In this forum, Digital Insurance editor Nathan Golia will lead a discussion with insurance pros wrapping up the year that was and looking forward to next year.
We'll discuss:
- How economic pressures will influence digital strategy
- What technologies are poised to take off under these conditions
- The labor market and its impact on innovation.
Transcription:
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record.
Nathan Golia (00:20):
Great panelist to put a wrap up 22 and kickoff 2023 with a little bit of a year in review and some predictions. We've got three panelists here. I'm going to just give, do first names and company names, let everyone inch themselves. But just so you understand how we put together today's panel. We have a Saurabh from Capgemini to represent us. We're a third party view, bill Martin from Plymouth Rock to give us a p and c perspective. And Lindsay Hanson from John Hancock provide the life insurance perspective. So let's start with Lindsay. You want to just introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your role at John Hancock.
Lindsay Hanson
(00:56):
Great, thanks Nate. Happy to be here and happy to be a part of one of these sessions for this year to kind of close out 2022 and look ahead to 2023. As Nate said, my name is Lindsay Hanson and I run our global behavioral insurance programs here at Manulife, John Hancock. Everything from the strategies and what we're doing and who we're working with to the delivery of the actual changes that we're making that will impact both our distribution partners and our customers.
Nathan Golia (01:24):
Bill, do you want to just introduce yourself?
Bill Martin (01:28):
Sure. I'm Bill Martin. I'm with the Plymouth Rock Group of insurance companies. I run the Home Insurance Operations Home Assurance Corporation as the CEO and president and glad to be here and looking forward.
Nathan Golia (01:42):
And finally, sir SauSaurabhh?
Saurabh Kulkarni (01:44):
Yeah, thank you for inviting Nathan SauSaurabhh Kulkarni part of our Capgemini insurance business and I run our global digital transformation capabilities. And in my role, two parts to my role. One, obviously I get to interact with senior leaders to help them transform their digital capabilities in the marketplace, but the other is to see where we as service providers need to start investing in the capabilities so that we can partner better with the insurers. So look forward to this discussion.
Nathan Golia (02:18):
Well, 2022 an interesting year for everyone. And the interesting, one of the things I wanted to start by talking about is what was something that you've taken out this year going into next year that you thought that you think will impact the insurance industry? And just to sort of kick it off and give an example, I remember thinking in March we were going to be talking about war all year, and I've never reported on war because I've been an insurance reporter for 10 years and I was wondering what that might be like, but that's has fallen off a little bit. And then we had had a major hurricane in Florida, which I think we'll talk about a little bit in some ways as impacting next year we had chat about wildfires, we had a midterm election, all this stuff happened. But to me the thing that going into next year thinking about, and maybe it's a little bit more cute because of recent news, is the cryptocurrency market and how that intersects with the insurance market.
(03:12):
And just to give a little bit of inside baseball here, digital insurance, we receive a lot of pitches and a lot of ideas, a lot story ideas. And around this time last year, maybe a little earlier, we were getting a ton of pitches about things like how to ensure your NFT and how to ensure your crypto wallet and saying that this was going to be an exploding market that needed to, insurers needed to be paying attention to, needed to be reaching these customers and digital channels. It was a digital product. There's going to be a lot going on. Well now I think that I'm never the kind of person who makes bold pronouncements about something collapsing and going away forever, anything like that. However, at the current moment, I think that what is being learned from after the FTX collapse and potentially some other ripples through the cryptocurrency market, not to mention valuation drop is that insurance companies are different than other financial services in a way that insurance companies are about offering stability and about giving people a backstop against financial stress.
