest to everyone in the industry. Furthermore, I’d like to draw your a ttention to the advice of Neil Hiltz, Global Head Financial Services, Facebook, which is to “Think from the customer’s perspective”. In his opinion, and ours too, this is clearly still not always the case. Our vision in this respect is unambiguous: a change of the business model is needed. And this is why “Towards a Social Company” is the main theme of this first global edition of SoMe magazine.
HIGHLY COMMENDED
ESTHER LENS CEO ITDS
O
98
CONCLUSIONS
SOCIAL IS GLOBAL: EVERYDAY,
EVERYWHERE
Social is global; in every country people are making extensive
use of Social Media. But our research shows that international
insurers are not effectively exploiting this to the full.
1110
SOCIAL IS GLOBALCONCLUSIONS
THERE IS A LACK OF SOCIAL STRATEGY EMBEDDING
Most insurers that are active on Social Media have drawn up a Social strategy. However, less than half (40%) of the insurers that do have a Social strategy have actually communicated it within the organisation. This means that the strategy is only being experienced from one place in the organisation, thus blocking the way towards becoming a really Social Business.
THE ONLINE ECO-SYSTEM IS NOT CLEAR
Of those 20 insurers, 15 (75%) of them have a content platform on which informative blogs can be found. Insurers use these blogs to derive SEO advantages and/or claim thought leadership on a particular topic.Consumers mainly access these content plat-forms through blogs that the insurers share on their Social Media channels. However, the content platform is often difficult to find on the insurer’s homepage because any through-referrals aren’t clear enough. In many instan-ces the online “eco-system” (online-social-mobile) is not clear for consumers.
THERE’S TOO LITTLE DIALOGUE
Of those insurers with a content platform, consumers can respond to the blogs of only 40% of them. Clearly, relatively few opportunities for interaction are offered through dialogue. A huge advantage of Social Media is that it offers two-way traffic, but this is being insufficiently exploited.
USER-GENERATED CONTENT IS STILL SCARCE
Despite increasing amounts of content, communication is still mainly one-sided, from the side of the insurers. Insurers have some catching up to do in this respect because user-generated content is perceived as many times more credible than content created by the companies themselves.
Only 15% of the insurers
have a platform with user-generated
content.
ACTIVE, BUT MANY CHANCES
ARE NOT YET BEING EXPLOITED
Looking at 20 major players in the insurance industry, spread across
11 different countries, we certainly encountered plenty of Social Media
activities. But digging a little deeper with our Social Media Insurance
Monitor it would appear that many options are going untapped. Here are
our conclusions, one-by-one. MILLENNIALS ARE RARELY
TARGETEDGenerally speaking, insurers are not pro-actively capitalising on the behaviour of Millennials, the generation that today makes extensive use of messaging platforms to communicate. Of the surveyed insurers not one of them yet use WhatsApp as a contact channel. This is despite the fact that it’s been proved that WhatsApp hugely increases customer satisfaction and trans- cends all other channels. Most insurers are accessible via Facebook Messenger, although three of the 20 surveyed insurers (15%) have actually disabled this option. AXA’s Millennials label “Switch” is the first to officially partner with Facebook Messen-
1312
CONCLUSIONS
WhatsApp increases customer satisfaction but insurers
don’t use this channel.
MOBILE-PROOF? YES. MOBILE ENGAGEMENT? NO.Insurers have acknowledged the importance of mobile. Almost all insurers have a mobile-proof site: 90% of them have a responsive website, 5% have a separate mobile website and 5% have a site that’s not mobile-proof. However, the content that is created is often not mobile-first. This means the content doesn’t appear well on mobile and consumers do not
get an optimum mobile experience.
ger. Similarly, no insurers are yet making structural use of Snapchat, although two insurers have deployed it in the context of sports club sponsorship.
THE VALUE OF THE SERVICE PROVIDED BY WEBCARE IS
UNDERESTIMATEDAll 20 insurers respond to questions via Social Media. However, an average of only 30% refer to Social Media channels on their contact page. On Facebook only 50% indicate in their profile that webcare is offered on that channel. On Twitter this drops to 35%. These statistics demonstrate that Social Media is not yet seen as a fully fledged service channel.
USER REVIEWS ARE NOT ASKED FOR, OR SHARED
More than half of all consumers base their choices on ratings and user reviews, but the importance of these user reviews is not yet being acknowledged by insurers. Facebook offers the opportunity to leave a review on the page, but only 10% of the insurers enabled this functionality.
Just 25% of the
insurers that were surveyed
show user reviews on their
websites.
1514
INTERVIEW
ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL
“I have a confrontational perspective that speaks volumes about my
ambition. How good would it be if we could offer everybody a personal
and bespoke insurance proposition. One that uses data and with which
we can serve our customers as optimally as possible.” So says Johan van
den Neste, commercial director of the 100 per cent digital InShared, part
of Achmea.JOHAN VAN DEN NESTE, COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR AT INSHARED
1716
JOHAN VAN DEN NESTEINTERVIEW
Before his current position as commercial director at InShared, Johan van den Neste was the digital
inspiration at Allsecur, part of Allianz. He is, without doubt, a pioneer in the insurance sector, one of
very few people who has identified and harnessed the potential of online and is continuously looking
to improve and optimise it. His vision and ideas about online marketing and strategy always come
from the customer’s perspective.
ith InShared, Johan van den Neste focuses strongly on customer be-haviour. Behaviour that,
when coupled to data, defines how people can be served and their needs exactly met. The objective, he explains, is a marketing strategy that’s focused on the individual.
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY
WORKING ON?
There are a number of building blocks for commercial success. At the heart of the online environment it’s all about four cornerstones, on which you can base that success.• You have to make yourself easily find-able. How can you generate traffic to your website? With Google and with SEO, obviously. But you can also use Social. And banners. A strong brand is, of course, an indispensible prerequisite in all this. You must make sure that people can find you without any problems.• Then there’s the user-friendliness of your site. Just how user-friendly is it? Can consumers use it easily?• How can you convince the customer? That’s all down to your content, your storytelling. The message must always be relevant. And without commercial hooks.
• Finally, the bottom-line offering de-pends completely on the analysis of the customer’s behaviour. There are many differences in people’s search behaviour, which say a lot about how they live their lives. One customer might be looking for convenience, while the other might be price-driven. If you look closely enough you can exploit this. Take the security hunter, for example. He’ll visit your site, leave it and then come back a bit later. You’ll see that he’s checking out the terms of the product. That’s how you’ll know he’s looking for security. The third time he comes to your landing page you’ll send a personalised message. That’s when you offer him that security and, based on his behaviour, you make him a suitably adap-ted offer. That’s where we want to be. Because one size doesn’t fit all.
AND WHERE ARE WE TODAY?
In the retail sector the use of data is more advanced than it is in financial services. That said, if you look at pricing, parti-cularly actuarial pricing, the insurance industry is further. As an online insurer, at InShared we are already applying some retail concepts, but not yet in the form that we really want to. We are 100% digi-tal so we don’t have the baggage of long-
term legacies that the big insurers do. Our expertise and the IT platform that we developed are what fuelled the recent creation of OutShared. This new company now serves as a platform to other parties, partly thanks to demand from insurers for flexible IT at a low cost per policy. In the meantime, our first external insurance label is already fully operational on our platform. We still have a way to go, but it’s a journey we’re making with our customers.
AND WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IN
PRACTICE?
We really scrutinise people’s behaviour and we invest a lot of time in doing so. We analyse web behaviour data, as well as the combinations of CRM data. We want to do more than just offer a product; we want more and better quality contact with people. So we explore how people seek and establish contact with us. It can be through chat, email or telephone, and soon via WhatsApp too. Sales have to be assimilated to that behaviour. Sometimes you can send somebody a chat message pro-actively. Other times people might want to speak to a real person, because they want to introduce a human component into the
business process. It’s this kind of bespoke approach that we are optimising. The behaviour on Social Media and the website, linked to actuarial data, are what deter- mine the marketing strategy we’ll use for an individual at any given time.
AND WHAT FORM DOES THAT TAKE
ON SOCIAL MEDIA?
Again, data intelligence is an important part of the equation. The more you know about the customers in your target group, the better you’ll know what they want. It’s an opportunity to get your message across intelligently. It even makes something as potentially irritating as retargeting more palatable. Here’s a retail example of the wrong approach. Supposing I order a suit online at Hugo Boss. If I then go to news sites I’ll still get be pestered with Hugo Boss advertisements, even though I’ve already bought the suit there. Shame. But if this retargeting is done more intelli-gently and without being annoying, we’ll also reach people who didn’t initially have a preference for us. It’s important to learn continuously from people’s behaviour and invest heavily in it. An area in which we want to be so much better in future is having real relevance on Social Media.
PERSONAL
W The behaviour on Social Media and the website determine our
one-on-one marketing strategy.
1918
INTERVIEW JOHAN VAN DEN NESTE
By giving concrete tips to make people more aware of risks, for example.
AND THE PRIVACY ISSUE?
It goes without saying that staying with-in the law and strictly observing it is our main departure point. But you cannot really avoid this issue. If you do it really well it won’t be a problem; but if you do it wrong it will be. One customer might be used to it and take it for granted. Another might be much more aggressive in the way he protects his privacy or even withholds his data. You have to take both approaches into account. Transparency, sharing excess profit with our customers, is one of our USPs as an insurer. InShared wants people to be able to insure themselves online. If you limit the damage together, you can share the spoils together. There is no small print. And this is something we’ll continue to apply if we develop products and services for which our customers need to give us data.
WHERE IS THE BIGGEST
CHALLENGE?
The biggest challenge is not one of linking together all the data streams; it’s making this data actionable and
facilitating a conversion when someone is visiting the site. But it’s not just about the conversion either; it’s also about being able to make a profit. Sometimes customers want products that don’t suit us. Here again, based on behaviour and on our customer groups, we’ll know instinctively which people in the traffic may or may not be of interest to us. Agility is the key to the organisation’s success and that calls for a different organisational structure. The various disciplines, data analysis, marketing, actuarial and IT must be closely meshed. For traditional insurers this can be problematic.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?
We do everything in house and orches-trate it all ourselves. We investigate the real person behind the data. What does he want? And how can we help him in a relevant way, without being a nuisance? Sometimes it’s not even about sales or the settlement of a claim, but about offering other support. We’re all in it together, with the courage to move forward by trial and error. It makes you increasingly smarter and more effective and underscores improvement, bit-by-bit. That’s the bottom line.
Agility is the key to the organisation’s success and that calls for a different
organisational structure.
