Data and technology-driven insurance specialist Hood Group has set up its own innovation lab to drive the development of insurance products, services and solutions to help transform the customer experience.
Located in Spitalfields, London, the innovation lab will identify, evaluate, design, prototype and launch new personal lines products and services.
“We want a pipeline of ideas to evaluate and prioritise,” said Hood Group CEO Simon Hood, adding that the innovation lab will be “hugely attractive” and beneficial to start-ups and insurtech businesses.
The Hood Group has created a number of new roles to act as the core of the innovation lab, but the team will expand depending on the expertise needed for projects.
Hood said the innovation lab “helps deliver our performance culture; from bringing on board new talent from outside the insurance industry, through to encouraging our existing staff to get involved.”
Gavin Dobson, Hood Group’s marketing head, added that the innovation lab was launched to “foster creativity and a disruptive approach.” He said the goal is also to transform the customer’s view of insurance.
“Insurance in its current state isn’t truly serving today’s customers and certainly won’t work for the next generation,” Dobson lamented. “Right now it’s simply a necessity people feel they have to have rather than want.”
“We don’t see why insurance can’t become something that people willingly buy into as a service that helps them live their lives, helps stop things from going wrong or makes the annoying things in life go away.”
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