(04:11):
And there's clearly a market for people who want to have more financial security in the form of, I guess raw money. But that's not, we have something as risky as cryptocurrency. Maybe now people will be looking for safer options to protect their financial future. And that I think is something the insurance industry could potentially be looking at the next year, especially coming out of the Covid pandemic, which I think also sort of increased people's understanding of their own personal risk. I think there's a lot of opportunity for the insurance industry to offer new products that reach people using digital channels, digital technology, perhaps even blockchain. But I think that going through this year financially has shown a lot of people is that there's something to be said for a fundamental program like insurance. So that's just an example of something that I took out of this year. Sara, did you want to start with this question? Something that you took out of this year that you thought pretty interesting?
Saurabh Kulkarni (05:08):
Yeah, so look, I think crypto, and you and I were discussing this just before this thing started to me that while the technology of blockchain does make sense, I think the crypto market is something which is volatile and is at risk less understood in my mind. And obviously it'll evolve and we'll see what insurance products come out there. To me, I think the biggest focus for this year was around climate resiliency and what could we do from an insurance perspective to drive that resiliency in the marketplace and sustainability. And so 2022 was a pivotal point in my mind in terms of starting that conversation and putting the investments towards that and what that looks like and we'll talk more about that. The second thing which was very, very apparent and pSauSaurabhhably partly due to the pandemic, was the investments in technology. And I think after looking into the insurance industry for the last decade or so, the sudden influx of investments in technology and actually using technology to really better experiences and to reach out to the customers, I think has been an eyeopener for me from an outsider's perspective. Love to hear more how Bill and Lindsay see it from an insurance perspective, but for sure that has been game changer. Now does that mean that we are using technology effectively? PSauSaurabhhably not, but I think are we getting to a point where we are addressing the market space where there were investments needed in technology? Absolutely. So I think that's a good start in my mind.
Nathan Golia (06:49):
Bill, what was your big takeaway from 2022 looking at the business?
Bill Martin (06:54):
I think I had a similar observation to Sara in the sense that we kind of call it a flight to quality, where somewhere the expense of a technical investment began to meet the value that it created for the customer or for the insurer. And I think we began to see that finally happening over the last year. We had this kind of period of big investments in tech, but when the interest isn't aligned, when the investor's interest isn't aligned with the provider or isn't with the customer, when they're not aligned, something's going to go haywire. And so we saw a little bit about that haywire this past year where a bunch of valuations got exploded, a bunch of startups had a harder time, people were trying to lower their prices finally on the technology to a point where companies could afford it and implement it in a much more effective way.
(07:41):
So we're seeing a bit of a flight to quality, and I noticed that happening particularly at the end of the year and it'll be happening going into the next year. Similar to what we're seeing with what value a thinly capitalized insurer brings to a catastrophe market. They don't bring a lot of value to it. They're actually transmitting value from a bunch of other people and trying to consolidate it for the customer. So they do serve a function, but they don't add value in the sense of bringing more capital. So I'm seeing this flight to quality both in the industry itself, which has had struggles with its profitability this year and has still struggling with it and in the providers of technology, even within the companies where they're all going to finally see this convergence of what we offer is actually not more expensive than the value it brings to the person who buys it.
Nathan Golia (08:31):
For sure. I have a couple of views on that, but I want to give Lindsay a chance to kick off our discussion first.
Lindsay Hanson
(08:36):
Awesome, thank you. It's interesting just to add to the conversation, I think there's definitely all of the things, Nate, that you were just talking about that you were reflective on for this year in terms of things happening, whether it in terms of the hurricanes or things happening financially in the market, wherever that might be. What that really made me reflective and think about is the impact that it has on a person and an individual. And that's something that from a stability perspective, insurers can really help the customer through any of those pieces, helping them, whether it's protecting their home, protecting their finances, or in our case what I represent is the life insurance in protecting their family if something does happen. And so being able to offer that sense of security is something that really has had a heightened awareness this year. One thing to add to that is also consumers are so much more aware of their baseline health, and that's something that we've seen incredible change in the past 12, 18, 24 months during the pandemic.