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90
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2120
20 MAJOR GLOBAL INSURERSRANKING
US insurer State Farm tops our ranking. It uses social content to build
communities. Second place went to the Netherlands’ Aegon, thanks to
its integrated social approach. Number three, Germany’s Allianz, enters
into dialogue with consumers with its forum ‘Allianz hilft’.
1 S
tate
Far
m (U
S)
2 A
egon
(NL)
3 A
llian
z (D
E)
4 A
XA
(FR
)
5 A
llsta
te (U
S)
5 A
viva
(UK
)
6 G
eico
(US
)
7 N
atio
nwid
e (U
S)
8 M
AP
FRE
(ES
)
9 Fa
rmer
s (U
S)
10 G
ener
ali (
IT)
11 S
un L
ife (C
A)
12 N
ew Y
ork
Life
(US
)
13 L
egal
& G
ener
al (U
K)
13 G
reat
Eas
tern
(MY
)
14 M
etLi
fe (U
S)
14 A
IA (M
Y)
15 Z
uric
h (C
H)
16 A
MP
(NZ
)
17 C
hubb
(US
)
GOLD FOR STATE FARM
2322
20 MAJOR GLOBAL INSURERSRANKING
SOCIAL● All insurers in the ranking are active on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube and 19 of the 20 surveyed insurers (95%) are active on Twitter. ● On average, insurers posted 5 messages per week on Facebook, 12 on Twitter and 2 on LinkedIn. An average of 1 video per week was uploaded on YouTube.● On Facebook, insurers received a total of 39,916 responses from consumers on their page.● 50% of the insurers responded within two hours after receiving questions from consumers on their Facebook page. On Twitter that was only 45%. ● Insurers are gradually beginning to ex-ploit the emerging channels: 70% − to a greater or lesser extent − are active on Instagram, with an average of 2 posts per week (not counting advertisements). However, there is still little use made of Snapchat, with the exception of a few insu-rers who have experimented with it in the context of a campaign. ● At the moment, WhatsApp is still not being used by international insurers as a service channel.
ONLINE● 95% of the insurers link through from their homepage to one or more Social Me-dia channels. However, only 30% (6 out of 20 insurers) link through from the contact page to Social Media. In this case it’s often limited to a referral to traditional contact channels, such as email and telephone.● Only 5 of the 20 insurers (25%) show consumer reviews on the website. ● The opportunity to provide feedback on the website or service is offered on the websites of 9 of the 20 insurers (45%). ● Only 3 insurers (15%) acknowledge the importance of user-generated content and have created a platform for it. These are: Allianz, with a forum (forum.allianz.de), New York Life, with Keep Going Good (newyorklife.com/keepgoodgoing) and State Farm, with Neighborhood Sessions (neighborhoodsessions.statefarm.com). ● 75% of the insurers have a platform or page on which they can share blogs. These blogs are typically shared through Social Media.
FANS AND FOLLOWERS:● The insurers have a total of 10,023,979 fans and followers. Of these, Facebook com-mands the biggest share, with 7,573,595 fans, then LinkedIn with 1,754,811 followers. On Twitter insurers have 695,571 followers and last year Instagram secured the loyalty of 72,311 followers.● With a grand total of 2,274,555 fans, Farmers is the absolute winner, followed by the top ranking State Farm, with 2,093,254.● The chart shown below shows the absolute numbers of fans per insurer. However, in calculating the ranking on the previous page, differences in population have been taken into account. To achieve a fair comparison, a correction per country has been applied.
Insurers gradually begin to exploit the emerging channels.
0
500.000
1.000.000
1.500.000
2.000.000
2.500.000Instagram
Farm
ers
(US
)
Sta
te F
arm
(US
)
New
Yor
k Li
fe (U
S)
Met
Life
(US
)
Alls
tate
(US
)
Gei
co (U
S)
Alli
anz
(DE
)
AIA
(MY
)
Nat
ionw
ide
(US
)
Zur
ich
(CH
)
Gen
eral
i (IT
)
MA
PFR
E (E
S)
Avi
va (U
K)
Sun
Life
(CA
)
AX
A (F
R)
Chu
bb (U
S)
Gre
at E
aste
rn (U
S)
AE
GO
N (N
L)
AM
P (N
Z)
Lega
l & G
enar
ali (
UK
)
2524
RANKING 20 MAJOR GLOBAL INSURERS
ACCOUNTABILITY AND METHODOLOGY● This is the first and only independent survey about the use of Social Media in the global insurance industry. The survey takes in 20 major global insurers from 11 diffe-rent countries. These insurers are leaders in their field in the worldwide insurance mar-ket and they wield considerable influence on the complexion of global insurance. ● The surveyed insurers each have a clear brand name. Insurance groups that have a variety of different brands have not been in-cluded. We have also excluded insurers that are part of a major bank, because they have no separate social insurance channels.● To provide an objective view as possible, and to compare insurers with one ano-
MOBILE● Nearly all insurers (90%) have a responsive website; in other words the website is the same as the desktop site but it automatically scales down to the mobile device. Furthermore, 5% has developed a separate mobile website, while 5% does not have a mobile-proof website.● Of all the insurers, 95% have smartphone apps, which are used by insurers for different purposes. While one insurer might use an app as a news source, another might use it for managing insurance policies.
Has an app
Does not
have an app
Has a mobile-
proof website
Does not have
a mobile-proof
website
ther, we have looked at the Social Media accounts in the respective countries in which the insurers are active. In other words, AXA in France, Aviva in the UK, Generali in Italy, and so on. ● Accounts that target other countries or languages have had no effect on the ranking. Moreover, communities that were set by consumers, insurers and employees have been excluded.● The measurements were taken between January and June 2016. Changes that took place after the final measurement date have not been taken into account in determining the ranking. In the global Social Media Insurance Monitor 2016 all insurers were allocated a score between 0 and 100.
2726
CHARACTERISTICSCHARACTERISTICS
INTERNATIONAL INSURERS
ON SOCIAL MEDIA
The final report of our Social Media Insurance Monitor is based on measu-
rements, statistics, a survey and desk research. The characteristics of the
20 insurers that were surveyed on their use of Social Media are given below.
STATE FARM (UNITED STATES)
By organising what it calls “Neighborhood Sessions”, local concerts given by major artists from the vicinity, State Farm works both online − through the Neighbor-hood Sessions platform − and offline on its community. On Facebook, State Farm shares many videos and links through to its “Good Neighbors” blog.
AEGON (THE NETHERLANDS)
Aegon’s focus on Social Media is mainly on dialogue. On both Facebook and Twitter con-versation management is deployed along-
side webcare, with the emphasis being on online dialogue. From a special innovation fund, Aegon invests in initiatives.
ALLIANZ (GERMANY)
By using Instagram Allianz tries to appeal to young people. And the online forum, Allianz Hilft, gives Allianz in Germany an additional platform for online services. The cornerstones of this platform are the community team, the role played by gamification, and integration with Facebook.With the lab Digital Accelerator Allianz is preparing for the future.
AIA (MALAYSIA)
AIA relies on Social Media primarily for claiming a role for itself as a partner in the area of care and health, in both the private and business markets. AIA is the biggest partner of the Vitality programme, an integrated health and wellness programme. Because its content often includes a call to action, the Social Media community is stimulated to enter into dialogue.
ALLSTATE (UNITED STATES)
Using Instagram and Pinterest alongside traditional channels, Allstate is widely represented online. It also has its own blog. The blog offers external experts a plat-form. Furthermore, the Good Hands com-munity platform provides user-generated content. Allstate also offers the Good Life, a platform on which personalised content can be found.
AMP (NEW ZEALAND)
AMP helps people online with practical content, such as blogs that provide step-by-step advice on how to pay off a debt. In addition to this, Twitter is used for webcare. Every year AMP organises Life Amplify, a festival of innovation and dis- ruptive technology. The festival is also exten- sively publicised through Social Media.
AVIVA (UNITED KINGDOM)
This year, and in collaboration with Face-book, Aviva has elected to create a global page as a shell on which to build local pages around. The content is more than just audio-visual; Aviva also conducts surveys on Facebook. In this way the insurer isn’t just collating data; it’s comple- menting the results by providing feedback as to what the next steps should be.
AXA (FRANCE)
AXA deploys Social Media and content for specific groups, often under the umbrella of “People Protectors”. The company also focuses on the future and on innovation by investing in start-ups such as Tröv and AXA Switch, a separate proposition for Millennials. AXA is also the first insurer to integrate Facebook Messenger with its online services.
CHUBB (UNITED STATES)
In 2016 Chubb’s Social Media channels have been mainly characterised by its merger with the Ace Group. The focus is on telling people about the company’s new course. As a sponsor, Chubb is active with content related to Nascar races.
FARMERS (UNITED STATES)
Of the 20 insurers that were surveyed, Farmers has, at 2.1 million, the highest number of fans on Facebook. Its content is characterised by humour. Example of this is the “Hall of Claims”, in which its most bizarre claims are presented in a tongue-in-cheek manner, and JK Simmons as the choice of spokesman. Farmers also promotes itself through its association with professional golfer, Rickie Fowler.
GEICO (UNITED STATES)
Geico is the only insurer that claims to offer 24/7 webcare. In addition to deploying Social Media for its blog Geico More, on Twitter it mainly provides content about the Nascar races, which it sponsors. The insurer is also identifiable through its mascot, Geico Gecko. Geico is the most active insurer on YouTube.
1
2
3
‘To keep and attract customers a change of thebusiness model is needed’
2928
CHARACTERISTICS
GENERALI (ITALY)
Fans’ activities on Generali’s Social Media channels are mainly visible because of the high degree to which their messages are shared. Besides Facebook, Generali is parti-cularly active on Twitter, with several posts every day. For youngsters Generali uses Instagram, with daily posts in its own style focusing on events.
GREAT EASTERN (MALAYSIA)
Great Eastern uses mainly Facebook, primarily for visual content, and enjoys a great deal of interaction with its support base. Furthermore, Great Eastern focuses on vitality with Live Great, an integrated online wellness and health programme.
LEGAL & GENERAL (UNITED KINGDOM)
Of late, Legal & General has mainly used Social Media channels to set up a com-munity through #becauseyoulovethem centred around pets, the aim being to promote insurance for pets.
MAPFRE (SPAIN)
MAPFRE uses Social Media worldwide. On Facebook it uses a global page with un-derlying local pages. Its Spanish Facebook page links through extensively to its web-site. Moreover, MAPFRE uses a variety of platforms, such as a channel specifically aimed at young people, called Generación Young.
METLIFE (UNITED STATES)
MetLife mainly deploys Social Media for MetLife blog, in which tips and ideas are broken down into easily digestible lists, sorted into various categories. Outside the US, “Light Up Your Dream” and “Dream For My Child” provide a lot of user-generated
content. MetLife has introduced a tool that facilitates one-on-one customers advice.
