The current 2022 Qorus-Accenture Innovation in Insurance coverage Awards are a robust, sensible illustration of the tendencies shaping the insurance coverage business. Sustainability and workforce transformation have gotten central to insurers for retaining relevance in a altering market. Insurers must embed sustainability into their technique and worth proposition, they usually need to embrace workforce transformation within the gentle of things akin to a good labour market, ability shortages, rising human-machine interactions and hybrid work preparations. Each are additionally turning into key concerns for folks when choosing their insurance coverage service of selection and/or a spot the place to forge a profession.
Social, sustainable and accountable
Accenture’s 2021 Insurance Global Consumer Study illustrated that sustainability in all kinds has turn into more and more essential for shoppers, with 67 p.c of millennial and youthful generations saying that sustainable services are interesting. This curiosity stands to have a double profit to insurers, who can construct sustainable danger administration mannequin, whereas on the identical time demonstrating to youthful shoppers that sustainability is a shared worth.
In a earlier series on sustainability, I mentioned how we now have interaction with a wider definition of sustainability inside insurance coverage. Sustainability not solely pertains to defending the planet, however defending our future by way of constructive socio-economic practices, caring for underserved and weak communities.
Built-in, proactive sustainability won’t be potential with out implementing the proper expertise. As our newest analysis Uniting Technology and Sustainability discusses, expertise is a key enabler for growing holistically sustainable companies and for that sustainability and expertise methods must turn into tightly aligned. In reality, in Accenture’s Perception to Reality: Closing Stakeholders Consensus Gaps to Shape Sustainable Organizations we illustrated that 43% of executives point out accessing the proper expertise on the proper price as a key barrier to growing sustainability objectives.
On this yr’s awards, we noticed how insurers are overcoming these challenges by connecting sustainability to their objective and imaginative and prescient and utilizing applied sciences akin to AI to trace their very own ESG necessities or construct revolutionary merchandise that add worth to prospects, in addition to to society and the broader surroundings.
Class winner – PZU (Poland)
This was definitely the case with this yr’s winner of the Social, Sustainable & Accountable 2022. PZU received the class for its AI Pores and skin Most cancers Prevention device, which empowers prospects to entry pores and skin most cancers pre-screening rapidly and simply by way of an AI-enabled cell app.
Marcin Kurczab – Head of Innovation Lab at PZU explains how the device got here to be: “When implementing the mission, we recognized the problem of low consciousness of pores and skin most cancers danger among the many staff of our company purchasers. For that reason, we supplied them a easy and fast answer that robotically reminds them to carry out common self-examinations.”
Over 3,000 folks registered within the app within the first months of the pilot programme, with 5 pores and skin most cancers circumstances recognized by the app and being confirmed by dermatological evaluation up to now. PZU acquired constructive suggestions from customers, who shared that the device made pores and skin most cancers prevention simpler and extra accessible.
Kurczab provides, “Two folks advised us about their medical consultations, throughout which medical doctors have been impressed by the effectiveness of the app, which proves its reliability. That’s our mission as an insurer – we’ve the distinctive functionality to guard and assist folks in residing higher and longer. It takes solely takes a minute for PZU prospects to test their pores and skin situation at house and, if there’s a concern, to escalate this by seeing a physician. Analysis at such an early stage will increase the possibility of a profitable restoration.”
PZU noticed a rise in buyer sentiment on account of the device, noticing a statistically vital distinction within the analysis of PZU’s innovativeness (+13 p.p. compared with the management group) and the notion of the corporate as fashionable (+10 p.p. compared with the management group) of their annual advertising survey.
“It’s generally recognized that healthcare providers are overloaded, and sufferers usually have to attend a very long time for a physician’s appointment and remedy. New applied sciences akin to AI have an enormous potential for revolutionizing healthcare by addressing its fundamental ache factors. AI-based instruments can handle a variety of challenges by checking signs, optimizing healthcare processes, conducting triage but additionally predicting danger of a given illness (like cancers) or enabling early detection of such diseases which can lead to decrease mortality charges. Trendy AI instruments can act as a assist of medical doctors throughout examination (there are already purposes with medical certification which can be prescribed by medical doctors similar to drugs or different types of rehabilitation) or allow self-examination choices as a part of prevention – similar to our mission. AI doesn’t really feel fatigue, it’s higher in avoiding biases, and may see what isn’t at all times observed by people. These options could make AI an inseparable ingredient of medical prognosis sooner or later.”