(09:42):
And so when you take all of these different pieces into account, it's not just thinking about my financial stability or what's happening around me, but it's also what's happening to me and my health. And that's something that we've really been focused on and really thinking about at John Hancock to understand how can we help customers know that and help to improve upon that, but really make it top of mind because there's so much around that can feel whether it's unhealthy nutritionally or mindfulness and those things that how can we really make that centered around a financial protection and tying it in with overall wellbeing. So that's something that I personally have really taken away is this idea of this baseline health for consumers and something that we really want to try to double down on and help our customers understand better.
Nathan Golia (10:27):
And I think I want to get back to Bill's point again, and I'm sorry to put you on the spot a little bit, bill, but I am going to in a minute, but just to introduce the point, which is that one thing that I've really focused on this year and we've try to focus on digital insurance in the past couple years basically since the pandemic is talking about, well, if ins InsureTech is going to happen, is it going to be a digital transformation of the sector? Is it democratized? Is it accessible to all customers or is it something that is being focused? There was a little bit, I think a few years ago, a lot of focus on very niche markets, certain kinds of drivers, certain kinds of hobbies that were getting a lot of insurtech investment. I think that Bill, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit as representing a bread and butter line like home insurance, which I am moving on Thursday as I've told everyone on the panel, but I've just had to go through again, changing home insurers and I have had quite a different experience now. My home insurers not represented on this panel or anything. It's two completely different people, but the home insurance process that I had when I moved into this house was very different than when I got on the back end here to the point where I felt less secure in some ways and was wondering about that. I'm just wondering, bill, if you could talk a little about insurance companies. Yeah, there's been a sense of exploration. Let's try some things, but I think your idea of we need quality solutions that meet our customer's needs.
Bill Martin (11:50):
Well no, I think Nathan, if you moved to the Northeast, you'd have a really good home insurer. I think the thing that you're going to see I think is that some of these standalone niches don't support the amount of investment that was placed into them, if that makes sense. And so they have to almost be integrated. I kind of think of home insurance as a platform for personal insurance, not as simply protecting the home. So you can add all kinds of services and options to the core property coverage. And the good news about my coverage is it's all optional. You're not being forced to buy it except maybe by a lender. So there's all kinds of options you can select up and down the dial. And one of those these days has become pet insurance. Many of us are offering pet insurance. For instance, I'm offering cyber liability, which is a big advance from identity theft protection.
(12:39):
So there's things that can be integrated and thus properly valued. It's kind of back to the original statement within that whole package rather than it as a standalone profit margin and a standalone service delivery. A lot of things we have incontinent, we have to get at the customer, we have to build the customer, we have to serve the customer when they have a claim. Those things work better in a mass environment than they do on individual niche environments. And so there can be a kind of hybrid situation here where a provider is offered through a consolidating platform like a home insurance policy.
Nathan Golia (13:13):
Right. Lindsay, I think you can talk a little about from your perspective about being able to use technology and data and digital transformation to ensure more people maybe a little bit same think that's something you've been
Lindsay Hanson
(13:24):
Yeah, no, that's definitely been a focus of ours and really tying in what I liked that we're talking a lot about here is this idea of optionality. I think you just highlighted that you can kind of pick and choose what kind of insurance you want. Something that we brought to market just about seven years ago or a little over seven years ago now within John Hancock is our vitality program, which is life insurance. That's tied to a customer being able to make life insurance more about living. It offers our customers tools, resources, education and rewards for engaging in a program that is what they want it to be. So if they want it to be about physical activity or nutrition doctor's visits, it can be. And so it is really a unique program that puts the insurer in control of the life insurance and being able to not only get those benefits that I just quickly talked about, but also being able to work their premium down and being able to save some dollars for the coverage that they're getting.