NATIONWIDE (UNITED STATES)
In addition to its regular website, Nation-wide has an extensive online ecosystem. This comprises a blog, “In The Nation”, a community, “Living on Your Side” and various content pages, such as “Make Safe Happen”. This platform is bursting with parenting tips to prevent children having accidents.
NEW YORK LIFE (UNITED STATES)
New York Life mainly uses Social Media for its “Keep Good Going” community, a collec-tion of user-generated content. The role of its more than 12,000 agents is worth noting, because they act as brand ambassadors by sending personal tweets. New York Life has also US$175 million available every year for promising innovations.
SUN LIFE (CANADA)
With its Brighter Life blog, Sun Life has been building up an online community. It offers tips and ideas, without laying overt links to Sun Life products. The blog gene-rated about 1,900 leads per month for Sun Life, which has integrated the service part of its website into its Facebook page. ZURICH (SWITZERLAND)
Using audio-visual content, visuals and videos, Zurich connects with its community at an international level. And to build up local communities, Zurich provides relevant content on Facebook pages and separate Twitter and YouTube channels. In the area of innovation, Zurich recently introduced its so-called cyber policy.
3130
INTERVIEWXXXXXXXXXXX
THINK FROM THE CUSTOMER’S
POINT OF VIEW
“Two things stick out in a very big way and demand everyone’s attention:
completing the shift to mobile-first and the reintegration of the
customer experience from end-to-end for the entire life cycle,” says Neil
Hiltz, Head of Global Financial Services Strategy Facebook. “It’s not just
the social team, it’s not just the digital advertising team and it’s not just
the product manager. It’s everyone, channelling their energy into being
mobile-first and thinking about things from the customer’s point of view.
And finding ways to reduce friction between consumers and how they
interact with companies on their mobile devices.” NEIL HILTZ, HEAD OF GLOBAL FINANCIAL SERVICES STRATEGY FACEBOOK
3332
NEIL HILTZINTERVIEW
HAT DO YOU SEE AS
IMPORTANT DEVELOP-
MENTS IN THE
FINANCIAL INDUSTRY?
We are moving from a traditional com-munication model to what the industry calls a digital or omni-channel model. The first step is to become mobile-first. If a person starts thinking of mobile as a primary way of communication, it offers a lot of opportunities. The second step is to personalise the communication. Insurance companies’ products are very personal. How much you pay for your car insurance, for example, is based on the car, your age and where you live. However, the communication around this product tends to be less personal. Contrast this to a bank, say 60 years ago when business was done face-to-face. With the rise of platforms like television and radio we made a trade off, impro-ving marketing efficiency to find a broad pallet of consumers. But now, with mobile, we can focus on real people. We have the opportunity to reinvent personalisation and focus on highly personalised end-to-end consumer experiences. Because of all the things happening on mobile phones we can create experiences in which the media and consumer paths are highly integrated.
LOOKING AT TODAY’S INSURANCE
INDUSTRY, WHAT ARE THE MAIN
ISSUES IT FACES?
I’d say that a common challenge across all financial services, and one that we are committed to helping the industry solve, is completing the transition to becoming global Social companies. Another chal-lenge is creating great customer experi-
ences on a global level across their entire lifecycle and portfolio. There is still a lot of work to be done to create the best-possible experiences. At the same time, Social is evolving rapidly because it takes all the previous best practices and imple-ments them very quickly. In the past, we had services and we had communication and they were distributed by very dif-ferent platforms. You’d see an advertise-ment for an insurance policy on TV or in a magazine, and then you’d talk to an agent or call a call-centre for a quote. In some cases it involved lots of paperwork. That was the “old” model, but it was only 15 years ago, before the Internet took off in earnest. Nowadays the focus for all of us, as industry partners, is to create great sales experiences from end-to-end. And to be able to do that on mobile is a pheno-menal opportunity. A person can watch a video, take action immediately and can go through the entire conversion process on a mobile device within minutes. It used to take hours, days even. That’s what we are transforming.
CAN YOU GIVE INSURANCE
COMPANIES SOME SURVIVAL TIPS
IN OUR FAST-CHANGING WORLD?
They must make the move to mobile-first, absolutely. That’s a foundational point that everyone must move towards. Making this a starting point enables you to reinvent the entire customer life cycle. Think about advertising and communication and the opportunities for increased perso-nalisation, and what it all means for the marketing and advertising departments. It requires tighter integration between the teams than was previously necessary. Teams today need to work more closely than
they did in that old world. Tighter integration between the media teams and the product organisations will greatly improve the cus-tomer experience. The media, product and operational teams must also be on the same wavelength as to how they develop their services and communications. Something I learned about Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership approach at Facebook is how he does pro-duct reviews. As a CEO, he regularly re-views the mobile experience to establish what a typical customer journey is. That’s leadership. Putting yourself in the custo-mer’s shoes and seeing that experience does create the possibility for change and improvement. It helps to make things easier and more personal, and it would accelerate the shift to becoming mobile-first.
REGARDING INNOVATION ARE
THERE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
TRADITIONAL INSURERS AND THE
NEWCOMERS?
In the financial services segment there are businesses that are very innovative and want to try new things and scale-up new communication channels as soon as possible. They might be newer Fintech companies or traditional companies focusing on innovation and transforming their companies. The key to success is management’s attitude and commitment to drive innovation – their leadership. That said, it’s is easier to build something
new than to build something new around changing functionalities. We recognise that the amount of change management that’s necessary in the industry depends strongly on how the company goes to market and on its business strategy. It all comes down to the client level and their approach.Insurance is an ageing industry that employs many people over 50. Do you think this transition can succeed with them? Every successive generation grows up with a specific information base available to them. People of my age remember the time before the Internet, but Millennials don’t know any different. It’s more about a person’s mindset and about providing the opportunity to change it. If we were to become a little more childlike in our every- day approach it would really open our minds to change. That’s actually the biggest shift and it can happen regardless of age.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR A COMPA-
NY TO PARTNER WITH FACEBOOK?
We have partnered with a number of insu-rance companies around the world that are stepping up to the plate and doing things from an innovation perspective. What’s great about working with clients like AXA, Progressive and Geico is that when partner-ships like these are announced it creates a sense of urgency within the organisation to drive forward at a very rapid pace. Having worked in the financial industry, I know that
The key to success is management’s attitude and commitment to
drive innovation – their leadership.W
3534
INTERVIEW NEIL HILTZ
leadership alignment throughout the organi-sation is very important for driving change. It’s a clear signal to the market, but also to their employees and to Facebook. It not only says they want to work on innovative things, but that they are really committed financially to drive innovation forward. There must be a commitment to drive innovation through-out the company, from the top all the way through to implementation. The difficulty of driving change in companies is something that must not be taken lightly, and neither should a lack of alignment in them.
DO YOU AGREE THAT WHATSAPP
AND FACEBOOK MESSENGER OWN
THE FUTURE WHEN IT COMES TO
THE MOBILE ENVIRONMENT?
I am so excited that we have started to work on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. There’s a real opportunity here to approach people the same way that they approach their friends and family. WhatsApp and Messenger will be huge and transformative in driving insurance companies’ efficiency and profitability in all areas of the life cycle. Just imagine what it would mean for sales support and answering people’s questions,
and how it will affect the customer care ex-perience. When the Canadian telecom com-pany Rogers implemented Messenger they saw a 50 per cent increase in customer satis-faction in just a couple of months. So I think that will be an opportunity for insurers too. People use these messages platforms regu-larly; so sending messages through these preferred channels will increase the like-lihood that they will be acted upon. Further-more, the entire claim experience could be facilitated with the use of images and videos, from both the client’s side and the back- office side of the service provider. The most exciting part is leveraging all the knowledge that financial companies already have and animating smart ways of communicating it. This will be possible from the early sta-ges of building brand awareness all the way through to the customer experience, such as the claim process, for example. By doing this we will increase the efficiency, long-term profitability and scalability of the en-tire financial services sector. It’s so exciting that we can help save both time and effort. And customers will get their answers in real time, as opposed to being put on hold indefi-nitely or having to wait for days.
Neil Hiltz: My role is to improve the financial wellbeing of the people who leverage our platforms, like
Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, and to help the industry improve its
efficiency, scalability and long-term profitability. It’s my job to identify the best pratices used by
financial services companies on our platforms today. At Facebook, we have successfully transitioned
from a desktop- to a mobile-device company. I worked in the financial services industry for 11 years at
Capital One, HSBC, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bank. I’ve learned from both the consumer and the
financial industry’s point of view what the pain points are and I support our team’s to innovate and
solve these challenges and I recognise the challenges of grasping this huge opportunity to take the
business to mobile. In my spare time, I play and practice golf, support my wife as she builds her
company, Farmgirl Flowers, read, and spend time with my family and friends.
PERSONAL
3736
GLOBAL SOCIAL FACTS
GLOBAL SOCIAL FACTS
To see insurers’ results in the Social Media Insurance Monitor in the right
context, it’s important to look at a number of generic statistics about the
use of Social Media in the world.
GENERAL
● At the beginning of 2016 there were 3.4 billion Internet users worldwide, 46% of the total global population.● More than 50% of the global population owns at least one mobile device: worldwide there are 3.8 billion unique mobile users.● Worldwide, there are 2.3 billion active So-cial Media users. This translates to 31% of the global population and 67.5% of all Inter-net users.● Two billion people visit their Social Media accounts via their mobile devices, which is 85% of the active Social Media users.
● Facebook is still the most popular social network, with almost 1.6 billion monthly active users worldwide.● Facebook is the most popular social net-work in most countries. Important excep-tions to this are Russia, China and Japan,
where the most popular social networks are VKontakte, Qzone and Twitter respectively. ● 83% of active users visit Facebook with their smartphones, followed by desktops and laptops with 50% and then tablets with 15% of active users.● Compared to last year, the number of daily Facebook users has increased by 16%, to over one billion.● Facebook is, by a long way, also the most popular social network among Millennials (20 to 35). This group spends an average of 1,000 minutes a month on this social network.
● Instagram has now attained 400 million monthly active users, making it one of the world’s biggest social networks after Facebook. ● Compared to the beginning of 2015, the number of active monthly Instagram users has risen by 33%, making it one of the fastest-growing social networks.
● Instagram is popular among Millennials. In the US, for example, almost half of all Instagram users are between 18 and 34.
● Twitter has 320 million active users a month worldwide, following Facebook and Instagram as one of the most popular social networks. ● With an increase of just 3% since the be-ginning of 2015, the growth in the number of active monthly Twitter users appears to be slowing down.
