Insurers must offer digital solutions that lift accessibility and educate clients
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Even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, SA’s traditional insurers had been contending for relevance and market share in an increasingly competitive and digitally transforming consumer landscape.
What we saw happening from about 2016 is verified by various pieces of research by the big consulting firms and local universities, highlighting the rapid evolution and maturation of consumers, putting pressure on traditional insurers and their push-product-at-consumer value propositions. As the needs of consumers and clients evolve and mature, insurers face a continuing challenge to maintain relevance with policyholders.
The partnership between Fedgroup Life and SmartWill (owned by CliqTech, a fidtech start-up), which we announced this week as our entrance into the insure-tech sector, has been one of the outcomes of our mutual reading of the future of the local insurance industry. We’re glad that we prioritised smart partnerships for the future when we did and are not only starting now that the Covid-19 storm is here.
We see insurers taking their offerings online using very expensive models, but they’re still built on the old business models. To become insurance providers of choice into the future companies need to harness the power of digital technologies to rethink and reshape their business models and the way they interact with customers. Financial services doesn’t have to be a threatening engagement, but one that is straightforward and seamless.
SA's insurance market seems to invest large amounts of capital in digital offerings that don’t always achieve their intended outcomes. There are threats from new entrants that don’t come from the insurance sectors — they’re tech entrepreneurs, telecoms and retail giants and other nontraditional players. They aren’t just throwing money at the problem, but using their deeply nuanced understandings of consumer behaviour and their finger on the pulse of mass distribution to give clients what they want, rather than pushing products onto clients.
Ours is an advanced economy in insurance terms and we’re number 19 in the world when you consider our US insurance premium amounts, but with a shrinking middle class and lacklustre economic performance exacerbated by Covid-19, it’s a tough market for growth as insurers in SA. Smart partnerships, rather than ownership-based models, will be an important part of the future landscape as we plan for growth in a post-Covid-19 reality.
Unless traditional insurers start engaging with consumers at their preferred front-end with products that speak to the needs they want to meet (not the ones ...
What we saw happening from about 2016 is verified by various pieces of research by the big consulting firms and local universities, highlighting the rapid evolution and maturation of consumers, putting pressure on traditional insurers and their push-product-at-consumer value propositions. As the needs of consumers and clients evolve and mature, insurers face a continuing challenge to maintain relevance with policyholders.
The partnership between Fedgroup Life and SmartWill (owned by CliqTech, a fidtech start-up), which we announced this week as our entrance into the insure-tech sector, has been one of the outcomes of our mutual reading of the future of the local insurance industry. We’re glad that we prioritised smart partnerships for the future when we did and are not only starting now that the Covid-19 storm is here.
We see insurers taking their offerings online using very expensive models, but they’re still built on the old business models. To become insurance providers of choice into the future companies need to harness the power of digital technologies to rethink and reshape their business models and the way they interact with customers. Financial services doesn’t have to be a threatening engagement, but one that is straightforward and seamless.
SA's insurance market seems to invest large amounts of capital in digital offerings that don’t always achieve their intended outcomes. There are threats from new entrants that don’t come from the insurance sectors — they’re tech entrepreneurs, telecoms and retail giants and other nontraditional players. They aren’t just throwing money at the problem, but using their deeply nuanced understandings of consumer behaviour and their finger on the pulse of mass distribution to give clients what they want, rather than pushing products onto clients.
Ours is an advanced economy in insurance terms and we’re number 19 in the world when you consider our US insurance premium amounts, but with a shrinking middle class and lacklustre economic performance exacerbated by Covid-19, it’s a tough market for growth as insurers in SA. Smart partnerships, rather than ownership-based models, will be an important part of the future landscape as we plan for growth in a post-Covid-19 reality.
Unless traditional insurers start engaging with consumers at their preferred front-end with products that speak to the needs they want to meet (not the ones ...