(14:27):
It's really, it's a unique marriage between technology enabled programming around health and traditional life insurance for protection. What we found in bringing these together is just really seeing such a transformation in how customers are interacting with this type of a program. And really this engagement that we have with our customers has really just been so transformational where there's this idea that life insurance is something you buy and tuck it away and you maybe hear about it one or two times a year. We're having the opportunity to connect with our customers about 30 to 40 times a month and really being able to engage with them and hear back from them on this. So that's really been such a way that we've been able to leverage this digital transformation to reach and connect with our customers and being able to bring that forward and hear how they want to continue to be served.
Nathan Golia (15:21):
I appreciate that. I was wondering if you talked about your partnership with Grail though?
Lindsay Hanson
(15:25):
Absolutely.
Nathan Golia (15:26):
Yeah, because I think that what we're saying is like, well, is there a way that we can actually use these technology advances that we're making to ensure more people and people who would've been just sort of blanket not thought they could get coverage or that
Lindsay Hanson
(15:43):
Grail has been a tremendous partner for us. We started working with them just in March of this year and moved pretty quickly from, hey, this could be a good conversation to a partnership with them that we announced in September. So for those that don't know, grill is a multi cancer early detection screening test. It's not a replacement to the other screening test that we know such as mammograms, colonoscopies that we regularly go for, but it's in addition to, and it's a blood test that can actually test for up to 50 different kinds of cancer. And so what we've done with this is we've partnered with Grail to be able to bring this screening test to our customers as a way for them to get to know more about their health. It's not required, it's not something we're looking for specifically. We're not using it any differently in underwriting than we would any other screening tool, but it's really just this continuation of how science and technology are coming together. They're continuing to set new bars for what our customers can know about their health, and we've had the opportunity to bring that to our customers with really a tremendous response of gratitude, but also by the way of people are actually taking the test and they're finding out earlier on when cancer can be cured, when certain types of cancer can be cured and knowing that about themselves.
Nathan Golia (17:01):
Sure, sir SauSaurabhh, so I know that Jon has done obviously a lot of research and analysis, the insurance market got the two insurers here who have just talked to you about the optionality and adding on these new services. Is that what you're thinking about for next year to sort of pivot a little bit to predicting next year? Is that something you'd expect to see more across the industry?
Saurabh Kulkarni (17:23):
Yeah, so look, I mean insurance companies are in a very unique position that they can actually nudge behaviors. And Lindsay, you might know this better than anybody else on how you've used the YL program for that, but I think very similarly in the homeowner's insurance or in the commercial insurance using technology, you can start nudging behaviors around risk prevention. And I think that's what we are seeing more and more in the marketplace that how do you actually incentivize folks to use these technologies to then prevent risk and therefore helps the insurance companies pay out less and blah, blah blah and all that good stuff. So that's great and I think that helps the person who is buying the insurance as well as somebody who's selling the insurance. So that is the marketplace where you see a lot of the InsureTech playing today and trying to figure out how to actually bridge that data gap if you may.
(18:17):
And so I think that's a great trend that I continue foreseeing, at least in the consumer home insurance site. I think on the auto side you've already seen it with telematics devices and pay as you go. And I think if I'm not mistaken, lemonade just went into the Texas market with their usage base, insurance product and so on and so forth. So I think that will continue on that side of the fence. We'll see how that evolves. Interestingly on the commercial side and what we found out is, and where I go back to my original opening sentence around climate resiliency in the commercial insurance space, there is actually a gap in the marketplace where commercial insurers can then provide these risk prevention services to the end customers and they are ready to pay for it, which is a very interesting concept because in the past it was, Hey, I will tell you what the risk is.
(19:14):
You underwrite the risk and I pay you the premium and that's be done with it. And that's the end of that relationship to now saying, well, let me help you through that year to say how can I actually prevent the risk within your commercial property? And I think that's game changer and that is possible through technology, it's possible through data that we can collect about that end customer and so on and so forth. So I think those are the two trends that I see going into the new year in terms of how technology can be used to enhance the insurance marketplace.