● Boasting over 400 million members, LinkedIn is the biggest professional net-work. However, only 25% of those members are monthtly active users.● 22% of active LinkedIn users log in to their LinkedIn account every day, 32% log in on a weekly basis and 34% do so less fre-quently than every week.
MESSENGERS
● Messengers and chat apps are becoming increasingly popular.● WhatsApp has now become the most popular messenger, with one billion monthly active users. ● Facebook Messenger is next, with 900 million monthly active users in April 2016.● Both WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger grew phenomenally last year, by 43% and 50% respectively. ● Other platforms are QQ and WeChat, especially popular in China.
SNAPCHAT
● Along with Instagram, the popularity of Snapchat has increased exponentially these past two years.
● Since the beginning of 2016, Snapchat has had 200 million monthly active users.● Half of these 200 million users are active on Snapchat on a daily basis.● In the US, 18% of Social Media users use Snapchat.● Like Instagram, Snapchat is extremely po-pular among Millennials; 8% of the world’s Millennials use Snapchat.● 73% of Snapchat users are Millennials.● Snapchat is the most popular platform for Generation Z (13 to 24) In the US 72% use Snapchat, followed by Facebook with 68% and Instagram with 66%.
YOUTUBE
● YouTube has 1.3 billion users worldwide.● YouTube is the second-most-popular search engine in the world, after Google.● More than half of all YouTube views are from mobile devices.● On average, mobile YouTube users spend 40 minutes per session watching videos, an increase of more than 50% with respect to last year.● YouTube is very popular among Millennials; 81% of Millennials in the US use YouTube.● Through mobile devices alone, YouTube reaches more 18- to 34-year-olds and 18- to 49-year-olds than all the cable networks in the US.
● Worldwide, Pinterest has 110 million monthly active users.● The vast majority is female: 71% to be exact.● Pinterest is most popular among 18- to 29-year-olds, accounting for 34% of its users.
SOURCES
wearesocial.com, statista.com, alexa.com
38 39
‘Digital, Mobile and Social are the new Normal’
41
INTERVIEW
CONTEXT IS KEY
“If we continuously position ourselves in the context of our customers,
we’ll really be able to proactively add value to their financial circum-
stances, exactly when it’s necessary. That just about sums up the
emphasis of our digital efforts,” says Jessica Niewierra, Director of Digital
Development & Interaction at ABN AMRO Bank in the Netherlands. JESSICA NIEWIERRA, DIRECTOR DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT & INTERACTION
ABN AMRO BANK
4342
JESSICA NIEWIERRAINTERVIEW
Since June 2015 Jessica Niewierra has been responsible for sales and targeting, mobile and online
development, user experience, analysis and optimisation and content copy of the digital channels of
ABN AMRO Retail. The focus in this new portfolio lies on impact-rich digital change-processes and
the development and innovation of various digital sales, marketing and copy specialties.
essica Niewierra is working on the increasingly far-reaching digitisation of ABN AMRO Retail. The bank wants to be relevant,
so she’s convinced that the customer’s context is more important than it has ever been.
WHICH DIGITAL DIRECTION IS THE
BANK MOVING IN?
We’re continuing the development of our mobile strategy. You can only stay constantly relevant in the lives of your customers if you are close to them on the devices they always carry with them. We started by doing everything we could for our customers in configuring the daily basics ‘mobile first’. By last year we’d reached the phase in which we could see how we could continuously add value through the devices, if that’s what customers wanted. For example, we launched Alert & Check, an app that allows customers to set six different types of free push alerts to help them identify real-time and relevant changes in their financial environment. These can include inadvertently being in the red, or a sum being deposited in a specific account, for example. The app is also compatible with the Apple Watch, meaning customers can link the app so they’ll instantly feel a vibration on their wrist if something they’ve set an alert for
actually happens. We’ve also launched a beta version of an app called Grip. We’re now testing it live with customers, with a view to developing it further. This app doesn’t just give insight into and an over-view of customers spending categories; it also allows them to set maximum spen-ding targets per category. They’ll then receive free alerts if they exceed those spending targets. All this helps customers to keep a better grip on their spending. We launched this app with a Swedish company called FinTech. It’s another example of how we learn from others and realise a quicker time-to-market.
WHAT IS YOUR OBJECTIVE?
Essentially, for those customers who want it, we, as a bank, want to draw a financial picture of a household or company. We want to be able to pro- actively add something for our customers, when they want it and about the things that interest them. That’s our ambition. We work from the outside-in, guided by four departure points: we have to be “always connected” to our customers; the contact for customers must be “quick and easy”; content must be “personal and relevant”; and we must “learn from the context” of the customer. It’s all about the essence of the customer’s story and how we can help. It means having to position ourselves where the customer looks for answers.
WHAT HAS BEEN CHANGED IN YOUR
APPROACH TO CUSTOMERS?
If you want to be relevant to your cus- tomers, you simply have to listen to them properly. That’s the true interpretation of “don’t make the bank key, make the cus-tomer key”. If we’re aware of the challen-ges people face in their lives, they will, in fact, have defined the content we produce for them themselves. It means we are pro- actively sharing themes with people and really entering into dialogue with customers. This is why, for example, we communicate with entrepreneurs in a business forum that we have created on our website and why we’ve partnered with a variety of parties to help answer entrepreneurs’ questions. We can only offer real value if we give people the right content at the right time. And in a different tone of voice than before, inci-dentally, less formal and more personal.
WHAT ROLE DOES SOCIAL MEDIA
PLAY IN ALL THIS?
We rely heavily on digital to keep us continuously relevant in our interaction with customers online. Social media is indispensable in this respect, because we want to be where our customers are and to serve them proactively. In addition to innovation, experimentation also plays a role. Last year, for example, we launched a pilot with webcare via WhatsApp. You
notice that people really appreciate this level of customer service.
IS THE BANKING SECTOR DIGITALLY
UP TO SPEED?
If I look around me I see that, in a digital context, the Netherlands is doing pretty well and is somewhat of a digital pioneer in the world. Banks are very active in the area of digitisation; they identified the mobile trend very quickly, for example, and launched several mobile banking apps for their customers. From the high density of contact moments you can also see that customers have really embraced it. ABN AMRO, for example, gets some 60 million logins every month on its mobile banking app. More and more players intent on taking a slice of banking will be entering the market. But because we’re a full- service bank that offers customers a complete overview over their financial situation, and because we’re proactively capable of continuously adding value across the whole spectrum, we can offer our customers much more, so they will stay with us. But it’s something that we’ll have to keep up, and keep developing at a quick pace. Taking it easy is not an option. We feel a pressing sense of urgency.
Our ambition is to deliver relevant value to the way that people
do their financial housekeeping.
PERSONAL
J
4544
INNOVATORS
If you want to stay relevant you have to show courage. Which is
why we’ve checked out a number of international initiatives of insu-
rers that are exploiting the potential of technological developments.
4746
UP-TO-DATEINNOVATORS
COVERHOUND
A COMPARISON SITE WITH
CLAIMS SERVICE
In the US, CoverHound has created an online platform for comparing car insurance. CoverHound has distinguished itself by quickly delivering accurate and actionable rates based on customers’ specific needs, either through CoverHound itself or Google’s Insurance Search. De-veloped by an experienced insurance team, CoverHound offers superior customer experiences with leading US in-surers, such as Esurance and Progressive. In addition to comparing the various in-surers, CoverHound also offers service during claims, meaning it earns com-mission for a lead and for servicing the policy. CoverHound is also entering into partnerships with accelerators and incubators to offer insurance products to start-ups. It offers quick quotes and sells products online to these start-ups. The way CoverHound sees it, the insu-rance industry is ready for change and it is paving the way for a new generation of insurers. Google has also discovered CoverHound and is now one of its partners. CoverHound scores an average of 7.0 from its customers.www.coverhound.com
VITALITY
STIMULATING A HEALTHY
LIFESTYLE
Vitality, an offering of South African insurer Discovery, is a hidden gem of the insurance industry. As we all know, healthcare is a cornerstone of tomorrow’s insurance industry, all over the world. The Vitality programme capitalises on today’s customer needs when it comes to healthcare, for both traditional customers
COLLECTIVE HEALTH
THE EMPLOYER BECOMES
THE INSURER
By merging the best medical networks on an online platform, new Silicon Val-ley start-up Collective Health gives the employer the opportunity to be the insurer. The advantage for the employer is that it can manage its own page, where details of the insurer can be instantly accessed. Collective Health makes it easier for employers to circumvent the continuous demand for information from the insurer. Instead of having to sign up for a traditional healthcare plan, for which it pays the insurance company a monthly premium, an employer pays the cost of its workers’ healthcare from its own pocket. The employer collects monthly premiums from its employees, but instead of this money going direct-ly to the insurance company, it goes to an internal fund to cover employees’ medical bills. Employers have the freedom to decide which medical treat-ment and procedures they want to cover. Given that employers do not have to pay the full amount every month, companies that self-insure in this way can save a lot of money, thanks to Collective Health.www.collectivehealth.com
UP-TO-DATE
In 2015 substantial investments were made in international technology
start-ups, not only by venture capitalists but by insurers too. And more
money was invested this way in the insurance industry than in other
sectors. It’s all done with an eye on the future, particularly in rising to exter-
nal challenges and in response to meeting today’s customer requirements.
