We don’t want your insurance policy
In the wake of the Great Fire, when London’s residents signed an agreement with the companies of insurance pioneers, they were being provided with a guarantee of protection; protection from fire, and unnecessary worry. An understanding that if anything was to go wrong, they’d be supported. They were buying ability to keep going in the face of disaster. They were buying peace of mind.
Customers have never wanted to buy a policy document. They don’t want the cash from a claim. They’ve never wanted to make a claim in the first place. All they’ve ever really wanted is to be at ease in the knowledge that the things that are important to them are protected. They want peace of mind. And they want a return to normality.
While aggregators have opened up the market, they have also led to customers to compare on the one feature they could understand — price. Underwriters are under pressure to find ways to deliver ‘value’ at point of purchase, and in the race to compete, it seems many have forgotten that the policy was never the product.
That insight though, has led some to find alternative ways to provide peace of mind. In ways that no longer resemble insurance as we have come to know it.
Take Freebird for example. Freebird provide travel insurance. Except, their version of travel insurance means that when your flight has been cancelled, there’s no need to panic and pay over-the-odds for a last minute seat before waiting months to be repaid via a lengthy claims process. Freebird’s app allows you to re-book an alternative flight instantly, and still get to your destination on time, as planned.
InMyBag provide contents insurance. However, in further recognition of the importance of a ‘return to normality’, they partner with Amazon and Apple in order to ensure that any lost or broken gadget is back with you, repaired or replaced, the same day.
‘How can we get things back to normal?’ may seem a disarmingly simple question, but it is one that holds potentially disruptive answers for insurers. Asking it, and remaining open to whatever answer(s) may come, reveals opportunities to create genuinely customer-focussed propositions, not simply more delicately-worded policy documents. It exposes the true value of insurance. As customer expectations of service continue to rise, can we afford to not be trying to answer it?