Nathan Golia (19:44):
Great. I think that's actually a good segue to the next phase I want to talk about in this discussion, which was the sort of macro impact on insurance market. One thing that, so we have a number of sister brands, we have mortgage brand, we have a banking brand, we have accounting and financial planning, and our insurance brand is, I always feel like they're always talking about the news we're talking about, we have a more slow moving story flow, but recently I think there's been a lot of material change. Rah talked about climate, that's one we've talked consideSaurabhly about on these forums and also digital church here. So we've got that. We have inflation and recession. You can look at them separately, you can at them simultaneously or linked cyber risk, which I think is something that insurance companies who are looking to increase their digital footprint are dealing with the fact that there's a lot of cyber bad actors out there as well. And I think the fourth macro growth window, I think it's tailing off a little bit, is around talent and recruitment. So Bill, I was wondering, you don't have to pick one of those four, but I was wondering if you had thought about anything that you're like what's going to come in from the outside world and shake up insurance here? How has that impacting your digital strategy? What's made, what's the major thing that's on your radar for that?
Bill Martin (21:07):
Well, I can talk about this for about two hours, but it's already happening. That's why it's easy to talk about. There's a special legislative session in Florida right now trying to deal with what is a complete meltdown of a market and I don't think frankly can stop the candle from burning no matter what they introduce. So it's really scary for us as home insurers because we already deliver a lot of bad news and to adopt some more bad news that your climate has always been underinsured in Florida, has been for a hundred years, the last five years wiped out all the profits of the prior a hundred years before it, and that's without the Andrew reoccurring. You have to say we're bringing some bad news to the customers, but I think maybe this time we're doing a big service. We're saying in order to live on a barrier island, which Florida is completely surrounded by the way, so is New Jersey and parts of the northeast here, you really got to pay more or you got to not do it.
(22:09):
But we can't keep being the enabler. We can't keep giving alcohol to the alcoholic, and so we can't keep rebuilding in places where climate is said, you can't rebuild here without a temporary expense. That's more than you want to spend today. So maybe we're going to do some favors for the promotion of the climate change prevention and adjustment with resiliency. I think that's a good thing and I hope it attracts people to our industry because I believe the Darth Vader image of the insurance industry can be eliminated in the, I guess pSauSaurabhhably with the younger people who hey, don't remember Darth Vader the way we did, but also might be more excited about getting involved with an industry that really actually will do something about climate change that will put the money where the mouth is and say in the same way you want people to pay full price for using gasoline, you now are going to ask people to pay full price for creating stuff that causes huge amounts of payouts, whether it be by taxes or individually and huge amounts of pain because they want to live closer to the beach and that isn't working.
(23:14):
Now between the bad news of climate change and what's doing to the reinsurance markets and inflation, we've had kind of a multiplicative effect. The home insurance business needs to be 30% bigger than it was only three years ago because of the cost increases. So technology needs to come to reduce that cost. So one of the options in technology and climate is to have an alternative to fossil fuels in our business. Perhaps there'll be some other risk financing methods that will introduce themselves to the market and some different ways of building and being more resilient to C'S earlier statement about being willing to fund some of this change. And that's both a mix of tech inventing things that create resilience and of delivery, which is just mind invention. It's innovation that makes tech useful to the end consumer. That is a big gap that often happens.
(24:15):
You come up with a great technical product, I can have satellites looking in your backyard and figure out whether you have a dog, a trampoline, a pool with a fence or not, but how does that help the public? It helps me as an underwriter, but how does that really help the insured? I think they're going to want to put roofs over the whole backyard. I think that's how they'll respond. So how can I translate all this visual data into something that's useful for the customer? If I can get to that point of making that translation, then I can be the life insurer like Lindsay here and the telematics of life insurance is healthcare. I don't have a good telematics solution. Everybody talks about smart homes. It's not actually that good. We need something even better than that and potentially that technology can deliver.