All in all, it’s resulted in a number of notable and inspiring innovations.
and the so-called Millennials. It offers a wellness programme, in which every-thing from physical activities to nutrition can be measured. It also boasts a strong loyalty programme. It uses an app with an unprecedented customer experience, coupled with the new-generation of sports batches and activity trackers. Customers are given discounts if they buy healthy products at major retailers such as Marks and Spencer, and even for airline tickets and hotel bookings. Thanks also to the low premiums, customers are encouraged to live a healthier lifestyle. Vitality operates independently in South Africa and the UK. In the US and Asia it operates successfully through a white label and partners such as AIA and John Hancock.www.vitality.com
4948
UP-TO-DATE
KNIP
ALL ABOUT INNOVATION
Knip, a “digital insurance manager” and user-friendly mobile app with which a policyholder can quickly conjure up an overview of all his insurance affairs on his smartphone, has become a success-ful innovator in Germany and Switzer-land. It started off in Zurich (with 10,000 customers) then expanded to Berlin (with another 10,000 customers). And now, with an investment of almost €14 million, Knip is ready to cross the pond and conquer the US. The app started out as an “insurance concierge” giving users a quick and easy overview of their various insurance po-licies and the contractual deadlines of different insurers, but without all the paperwork. Since then, the service has been extended. The app can now provide bespoke advice for cheaper premiums, push through claims and even comple-tely facilitate a move to another insurer. And via the app, a team of advisors is at hand to answer any questions customers may have about their insurance policies. With about 100 employees, Knip earns its income through commission from insu-rance companies, managing their policies and generating leads. Knip’s app is a god-send for consumers because it responds to demand on mobile, circumventing the need to sift through all the paperwork. www.knip.com
POLICYGENIUS
COMPARISON SITE AIMED
AT MILLENNIALS
Why does taking out insurance have to be such a frustrating experience? That’s what the two founders of US PolicyGenius asked themselves. It spurred the ex-McKinsey & Co consultants to set up a comparison site that’s clear, transparent and user-friendly. PolicyGenius is aimed at Millennials, the generation of young people who want to arrange everything themselves, online, and through channels they use extensi-vely in their daily lives. By the end of 2015 the site boasted more than 800,000 visitors, over half of them Millennials. Thanks to an online “Insurance Check-up” visitors receive bespoke insurance advice. In a matter of minutes they’ll get a premium overview of 26 different insurance companies that are affiliated to PolicyGenius, including ING, MetLife and Prudential. On Social Media PolicyGenius keeps consumers informed through insurance-related blogs. An investor in PolicyGenius is AXA Strategic Ventures, the venture capital fund of French insu-rer AXA. This is in keeping with AXA’s mission to invest in start-ups that underscore innovation in the insurance industry. www.policygenius.com
5150
UP-TO-DATE
TROV
ON-DEMAND
INSURANCE OF THINGS
Launched in Australia, Trov is the perfect form of insurance for millennials and the mobile generation. Thanks to this on-demand insurer, personal things can be temporarily insured, on a day-by-day basis, through an app. Trov is simple, flexible and transparent. The focus is firmly on the user, who can easily decide which possessions he or she wants to in-sure, and for how long too. Six investors have already invested US$46 million in the Trov app, which was successfully launched on the Australian market in collaboration with Australian insurer Suncorp. Together with AXA, Trov will now be extended to include the UK, with plans to do the same in the US and other markets next year. The app gives users a clear overview of how long something is insured for. The possessions that can be insured range from mobile devices to musical instru-ments. The claiming process via the Trov app is also straightforward. If customers have questions they can quickly contact an employee, thanks to an integrated chat function. In a nutshell, Trov is a bone-fide innovator when it comes to on-demand insurance. www.trov.com
SURE
ONLY WHEN
THERE’S RISK
This year American start-up, Sure, laun-ched “Episodic Insurance”, an on-demand insurance that you can take out via an app to cover short-term risks, whenever and wherever you want it. You can indicate the type of insurance you want through Sure’s Robo-Broker, which is a chatbot. Sure kicked off by launching a life insurance policy covering the duration of a flight. Based on your flight number and your passenger data, a price is calculated. If you agree you can pay directly through the app and you are then insured.More than two million policies have al-ready been closed with the Sure app, so the first few months can definitely be seen as a success. The start-up has already received investments to the tune of US$2.6 million and the insurance policies have been underwritten by some of the world’s biggest insurers. During the next few months Sure plans to introduce new on-demand products. As a custo-mer you pay only for coverage if there is an actual risk. The price that’s offered is customised through artificial intelligence and on the basis of information obtained from your mobile phone or tablet. www.sureapp.com
INNOVATORS
METLIFE WALL
COMPLETE VIEW OF ITS
CUSTOMERS
In just three months US insurer MetLife has developed “MetLife Wall”, a data-driven application that gives agents a complete overview of their customers by collating information from 70 internal systems. On a user-friendly screen, not unlike that of a Facebook timeline, agents receive a 360-degree view of transactions and contacts with customers. Moreover it’s a view that transcends business li-nes. It saves agents a great deal of time, enabling them to respond quickly and proactively to customers’ needs. Chief Customer Officer Claire Burns intro-duced special teams across all silos, focusing on specific customer segments. The insights into customers that “Met-Life Wall” now provides have impro-ved the customer experience. Internal forums have also been used to align the customer journey and experiences.MetLife is very active on Social Media. Thanks to advertisements on Facebook the insurer has boosted the lead-to- sale ratio by a factor of 2.4 and reduced costs per lead by 49 per cent. Defining different target groups on MetLife’s CRM system has made it possible to reach them in a very focused manner.www.metlife.com
IMAGINBANK
MOBILE-ONLY BANK
FOR MILLENNIALS
Spanish bank Caixa has launched the first mobile-only bank in Spain for Millennials, imaginBank. The new bank model can only be accessed via a mobile app and through social networks and offers a com-pletely new range of commission-free products and services. The bank’s app boasts a very simple design, one with the mobile environment specifically in mind. It makes it possible for users to browse, sign up for a full range of products and services, check their bank balance, request transactions and monitor overall account activity. In addition to the app, imaginBank also runs a website, but this is only meant as a source of information and instructions on how to become a customer. The bank has also developed an application that makes it possible for customers to enjoy interactive contact with the bank without having to leave Facebook, and thus in a completely secure environment. Customers can also communicate with the bank via WhatsApp.www.imaginbank.com
INSURANCE IS, AND WILL REMAIN,
MEANINGFUL
His vision is global. And now, especially for the benefit of SoMe readers,
Olav Cuiper (RGA) has flagged up some internationally significant trends
and themes in the area of insurance and Social Media. His main mantra
is: “Insurance is, and will remain, meaningful, because it’s all about the
protection of people and their families. But we will have to re-invent our
insurance industry to fulfill the needs and demands of future generations.”
53
INTERVIEW
OLAV CUIPER, RGA, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, HEAD OF EMEA
5554
OLAV CUIPERINTERVIEW
SIGNAL 1 THE BASISVisit an average insurer’s office and chances are you’ll see most of the employees wor-king with out-dated IT applications. What this means is that insurers often require dif-ferent systems to issue and approve an insu-rance policy, for example. Nowadays in the year 2016 this can be considered as the ‘old- world’, as practically all consumers enjoy modern Internet connectivity and they expect quick and bespoke processing that’s fully Internet facilitated. The office environ- ment itself, the work and customer journeys in the insurance sector need to be modernised in all these areas. Nowadays, for example, it’s no longer realistic to offer customers application forms with ‘one-size fits all’ PDF- documents and physical post-processing.
SIGNAL 2 OLD THINKING What keeps me awake at night is the speed of change of the world around us. We tell ourselves that our market isn’t ready for disruption because we operate in a highly
protecting your family and those who sup-port you in difficult times. This makes in-surance a relevant product for consumers. How can you make someone appreciate insurance? For example with a product that not only adapts to his or her lifestyle, but pro-actively changes along with it too. But nobody wants to see a chart in an app if it doesn’t work properly, or if it doesn’t correspond with the personal data. The com-mon denominator among the large success- ful players is organising that collection of services around consumers, in which quality, reliability and excellent service are anchored in the insurer’s DNA.
SIGNAL 4WELLNESS INITIATIVES
Wellness is hot at the moment, and, seen from a marketing perspective, highly innova-tive. A wellness insurance proposition forces you to think from the consumer’s perceptive. And because the consumer is prepared to give data to the insurance company about his health and lifestyle, in exchange for discounts and other savings, it creates an entirely new dialogue between the insurer and the consu-mer. It’s a form of dialogue in which the insu-rer is constantly in discussion with the target group members and continuously receiving information about how their lives are chang-ing. It actually enhances life-style changes. Young people spend all day on mobile such
We will have to re-invent our insurance industry to fulfill the needs and demands of future generations.
THE AGEING INSURANCE WORLDDiscussions about distribution can often become very technical. In many parts of the world consumers are not being served as a result of regulation, it’s not commercially viable for insurance agents. In successful markets in Asia and Africa, for example, several steps within applications processes have been eliminated and much more use is made of modern techno-logies. On an iPad, for example, the consumer’s life cycle is taken into account to establish what he needs. In Europe and the US we are dealing with an ageing insurance industry and an ageing population. An ageing insurance agent from an ageing generation will be inclined to sell ageing products to his peers. Many insurers haven’t yet found a way to bond with the younger generation.But just how viable are current distribution models for this? And what about distribution through banks? In some countries insurers no longer believe in bank distribution, but in Europe we trust it completely. We are not making enough effort to envisage what the world will look like in 10 years’ time. We have to separate reality from perception. The facts tell us which direction the insurance industry is moving.
regulated environment. I personally think this is a big mistake. Our thinking is still bogged down in the traditional value chain and discussing the role we should be playing in that value chain. And the more I think about it, the more redundant the discussion seems to be. Wherever you are in this chain, it’s nothing more than a collection of servi-ces for the consumer. It’s no longer about the value chain, its about who’s orchestrating this collection of services to the end-consumer.
SIGNAL 3EXCELLENT SERVICE
If you think less traditionally other aspects will come to the fore. As an insurer you’ll think: how can I stay connected with my clients. It would be cool if a customer – who checks out his Facebook account 10 times a day, anyway – occasionally sees something from his insurer. It’s often said that insurance isn’t sexy. Perhaps so, but insurance is certain-ly very meaningful. By using it you are
as Facebook, Instagram and other Social Me-dia channels. If, as an insurer, you don’t ex-ploit this you’ll miss the opportunity to con- nect and communicate with this target group.Vitality, which has enjoyed much success in South Africa, is now also beginning to make an impact in the UK, Europe and Asia. But why not in the Netherlands yet? I put it down to the “not invented here” syndrome. But I reckon wellness can bring insurers clo-ser to their customers, particularly new ones.
SIGNAL 5THE POWER OF DATA
Slowly but surely the raw power of data is becoming clear to everyone. And if insu-rers don’t embrace this, huge anti-selection will take place. The use of data is a very important trend. And the player who is the slowest to pick it up, organise it properly and use it will draw the shortest straw. The customer will soon know more than the insurer. In several countries we are al-ready seeing that more small-claims with a higher volume are being generated through the deployment of STP (Straight Through Processing) and automatic acceptance alongside the inadequate and efficient use of data. Online and STP are therefore a given. Asking the customer three questionsfor medical acceptance is OK, but it’s not enough. The available data also has to be used. Data must be used more intelligent-
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INTERVIEW OLAV CUIPER
ly. Data such as postal code, occupation and driving behaviour can play important roles in this respect. In my opinion, data like this is not sufficiently exploited in the insurance industry. As reinsurers this is something we are currently very focused on. It’s something on which we are even expanding our underwriting capability.
SIGNAL 6THE ELIMINATION OF STEPS
Nowadays, I see that a number of insurers have launched novel insurance concepts, but I cannot help wondering when these initiatives will eventually make a substan-tial contribution to the insurer’s income. But, of course, I realise that new innova-tive concepts often need more time and learning-curve investments than you might originally allow beforehand. However, as an insurer it’s very important to remain constantly in motion; stand still is not an option. An insurer like AXA, does many things well. As a big player it keeps things moving and is, for example, very active on innovation & Social Media. As an insurer you have to keep responding to market developments. The most successful com-
panies are the ones that are the most open to change. That remains a problem in the industry; we immediately want to develop a new Airbus, rather than an aircraft that gets us from A to B. It always has to be big.
