Elephant says, "It's not me, it's you"

        Sorry, insurance guys- the Elephant doesn’t care what you think about what it is. The beast tolerates your existence because it must. You are the suitors who get dressed up, practice your dance moves, bring the wrist corsage, but are only on the dance card when the elephant needs a partner, and the elephant would rather be left alone.

               Tough words, but truthful ones. Few customers want to use insurance, but many need its benefits. Many claims are filed for policy benefits, but few customers have prior experience doing so. Many policies exist, but often customers would choose to not have protection without regulatory or legal requirements to do so. Few customers think about your presence other than once per year when your entreaties for renewal cross their threshold. 

What does the beast want when times are tough?

               Here’s the rub- the beast wants your undying love when your care for him is needed, wants to be treated like an only child, indulged, pampered, hand held, with kiss the boo-boo attention. And you find it challenging to turn on the attention machine when you have learned over time to attend to the customer only as an annual partner. And, those you engage to help the beast when service is needed often see the elephant through a narrow prism that provides a selective view of the customer rather than the whole.

               The insurance customer knows its daily jungle and does not generally look to the insurance world for guidance. He buys a car, gets required coverage (often transacted by the car dealer) and considers not one fond thought about you as the key turns and the vehicle carries him smoothly and proudly off the lot. And correspondingly, you consider few if any thoughts about that bound policy that helped that customer become the king or queen behind the wheel.

               The elephant is comfortable navigating its environment, knows where its best sleeping place is, knows where the best food is found, is comfortable with the turning of the season, showing the path to its offspring, and meeting up with you once a year (often by accident more than plan.) When the unexpected occurs, the beast is confounded, a little fearful, and defensive. He knows he’s the biggest animal in the insurance claim environment- the customer- yet he is uncertain what to expect.

How does the industry approach the elephant's service care?

               So you help him, take action to trigger policy benefits, claim connections, repair activity, immediate comfort, guidance, employ partners to the action, and in your own mind do what you think the insurance customer needs. This is where those pesky blind men have an opportunity to get into the mix- every claim partner, agent, adjuster and repair person ‘sees’ the claim’s (and the beast’s) needs differently. Board up guy wants to complete that work and get paid, ALE contractor wants the first temp lodging choice to be OK’d, the adjuster doesn’t want a difficult claim on his pending, the agent wonders about loss ratio and no handling hiccups. Each has a hold of the tail, the tusk, the leg, the ear, the body, and so on, and deals with the claim from that perspective. That’s when many customer/elephants realize- it doesn’t matter if he cares how the claim participants see him, the reality is that most of those involved don’t see that there is a whole beast with which the claim participants must act.

               The holistic caretaker of the elephant has retired, been put to pasture, lost interest, or has withered away from lack of industry want.

 In larger claims it is inevitable that someone becomes frustrated  (often most participants) because over time the care of the beast has been divvied up into specialists’ handling- the industry has in the interest of efficiency, loss cost management, expense management, process efficiency, eye on cycle time, agents here/adjusters there, call it whatever- to the point where the blind men environment was inevitable. The holistic caretaker of the elephant has retired, been put to pasture, lost interest, or has withered away from lack of industry want.

And innovation has led to...

               As such we get to today- InsurTech, innovation, disruption, and perceived need for change in the beast’s care. Did the fresh blood step back and ponder a holistic approach? Don’t see how they could since the industry has promoted the narrow perspective approach to the business. A new breed of near-sighted innovators has sprung up to 'better' serve the beast, not because they want to solely deal with the figurative tail, leg, ear, etc., but because that’s how the industry appears to them.  In addition, much of the innovation efforts are focused on process or industry beneficial outcomes, and not on the overall well-being of the insurance elephant.

               Can the whole-beast approach be found again? Why not? Can innovation efforts be focused on direct improvement for the customer, or changes that help free up carrier staff to have more time for direct care of the customers? Absolutely. If it is considered that scores of insurance conferences have been held over the past few years, and thousands of innovators have been heard by hundreds of carriers, and the magic solution to what is perceived as a need for disruption of the environment in which the elephant lives has yet to be distilled, does that mean a different approach is needed?

Can There be a return to 'the big picture'?

               The insurance elephant doesn’t really care how it’s perceived. IoT, ecosystem, platform, AI, machine learning, whatever. Those innovations are- in the long run- important to him, but at this time how can he care when the innovation remains to the carriers’ benefit in many ways, and transparent to him when service is needed.  Is the industry in a situation where it's difficult to remember the goal was to figuratively drain the swamp because we are up to our butts in proofs of concept?

Elephants typically travel in herds, and the insurance elephant travels in a multi-trillion dollar herd. He knows that he must feed his entire body- the insurance industry needs to regain that approach when focusing on innovation.