Nathan Golia (24:59):
Well, I just thought, God, you're right. We could have talked about it for two hours because I didn't mention the Florida market, even though that is because mostly because it is one of those things that people I think are hoping is going to be contained. I already don't think it's going to.
Bill Martin (25:13):
There's a half a million Louisiana customers today being abandoned by companies that went out of business. Another million customers that are going to go into citizens, the market of last resource that is knowingly underpriced, that's a million and a half out of 6 million homes that are in a distressed position already. The disaster is already happening there.
Nathan Golia (25:32):
And you mentioned the reinsurance markets, which of course affects everything we talk about that my home insurance from my moving is not going up a ton. However, my car insurance went up 50%. I wrote about that last week, so I thought I must've been misreading it. I was, I was expecting what I had been reporting a 10 to 20% increase, maybe 50%. Sounds
Bill Martin (25:52):
Like you moved to the busy area is what it sounds like.
Nathan Golia (25:54):
No, what happened is I looked on my coverage, it was all concentrated in my nicer, newer car, which I think is a supply chain that's done pricing in the supply chain stuff that's going to happen
Bill Martin (26:06):
When you're replacing a Tesla like an iPad. It gets kind of expensive.
Nathan Golia (26:09):
Well, we're just going to, we're have downsize this car and as soon as we can. It sounds like we have a couple minutes left, Lindsay, I just wanted to give you a chance to weigh in on an external factor here that you're looking at John Haggett. Then we'll do final thoughts.
Lindsay Hanson
(26:23):
Yeah, I'd say the external factor really to play on a bit, Nate, that you brought forward is obviously inflation in recession and those things. It is something we just can't look beyond and really something where the coverage gap of life insurance, it was there before. It's only growing because of this because Americans are having to make some really tough choices. The price that the gas pump is going up, grocery stores, heat, all of these things are top of mind for just everyday things. And the idea of life insurance of, oh, I'll only need that later. That's something that it's prolonging is something that we're really starting to see happen and that's not new. That has been happening for a bit, but it's really just much more apparent as everyday costs are continuing to go up. So it's not a lack of education, it's not a lack of awareness.
(27:14):
It's more just a lack of focus for right now where people need to be and where they are. I think the biggest opportunity that we can look to is how do we remove those barriers or how do we work with bringing the best opportunities for customers to be able to buy, to be able to buy the right amount, to be able to make it a really easy process because the perception of buying life insurance is long, it's going to take a long time, it's going to be very invasive. And so how can we use technology to make that an easier process, make that a simplified fast process and also one that becomes a part of that everyday need versus that longer term. I'll think about it when really I don't want to be, so that's one that I would absolutely call out that it's really just, it's facing people today and it's being put on the back burner and I'm fearful that that's going to have a different kind of impact on not only the person looking to buy it, but also generations to come.
Nathan Golia (28:12):
For sure. And I think when you're talking about life insurance, like you said, it's literally only selling, so you're never going to see the value of it because that's not how it works, but it's there. But I remember my parents during other times of financial stress talking about it, well, we've got this life insurance bill and then being like, well, that's a thing we need. We've got four kids. And I think that people having to make those choices, you're hoping that the insurance industry is there. I certainly, like I talked about car, I didn't want to, I could have reduced my coverage, but I chose not to because I was like, either if something happens, I'm just going to end up paying for the more expensive car anyway, so I might as well just at least have some sort of out here.
Lindsay Hanson
(28:54):
Right.
Nathan Golia (28:56):
Boy, I don't want to close on a down note and what I want to say. So I think for a final question, 30 seconds this time next year, are we going to be talking about insurance industry that is feeling optimistic about the future? Are all these inputs going into 2023 going to really spur some positive action and have the insurance industry coming up feeling better surround starting with you?