SIGNAL 7 TWO WORLDSAs far as having a vision of the future is concerned, the issue is how the legacy, traditional, and the new, modern, worlds will meet. Insurers that create a hip and customer-oriented image for themsel-ves on the outside on Social Media are often unable to meet the expectations on the inside, with their policy-administra-tion process, for example. Should we see those two worlds as separate entities, or as an integral whole, complete with all the challenges that would bring? Personally, I would put the complex, legacy, world in a separate company, supported by excel-lent customer service. The new world could then serve as the basis for all your new policies and customers, based on the latest technologies. I think a straight- forward marriage between the new and old world will be difficult, the journey will be how to adapt, adopt and improve.
RGA XIn the context of change we have launched RGA X as a venture for new initiatives and as an accelerator of innovation. Budget is reserved for investments, such as in the technology that underpins micro insurance, for example, as well as in funds that invest in FinTech and InsurTech. Ventures should not be seen as a fad. We genuinely believe that “make or buy” should be a part of your new business model. As a large internatio-nal company, it’s an illusion to think you can do it all yourself. For me, a venture is not a utopian pursuit. That said, if you identify a concept that you consider relevant, you
can develop it yourself or invest in a company that is already doing so.
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RESEARCHXXXXXXXXXXX
MILLENNIALS FIRST
They’re the future, the Millennials, also known as Generation Y,
young people between 20 and 35 and the first real Internet generation.
Insurance doesn’t really figure prominently in their priorities, so how
can insurers reach them?
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t’s not that Millennials don’t consider insurance important; of course they do, especially when it comes to insuring a new moped or
scooter, for example. But they don’t see it as an obligation. And that’s certainly the case when it comes to health insurance. The bottom line here is that they have no emotional bond with insurance and thus, by definition, not with insurers either. It means that insurers have to create more relevant products, no nonsense content and, of course, use mobile platforms.
So where and how can insurers interact with Millennials? Well, these youngsters are the first generation that grew up with the Internet, which makes them inextricably linked to Social Media. In the eyes of Millen-nials the future of insurance is ‘mobile only’.
And that’s where you’ll find them, on Social, on forums and on blogs. Insurers have to be in all the places where Millennials express themselves. By responding to them, asking them questions and, wherever possible, gi-ving them expert advice. To complement other channels, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are the plat-forms on which insurers should focus the most if they want to reach Millennials. Forget having to create an account, forget logon details, it has to be easily and always accessible. And not just to answer questions or make proposals either, but somewhere you can also take out insurance and even submit claims. Remem-ber, photos and videos can also be sent with WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.A company’s brand values and experi-ence weigh heavily with Millennials, be-
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cause they need to be able to feel a per-sonal bond with it. Worldwide studies show that most Millennials agree that it is important for them to find brands that reflect their personality. Brands should look at their Millennial customers and create a brand personality that mirrors that of Millennials themselves. A compa-ny must take them seriously by listening to them, being loyal and showing them that they care about them. To gain their trust calls for a personalised customer experience. In the era of big data, one-size- doesn’t-fit-all when it comes to Millennials. They are reluctant to pay every month for blanket coverage, as opposed to actual usage. Age aside, Millennials are also different to baby boomers. They don’t want the same products. Their house-holds are different and they are fans of the sharing economy. All-in-all, insurers are going to have to change a lot.Millennials want to be approached com-pletely differently than previous gene- rations. Any communication must be simple, quick and clear. If it’s not, they’re gone. No nonsense then, certainly no gimmicky content, just relevant informa-tion. It’s precisely because their association with insurance is driven purely by need that means it cannot be complicated. Mil-lennials want to be helped simply, so that they don’t have to concern themselves afterwards. They live their lives online, but they still love offline experiences. Being online is a means of expressing themselves via digital channels.Decisions made by Millennials are largely driven by what others say elsewhere, which is why they mainly rely on user-generated content. And, remarkably, they take the reviews of
strangers more seriously than those of their family or friends. And their willingness to switch products is much, much higher, because they have less brand loyalty. his just underlines how important it is for insurers to “play the game” on Social Media and to increase relevance. Millennials want to decide themselves about what they buy, when it suits them, and where. On Social Media, of course.
MILLENNIALS IN FIGURES
Qualitative and quantitative research carried out during these past few years have provided many interesting insights into Millennials, namely:● 87% of them keep their smartphones with them, day and night;● they spend over three hours a day on their mobile device;● 71% of them use social media every day;● they spend an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes on Social Media every day;● of the social networking apps, the Face-book mobile app is used the most;● they spend an average of 51 minutes a day on the Facebook mobile app;● this is followed by Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter;● they have started to look further afield than just Facebook, although it remains by far the largest social network in the world; ● 84% of them say that user-generated content on company websites has at least some influence on what they buy;● 33% of them rely heavily on reading blogs before making a purchase;● 93% of them check out online reviews before making a purchase.
SOURCES: socialmediaweek.orgwww.statista.com
RESEARCH
THOMAS (18)
“The best way for an insurer to contact me is through email. If I buy a phone, it’s handier if an offer for phone insurance is part of the package because you can
close the deal on it immediately.”
JOOST (20)
“An insurer doesn’t have to be cool. Some-times I see TV ads in which insurers target young people using some semi-cool name that simply doesn’t hit the spot. Not only is this not effective, it makes us feel as if we
are not being taken seriously.”
DAAN (22)
“Price and quality are important. As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t necessarily have to be the cheapest; I want quality. The website must be clear in what’s being offered. No fine print and no nonsense.”
ROBIN (21)
“Communities are becoming increa-singly important and it’s mainly about reviews. In future I think the opinions of other consumers will become more and more important. Because they are not completely objective, comparison sites
will become a bit less relevant.”
LARS (20)
“In the event of a complaint I have expe- rience with Facebook, even though I know it’s also handy to use Twitter. I always hope to get a response within 12 hours, certainly within 24 hours, but the
sooner the better.”
PIEN (24)
“I’m becoming increasingly focused on things that will happen in five years, so with things that I should insure too. But I know so little about insurance at the moment. Like most young people, it is something my parents are taking care of.”
MILLENNIALS
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LIZA (23)
“Based on all kinds of data, ads are placed on your timeline and this irritates 95 per cent of people. If you want to take out insurance for your phone, for example, that’s something you’re more likely to do with an insurer and not with Apple. ‘‘An insurer has the necessary expertise
whereas Apple does it as a side-line.”
MATS (26)
“I’ll check reviews to see if sites I’m not familiar with can be trusted, but I won’t compare quality when it comes to brands like Nike or Apple. Then it’s all about the concept, the image. Functionality is also very important. And privacy? It doesn’t really exist any more, which is something
we just accept and take for granted.”
NOOR (23)
“I’ve just taken out health insurance because my parents felt it was time to do it myself. I checked online for quality and good reviews. When I called it was all
arranged in just five minutes.”
JORIS (18)
“Mail is more formal and clearer than WhatsApp or Instagram and with mail you tend to take more time to write a better, more readable text. I prefer to respond to mails with my laptop because it’s easier. When you use your phone you do things quickly and you don’t always
take enough care.”
Millennials choose their own path. They are completely
linked with Social Media.
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KARLIJN MUTSAERTS, MANAGER SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTICE ITDS
SOCIAL SELLS
“When I carry out a Social Media Scan at an insurer I certainly notice that
the importance of Social Media is acknowledged by the management. But
in reality Social Media is often not being given the priority it warrants, and
its success depends entirely on the marketer who makes a case for it. Its
real importance is just not recognised enough.”
uring the past few years Karlijn Mutsaerts, Manager Social Media Practice at ITDS, has come to know the insurance
sector in the field of Social Media like the back of her hand. Using the Social Media Scan, which she developed personally, she advises companies how to embed Social Media in their operations. Since the launch of the Scan, she and her team have advised over 20 insurers in this area.
IS SOCIAL MEDIA TAKEN SERIOUSLY?
Not seriously enough, there’s no doubt about that. At best, a company will appoint a Social Media manager, but in less favourable cases that won’t happen at all. Insurers are struggling with good reports that don’t emphasis its importance, so the management style stays too focused on “old” KPIs. They remain locked in a vicious circle: no insight into results, so no priority.
CAN THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
BE MEASURED?
Absolutely. Based on an attribution model defined by the insurer it’s possible to measure the role that was played by Social Media in the conversion process (such as a click, a premium calculation or a new policy). Yet few insurers provide insight into the results in this way.
HOW MUCH SALES POWER DOES
SOCIAL MEDIA HAVE?
Social Media gives you the opportunity to make the customer key. Actually, the cus-tomer puts himself at the centre; as the in-surer you just need to handle it correctly. We’ve helped insurers to set up a “Social Command Centre”, in which everything literally revolves around the dialogue with the customer. It’s a great way to get things moving in an organisation and wake people up to the possibilities. What the
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customer says is displayed on large screens, so the organisation can simply no longer ignore it. By entering into dialogue with the customer he feels as if he’s being heard, which contributes directly to customer satisfaction, as well as the perception that people have of the brand in question. Using messenger services, such as WhatsApp, also clearly contribute to customer satisfaction. I was allowed to implement it with several of our customers and their customer satisfac- tion has never been higher! Email and phone calls can never compete with it. And Millennials, in particular, are becoming increasingly more accustomed to commu- nicating via WhatsApp and Facebook Mes-senger. But Social Media offers much more: it presents so many opportunities to learn from and learn about (potential) customers. Once, you know how to play the game you can establish a bond with your customers. That’s sales, or call it retention, but that’s also sales.
ARE THERE MEASURING
INSTRUMENTS THAT CAN HELP?
Like I mentioned, insurers often remain in a state of flux because the figures aren’t made transparent, or because KPIs go no further than increases in the numbers of fans and followers. This perpetuates the problem of it not being clear what Social Media adds
to the equation. The management dash-board doesn’t exist yet, at least not with any insurer I’ve ever seen. Everyone is strugglingwith dashboards. Even in those cases in which KPIs have been defined, there are still no dashboards. There are the most intuitive tools imaginable out there, tools with impressive dashboard capabilities. But if they aren’t properly configured or embedded, they won’t help.
HOW SHOULD IT ALL BE TACKLED
THEN?
