There is not one, but several elephants in the room that brokers and insurers need to talk about, says Aviva Canada’s Greg Somerville.
“We need to talk about vertical integration and distribution; price and self-service,” says Somerville. “There is a new community that is developing, and can be cultivated through the digital experience.”
Somerville stressed the ‘Three Cs’ of Customer, Connection and Community at the recent Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario convention in Ottawa, Ont. last week, underlining the need for brokers and insurers to move forward with the changing habits of customers.
“These are the elephants in the room we need to talk about,” he told delegates at the convention. “We need to recognize that consumers might be looking elsewhere for their insurance needs.”
Somerville’s words could best be described as tough love for brokers, who brokers must stay more connected with the consumer, or risk losing everything, he suggests.
“There will be winners and losers,” says Somerville, who explained that by the term ‘losers’ he meant those brokers looking to sell or pass on their brokerages may be left with only bricks and mortar and and shrinking book of clients.
How brokers – and by extension the insurance industry – conduct business with the new crop of online-oriented clients, will be the challenge. (continued.)
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“The cornerstones of insurance won’t change,” Somerville points out. “But how we execute them will change.”
“The fundamentals of insurance don’t change,” agreed co-panelist Brigid Murphy of
Travelers. “I’ve heard that it takes 87 minutes to execute a policy. We’ve got to change that. That is not an easy experience for the consumer.”
Where brokers are winning is on expertise, not price point, says Economical’s Karen Gavan.
“Those brokers who have moved away from focusing on price are the ones who are winning the consumer,” she says. “They are placing value on advice.”
Treating the customer as an individual – not shoehorning them into general policies – are where insurance is headed, says Pembridge’s Bob Tisdale.
“We have numbers that show 62 per cent of clients are focused on price, but 18 per cent would actually pay more in premium for customized service and policies,” says Tisdale. “The cookie-cutter approach doesn’t work for this segment anymore.”