Saurabh Kulkarni (29:24):
I hope so. I think that would be a tough one for all of us here on the call if it is not optimistic. But look, here's how I look at it. I think the premium growth is going to plate out. I think we've seen that consistent premium growth over the last, I think 12 quarters or so. So that is going to flatten out. So the only kind of way to make money for insurance companies is to prevent that risk going into the next year and the outer years. And I think part of that way to do it is to use technology. I mean, that's the one thing that we've started on that path. I think hopefully we continue on that path. All of us including insurance companies, providers, customers and so on, so forth. And I think that is going to be, that to me is the most optimistic part of this next year in terms of how technology gets embedded into the day-to-day value chain of insurance and how do we actually enhance the insurance value chain.
(30:23):
The second one, which I'm hopefully and optimistic about, and to bill's point, is regulators need to play a big part in how the coverage gap gets addressed, right? I think there's only a finite amount where premiums keep going up for newer and newer perils that are out there. And at some point there has to be this public private moment that comes together to say, Hey, look, this is needed. There is a new way to underwrite the risk and there are new products that need to go into the offering, and we got to stop making this a tedious regulatory process every time when we try and introduce new products into the marketplace. So how do you actually innovate to get newer products out to cover these newer risks? I think that's what I'm looking up in 2023 and beyond. And so hopefully that's again, an underpinning of all of that is a strong investment in tech. I sound like a broken record. When you say tech, tech
Nathan Golia (31:20):
Bill, you had a command. You seem to get a command of the conditions here. You feeling confident going into this next year, you're coming back after the new year. I've got plans December, 2023, we're going to think we were so crazy.
Bill Martin (31:35):
We won't stop doing dumb things. But when people ask me whether insurance industry will do well, I mean, this is the industry that some of the biggest and strongest companies made it through the depression and through a war. This is an industry who figured out how to ensure space flight. This is an industry who was able to deal with ridiculous cashflow, underwriting inflation, and still come out on top. This industry is inventing a lot more than people know, and so I think they're going to invent a new way to succeed over the next three years and even the next year. And I think it's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a lot of fun to be part of it, and I'm hoping that more and more people join it. So yeah, I'm incredibly, I don't think the end of next year, I don't get end of this year.
(32:13):
I'm that depressed. To get regulators to keep up with inflation is really hard, but eventually inflation slows down and we catch up, but we might invent new ways to deal with that issue. Maybe we'll help battle against inflation with some features of our policies and coverage and action. So I think that's a huge opportunity for us. So I don't think every one of these things creates an opportunity for our industry and we're the one that always comes out the back end, still as strong as ever with higher surplus, more products and more customers. And yeah, I think we'll be in a great place.
Nathan Golia (32:49):
Lindsay. Feeling good?
Lindsay Hanson
(32:50):
Feeling good. I definitely echo everything that Bill just shared, everything of just kind of the history and where insurance companies have come through. I think one thing just to highlight that I'm really excited about is just this evolution of partnership across industry, whether that's partnership with insurance of PNC and life or whether it's with different technology companies, science, all of those different pieces. This idea of partnership and not being in it on your own, but being in it with others and industries or not industries is something that I'm really looking forward to seeing continue about how we can use technology. I share the broken record on that. Technology is a huge enabler, but so are partnerships and so is stability, and so is continuing to bring that forward for the customer. So definitely feeling optimistic.
Nathan Golia (33:37):
I definitely got to say that I thought the three of you cheered me up a little bit. I was like, oh man, there's so much bad news to talk about from this year, next year. But I do think that what I think I'm hearing is, especially in other conversations I'm having around the industry, is that insurance industry is looking to solve problem and not sort of suffering from a paralysis or a thing. I think there's an understanding in the industry that we are entering some sort of new era for it and it's going to look a little different than it did 10, 20 years ago, but ultimately a better, more improved, like you said, I think all three of you said, experience for the customer. I think that's a reason to say that. Yeah, I think that there's a lot of new things to choose from a digital perspective, and I think that will all help to improve the insurance industry over the next year.