In an ideal world it’s a continuous process: 1. define the strategy, 2. execute, 3. mea-sure and 4. learn and tweak the strategy. In many cases, the first two steps are carried out, and number three is sometimes done too. But step four is one that’s rarely taken. More often than not, it’s pre-digested for the customer: what would work, what would the customer appreciate. The point is, so much experience and data has already been accu-mulated, and these choices should be based on this experience and data. Measure, learn, adjust, measure, learn, adjust. I often come across reports made by third parties. In the most extreme cases 10 different reports can be delivered about 10 different subjects by 10 different agencies. It’s hardly surprising that nobody has a total overview!
Thanks to our annual survey into insurers’ use of Social Media, at ITDS we are often asked for our
expertise. The development of the Social Media Scan was a logical next step. Using this Scan,
we can show to what extent Social Media has been integrated in a company and how it’s used.
It’s much more than just advice about how to organise your Facebook page. It’s about choosing
the most appropriate channels, relevant content, clear KPIs, and the right reports. But most im-
portantly of all: it’s about embedding it in the company’s business processes. From Social Media
to Social Business. For more information about our Scan contact: [email protected]
SOCIAL MEDIA SCAN
‘Disruption is already here’
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INTERVIEWXXXXXXXXXXX
DIGITISATION? TRANSFORMATION
IS CRUCIAL!
“Digitisation is an essential prerequisite for succeeding in business. If you
don’t do it you’ll miss the boat. But it takes more than just a website or an
app. Digitisation calls for the transformation of the whole company. “We’re
working hard at it; but there’s still a lot to do.” The words are those of Frank
van Wessel, Digital Officer at the Dutch insurer Delta Lloyd.FRANK VAN WESSEL, DIGITAL OFFICER DELTA LLOYD
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rank van Wessel is responsible for digitisation at Delta Lloyd and he’s an enthusiastic pro-ponent of the process. He flags
up any changes that are necessary, and is constantly aware of challenges that his or-ganisation faces.
WHAT ARE DELTA LLOYD’S
AMBITIONS IN THIS AREA?
Today’s customers are almost continuously online. At night we put our smartphone or tablet next to our beds and during the day we’re not averse to taking them to the toilet with us either. Customers want one-touch service and a high level of user-friendliness. And companies like Picnic and Uber are meeting that need by using modern techno-logy. Companies like these are also setting the benchmark for the financial sector. At Delta Lloyd we’ve some way to go, but our ambition is really no different. Customers expect it, and it saves money. That’s why we’re investing in digital programmes. The two brands in our group are in a different phase. Customers of our direct label OHRA can already do a lot themselves online and on mobile. For the most recent customers there is no longer a paper option; they have to accept digital service. Thinking digitally is also ingrained in employees’ DNA, because at OHRA they are used to having direct con-
tact with customers and, above all, offering simple-risk products. Delta Lloyd’s products are more complex. For customers it’s wise, even mandatory sometimes, to be helped by an advisor. Here, the digital ambition is no different but the transformation process is a bit slower.
AND WHAT DOES DIGITISATION MEAN
FOR CUSTOMERS AND ADVISORS?
We’re seeing a shift in the behaviour and the needs of both advisors and customers. Advisors prefer to spend their time advising customers, as opposed to doing admini-stration. Customers meanwhile, want to be better orientated before asking for advice and prefer to do the simple administrative things themselves. The need for advice is thus non-negotiable. Through digital projects we are working hard on providing digital support for the whole customer journey, for both our customers and our advisors. By the end of this year Delta Lloyd wants to digitise 90 per cent of all contact between customers and advisors.
WHAT KIND OF CHALLENGES DOES
THE INSURANCE SECTOR FACE?
A user-friendly digital process might seem like a no-brainer, but even achieving something relatively easy − like logging in − can often be complex and requires a lot
of expertise. Straightforward is not necessa-rily the same as simple. Above all, a digital strategy entails more than just having a user-friendly website and an app. Creating a fully digital mindset and applying new business models are real challenges. Ulti-mately it’s about the transformation of the whole company. “Digital” must be part of the DNA of every employee. However, the transformation of a company, that’s been doing things differently for so long, calls for a lot of energy. And it doesn’t make it any easier if we continue to fall back on existing business models, and neither does the men-tality of “doing nothing” does no harm in the short term. But “doing nothing” when it comes to digitisation is not an option; we’d soon be out of business. It’s mainly about being careful to find the right speed.
AND WHAT ABOUT ORGANISATIONS’
CAPACITIES?
It begins with ambition and there is enough of that. A digital strategy is translated into a digital agenda, complete with concrete projects and deliverables. Among other things Delta Lloyd is working on the mo-dernisation of logging in and of its tooling, the improvement of portals, and the further development of mobile apps. For example, at the beginning of 2015 we developed a vir-tual assistant, a smart tool that can answer context-relevant enquiries without the in-volvement of employees. In the meantime,
between 800 and 1,000 enquiries a day are being processed, with a success rate of 90 per cent. We’ve also introduced “My Delta Lloyd” in The Netherlands, a digital counter that brings together all separate portals for our customers and advisors. Then in July, we were the first insurer in the Netherlands to implement Touch ID in the OHRA App. A few months ago we started using WhatsApp at OHRA. Customers gave us a 9.1 apprecia-tion rating for OHRA via WhatsApp, higher than we dared to expect. But if I look around, I still think we need to go faster. We’re used to thinking linearly so we tend to underestimate the impact of digital developments until it swings the other way. And then we’re surprised at its speed and impact. But by then it’s too late. I don’t think we’ve yet reached the tipping point in the financial services industry.
WHAT WILL BE IMPORTANT DURING
THE COMING YEARS?
I think it’s crucial to acquire experience with data, proactively identifying risks and noti-fying customers. That’s why I’m interested in insurance based on usage and behaviour. It’s a fascinating concept because it mar-ries several developments. In it, customer behaviour, digital services, data, technology, privacy and direct feedback and the application of insights all come together. Customer demand is very strong, and as soon as privacy can be guaranteed the
We’ve not yet reached the tipping point in the financial
services industry.F
As a 32-year-old Frank van Wessel belongs to the generation Y that grew up with the Internet.
As a trained economist he started up a web design company. Since 2009 he has worked for the
Delta Lloyd Group. Within the Group he worked for several brands: he joined ABN AMRO Insurance
and between 2010 and 2014 he was marketing manager with BeFrank. At the Young Professional
of the Year 2012 ceremony, he won an award for a marketing campaign that he developed.
PERSONAL
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INTERVIEW FRANK VAN WESSEL
market will develop. Just look at the growth of Oscar Health in New York. I also expect a transition to “pay how you live” in the Ne-therlands.
WHICH APPROACH DO YOU
FAVOUR?
I believe in three development phases: inspi-ration, testing and implementation. I think an idea should be tested much more before being implemented into our core systems. We need to build prototypes, explain it to customer panels and increase our skills and knowledge through experience. If it doesn’t work, we should stop, but if it does work we should improve it and make it bigger. In other words, we shouldn’t be too quick to fit it into existing structures.
WHAT DO YOU MEASURE?
Like digitisation, taking measurements is not a goal unto itself, but a key way of structu-rally improving. My objective is to improve our level of service, based on feedback re-ceived from our customers and advisors. One statistic doesn’t tell me much. I’d like to know what customers and advisors really appreciate, and what they think could be im-proved. I prefer to measure real behaviour. How many screens did the customer have to navigate? How many clicks? How many fields did he have to fill in? And what did he think of it all? The responses we receive will tell us which adjustments are necessary and
help us set priorities. Asking for input has never been easier. That’s the role and the power of Social. I regard Social Media as a feed-back channel, one that allows you to learn and engage in dialogue. That’s what the techno-logy is for; advisors and customers want it, so why shouldn’t we give it to them?
WHEN WILL YOU BE SATISFIED?
When customers and advisors are truly ap-preciative of digital services, and see them as the best option, of course. Another thing I want to achieve is for employees to see digital services as an intrinsic part of business operations. I want to fuel a tran-sition from a focus on product to a focus on digital services. Together with customers and advisors, we want to develop products and services and learn which risks customers want to accept, reduce or defer. We want to listen to customers’ needs and then deploy modern technology in relevant ways. It involves working structurally on user-friend-liness, improving service and reducing costs. It means that people won’t just become customers; they’ll want to stay customers. Digitisation never ends.
Asking for input has never been easier. That’s the role and the
power of Social Media.
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VISION
TO SURVIVE WITH SOCIAL MEDIA
Insurers are feverishly digitising their processes, but contact with the
customer on Social Media and mobile still lags behind. And that’s
exactly where the future lies.
Vision, by Arjen de Boer, CCO at ITDS
TOWARDS A SOCIAL COMPANY
New technology, changing customer behaviour and start-ups with
divergent business models will change the insurance industry. It’s only
by increasing and smartening their use of Social Media that insurers
will be able to survive in this brave new world. It’ll require a drastic
change in the internal organisation. The only chance of enduring is to be a
genuine Social Company. A few developments that play a role in all this
are sketched below.
STILL ALIVE, BUT…The insurance industry will still be around in 2020, but insurance companies’ business model will have undergone a seismic shift. With local governments maintaining legislation and regulation, the shift will be slower than expected, despite insurers having invested a lot of money in start-ups and disruptors last year. Traditional distribu-tion models are still being used. In one country the middleman is still very much alive and kicking, in another many old-school insurance agents are still used, and in some parts of Europe much of the distribution goes through banks. In response to the threats, a lot is being done in the area of digitisation. But there’s still not enough focus on Social Media. Even start-ups are not sufficiently exploiting the power of Social Media. Hardly any company is taking that vital step towards becoming a Social Company.
SHIFT TO MOBILE, THE FUTURE IS CONNECTED
Prospective, and even existing, customers are going for absolute convenience. Not
four clicks, just one. But this calls for huge investments in becoming familiar with a mobile-only approach. The focus must also be on Millennials; the elderly will follow their example. Use Social to generate quick methods of self-assistance. Enhance agility and innovation. Go ahead with innovation and implement it as quickly as possible.
FROM SOCIAL HUB TO SOCIAL COMMAND CENTRE
The big insurers are certainly all active and they are investing heavily in inno-vation, mobile and Social. There is also activity on the Social platforms and they are writing blogs. But as yet they are nowhere near what you could call Social Companies. While social is about becoming a social business rather than using social as a marketing tool. The cur-rent business model is coming to an end. Using Social Media doesn’t make it more expensive. On the contrary, using Social renders certain processes unnecessary, so you can skip them. There is a huge amount of ignorance about Social Media.
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ARJEN DE BOERVISION
THERE IS NO “SOCIAL STRATEGY” ANYMORE, JUST STRATEGY IN A SOCIAL WORLD
If the industry is to survive in future, insurers will simply have to change. The question is whether old insurers will be able to reinvent themselves. Start-ups and new players only employ young people and they adopt a “mobile-only” approach. Through social they corporate trust and brand love. But does this all mean that these old insurers will need to ring-fence the traditional parts and start new organisations alongside them? Big players like AXA and Allianz are investing in start-ups, but they are also renewing and sometimes dismantling the older parts. In some countries insurers are selling old distribution channels, like working with banks and agents, to third parties and starting a new organisations under their established brand.