Workforce transformation
Expertise is the lifeblood of the insurance coverage business. It’s only with the proper sources and data that insurance coverage carriers will be capable of rework and realise their imaginative and prescient.
Nonetheless, expertise and expertise shortages are a rising concern inside the insurance coverage business. Ability gaps ensuing from the introduction of recent applied sciences and rising digitization of operations, coupled with an ageing workforce and large retirement looming are notably worrying. For instance, expertise administration (succession, planning, recruiting, retention, and coaching) was highlighted as rising concern by underwriters in The Institutes-Accenture’s 2021 underwriting survey.
A key rising problem and alternative for insurers is the rise of the distant workforce. On the one hand, the distant workforce opens up new alternatives for efficiencies. In Accenture’s 2021 Technology Vision for Insurance 88% of insurance coverage executives shared the assumption that the distant workforce opens up the marketplace for difficult-to-find expertise and expands the competitors for expertise amongst organizations. However, optimizing the sources that guarantee a wholesome and productive workforce, no matter bodily location, might be difficult. Working remotely additionally makes a cohesive and collaborative office tradition harder.
Class winner – Zurich Insurance coverage Firm
Zurich addressed the actual challenges which have come about by way of the hybrid workforce, with an all-in-one cell utility for Zurich staff that simplifies the day-to-day expertise whether or not they’re at house or within the workplace.
Oscar Escudero Sanchez, Head of Digital Supply, Zurich Insurance coverage Firm discusses how the workforce approached the creation of the app, “Zurich has about 56,000 staff globally they usually deserve the very best and best instruments to assist navigate their work life. We initially launched the app in a number of Zurich enterprise items with a give attention to workspace reserving however have come very far since and are going world this yr. With One Zurich, we’re turning our outdated mannequin of functional-based digital experiences on its head. The place we beforehand had completely different platforms for, let’s say, HR or IT assist, now our staff have it multi function place.”
Liz Oswald, Head of Expertise Transformation, Zurich Insurance coverage Firm provides, “One Zurich goals to supply our staff with a holistic digital expertise. We recurrently have interaction our staff by way of a number of channels akin to focus teams, interviews, polls and in-app suggestions kinds to grasp their desires, wants and preferences, and use these inputs to outline and prioritize a backlog of app options and user-experience flows. As soon as these are in manufacturing, we observe their utilization and observe up with staff to grasp what’s working nicely for them or what they wish to see improved – after which we take these adjustments and enhancements into our backlog.”
This strategy aligns to a hybrid means of working. Escudero Sanchez explains, “Zurich has embraced the brand new post-pandemic means of working, together with providing expanded flex and distant working choices to staff. This mannequin creates many alternatives for each the corporate and staff on how one can keep related in a hybrid working world. At a tactical stage, the One Zurich app helps staff in managing their on-site days with user-friendly, visible instruments that permit to see when their colleagues are planning to return into the workplace, e-book close by workspaces and handle their reservations. Extra broadly, One Zurich serves as a channel for participating staff with related updates and actions after they matter most and to assist them really feel related regardless of which office mannequin they select.”
Workforce transformation doesn’t occur in a vacuum, however as a part of a deeper strategic dedication. Oswald concludes, “At Zurich, our ambition is to be one of the accountable and impactful companies on the planet. We all know {that a} key ingredient of reaching this will likely be offering our prospects, brokers, and brokers with fashionable, streamlined and intuitive instruments and consumer flows that have interaction and delight them, and which can be tailor-made to their particular person wants. However it’s not sufficient to give attention to innovating for our exterior audiences – all of it has to begin on the core! Our staff make Zurich. With One Zurich, we’re offering an instance for our staff by reworking their very own expertise and sharing our findings to tell our group’s broader digitalization journey.”
As these two winners present, a holistic dedication to sustainability and workforce transformation from the within can have a widespread, highly effective influence.
See the complete 2022 Qorus Accenture Innovation in Insurance list.
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