John Rodgers is COO & Managing Partner, SSA & Company. He guides day-to-day operations, sets and steers SSA & Company’s business strategy, and oversees the Financial Services, Insurance, EMEA, and Healthcare practices. John has significant financial services operating and management experience with Aetna Life & Casualty and Cigna and has multiple insurance-related designations, including CPCU, RPLU, ARM, and AIS. He can be reached at jrodgers@ssaandco.com
In this segment of the series, the authors examine the role M&A will play in the industry’s adoption of insurtech—and more generally, the need for established carriers to adapt to the increasingly innovative and service-based product and service offerings new entrants bring to bear.
The past 18 months have uncovered a vulnerability in the insurance industry, as companies have struggled to maintain consistency in their processes in the face of remote working. Communication processes, in particular, have suffered and as a result, traditional insurers now face the real risk of losing customers to insurtechs and other more technologically advanced companies.
Carriers, pressed by lower expense insurtech models that emphasize direct-to-consumer engagement and new, rich data sources, are beginning to encounter a bifurcation of risk and client characteristics.
User-friendliness and a seamless experience will go a long way toward the perception that the insurer is providing value.
As this happens and expense ratios are driven down, only those carriers which can fully utilize analytics and data-augmented decision making in their underwriting process will be able to price effectively in the market.
There’s little in business or in life that hasn’t radically changed in the last several months by COVID-19. As a result, most corporate CEOs and companies have had to shift their priorities as they approach month six of the crisis. Insurance companies with whom we work have put in place well thought-out survival strategies to ride out the storm and are now beginning to focus their attention on three things: lowering operating expenses, managing losses while optimizing underwriting excellence, and driving efficient growth.