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VISION ARJEN DE BOER
Making the organisation Social demands a lot of focus. More often than not a company’s management comprises short-term thinkers with other KPIs in their sights, whereas the focus should be on the long term. Many players have instal-led a Social Hub, which again comprises no more than a small group of believers. There is still not yet a social command centre. And if that small group of believers walk away, Social falls by the wayside.
THE CUSTOMER IS BASHING THE SILOS INTO ONE
That small group of believers is often spread over the whole company, in dif-ferent departments, such as marketing, online, branding, customer service, or communications. An excellent customer experience depends on the cooperation between these departments. The customer sees the insurer as one company and isn’t bothered about its separate departments.
LEARN THINGS ON SOCIAL MEDIA THAT THE CALL CENTRE
DOESN’T KNOW ABOUTSocial Media should not be seen as an extra; it must be part of the organisa- tional culture. Insurers must be present to listen and learn on the most popular Social
Media channels. You’ll learn more about your brand and your services on Social Media than you will through a call centre. As soon as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are integrated in a contact centre, customer satisfaction increases. Millennials not only want to get in touch, they actually want to do business like this. This doesn’t just mean claims handling, but also going to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger for insurance products. Within the past few years, messaging apps have surpassed social networks. Launching messengers as part of customer ser-vice app, will cause a noticeable drop in public complaints. WhatsApp is the consu-mers’ response to the complex world that insurers have created themselves.
CUSTOMER RECORDS MUST INCLUDE WHO
SOMEONE IS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Nowadays a one-to-one approach is actually possible. During these past few years big data has been very much on every-one’s lips, yet hardly anyone out there is actu-ally implementing it. Walk the talk and get on with it. Only then will you be able to see what customers want, measure it and give customers service. It is now a
SOCIAL IS REINVENTING THE ENTIRE CUSTOMER LIFE CYCLESocial activities must be embedded in the insurer’s core business. It’s more than just a new way of communicating. It’s about deploying Social in the insurer’s services, like using WhatsApp for claims handling, and maybe in future for actually taking out an insurance policy. It calls for a new organisational structure. So fully integrate social within your organisational structure and culture. You have to start internally to be
successfully externally.
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ARJEN DE BOERVISION
MILLENNIALS WILL DICTATE THE FUTURE
Insurers have to become brand publishers. It calls for a completely different skills set. Snapchat, WhatsApp and Facebook Mes-senger will turn the whole organisation on its head, which will then need different people to play different roles. The attracti-on for school leavers to work in this indus-try is minimal, yet it’ll be the well-heeled Millennials that will dictate how the insu-rance market will work in future, which means that Millennials will have to be deployed in the organisational embedding.
KEEP IT STUPIDLY SIMPLEIt all starts by improving the level of ser-vice to the customers. Beware of win-dow dressing; customers will quickly see through it. Customer service must be simple and straightforward: keep it stupidly simple. Insurers have made it far too complicated. Be as open as possible and be ready for a future in which everyone will be connected. Develop on-demand in-surance and connected insurance. We’re going to have to deal with the Internet of Things, where premiums will be dictated by behaviour and parameters that can be
measured. It will lead to different forms of property & casualty insurance. The more information that’s available about the cus-tomer’s activities, the greater the impact will be on future products. This is already evident in the retail sector. In the life and pensions sector, young people are already buying less. These products will certainly need to be adapted.
ON-DEMAND INSURANCEUnder pressure from customers, particu-larly Millennials, products will be quickly changed or adapted to meet their require-ments. Millennials want insurance when they need it and for as long as they need it, such as when they borrow something, for example. This will become one of the pillars of the new insurance industry. There will be much more short-term insurance policies and, for the sake of convenience, that calls for an excellent customer experience. Most new insurance models are to be found in the area of property and casualty, but there is also a growing market for life insurance products. One of the cornerstones of the future is wellness, a strong advantage of which is that it’s also a loyalty concept.
STOP SELLING AND START TELLINGSocial Media has become an integral part of the contact between customer and insurer, but it’s continuously developing. New platforms achieve critical mass quicker than ever before. And how should insurers respond? Stop selling and start telling. There are too few reviews, ranking and ratings. And in those places where measurements are taken there is insufficient transparency. In future, customers will increasingly make choices that are based on peer-to-peer and user reviews.
Customers will make choices that are based on peer-to-peer and user reviews.
given that the insurers’ business model will have to change. Data must be used in the interests of better customer focus, for which the integration of CRM and Social data is crucial. The customer’s behaviour and his or her behaviour on Social Media must be aligned, by increasing the integration of online and offline custo-mer data and webcare data. To really get to know customers and implement a one-to-one approach, spray and pay is dead. Install a data-driven culture to drive better decision-making. Don’t look at your audience just as a sales target, it’s about building a relationship. Long term relationhas more value than the short term sales.
A NEW MIND-SHIFTWhy do insurers focus so strongly on customer retention? Clients won’t walk away if you are transparent, have a good product and offer excellent service. Make sure your products are attuned to the needs of customers and go in search of new clients too. All this is a mind-shift that has to take place. Social Media is the channel of which insurers will acquire new customers, new target groups.
LTC − LOVE, TENDERNESS AND CARE
It’s relevant to take the trouble to help customers and to really care about your customers, rather than just pretending to. Insurance will never be sexy, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be relevant. Social is real-time, transparent and brutally honest. Use it to showcase the human side of your brand. The biggest pitfall is to terminate the dialogue or undermine its importance.
BE AUTHENTIC, BE HUMAN
Everything is also related to content. There’s more to using Social than just webcare; it’s also about conversation management. Content starts with meaningful connec-tions. It must engage your target group. All around us we see a shift to mobile and video. Visuals and video are key to great contentmarketing. Share positive, people-centric content, co-created with your customers, easy to absorb. Be authen-tic and human, humanise your brand. Millennials, in particular, will not thank you for complicated and commercial posts. At the same time you must pay attention to user-generated content. It opens doors to a real community, where real discussions take place.
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SOCIAL NUMBERSINFOGRAPHIC
SOCIAL NUMBERS
The rankings and charts of the Social Media Insurance Monitor were
established by taking measurements and doing desk research. The mea-
surements, taken across the 20 insurers featured in the rankings, were
taken on the first half of 2016. An infographic, complete with additional
statistics, is presented on the following pages.
ACTIVITIES OF THE 20 INSURERS IN 2016
HOW MUCH CONTENT DID INSURERS POST IN 2016?
100% 95% 100%
5 12 2
100%
ACTIVE ON
ACTIVE ON
ACTIVE ON
ACTIVE ON
YOUTUBE
messages on Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn
Most Facebook posts - MAPFRE (ES)
Most Tweets - MAPFRE (ES)
Most LinkedIn posts - AXA (FR)
Most YouTube uploads - Geico (US)
6.601
394 7.606 3.717YouTube uploads responses to
consumers via Twitter
responses to consumers
via Facebook
Average number of
posts per week on
Average number of
posts per week on
Average number of
posts per week on
8584
SOCIAL NUMBERSINFOGRAPHIC
OF THE GLOBAL PLAYERS HAVE A GLOBAL FACEBOOK PAGE
Great Eastern (MY): most Facebook fans compared to population density
Aegon (NL): most Twitter fans compared to population density
refers to Social Media channels via
the homepage
gives the oppor-tunity to provide feedback on the
website
gives the oppor-tunity to provide feedback on the Facebook page
Special mention to: Geico offers 24/7
service via its Twitter account
Special mention to: Aviva gives the oppor-tunity on its website to
provide feedback
offers Social Media as a service
channel via the website’s contact page
offers chat on the website
OF THE INSURERS HAVE A CAREER TAB ON LINKEDIN
56% 85%
TOP 3 FANS FACEBOOK TOP 3 FOLLOWERS TWITTERHOW MOBILE ARE THE INSURERS?
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT OBJECTIVES OF DEPLOYING SOCIAL MEDIA
ADDITIONAL PAGES
2.157.790
59.886 4.825
236.5861.837.867 82.494670.310 74.85995%
20% 15%
95%
WHICH EMERGING CHANNELS ARE INSURERS USING?
HOW MANY INSURERS GIVE CONSUMERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK?
60% 0% 70% 55%
OWN
COMMUNITY
WHATSAPP INSTAGRAM PINTEREST
HOW POPULAR ARE THE INSURERS?
TOTAL NUMBER OF
FACEBOOK FANS
TOTAL NUMBER OF
TWITTER FOLLOWERS
7.573.595 695.571
1 INCREASING BRAND AWARENESS 2 COMMUNITY BUILDING 3 HR / RECRUITMENT
has a mobile website has a mobile app
90% 30% 15%
★
‘Content is King, it still is!’
8786
COLOPHON
A research-based report about the use of Social Media by 20 international insurers in 2016. An initiative of ITDS Business Consultants.
The research was carried out by ITDS Business Consultants in 2016. The results are based on inter-views, desk research and measurements taken among 20 insurers, from all over the world.
ABOUT ITDS
With offices in the Netherlands and in Poland, ITDS is a specialist consultancy for financial institutions such as banks, insurance companies and pension funds. Over 15 years’ experience in the industry have given us in-depth expertise of a variety of products and processes in the sector. We combine up-to-date knowledge of the insurance market with a practical vision on information technology.Information technology is playing an increasingly important role for insurers, while Social Media and today’s consumers call for a different way of communicating. ITDS can help insurers draw up a strategy for the successful implementation of Social Media.With our Social Media Scan our experts can measure where a company is regarding the deployment of Social Media, in other words, how social their business is.
© 2016 - ITDS Groep B.V. No part of this publication may be reproduced and/or published by means of printing, photocopying, microfilm, or through any other channels, without the prior written permission of the owner of the intellectual rights, namely, ITDS Groep B.V. in the Netherlands. This also applies to complete or partial reworking.
Compilation
Arjen de Boer
General coordination
Karlijn Mutsaerts
Content and Research
Daphne de Groot
Wouter Houtman
Lars Majoor
Jaap Smeeing
Robin Verkerk
Translations
John Widen
Final editing
KdB
Media & Communicatie
Artdirector
Ingrid van Dijk (DN30)
Photography
Hans de Kort
Lithography
Nefli
Printing
GrafiServices Utrecht
ITDS Groep B.V. The Netherlands, www.itds.com
SOCIAL MEDIA INSURANCE MONITOR 2016 BY ITDS
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