Can e-businesses sell insurance like any other consumer product?

Technological innovation, data proliferation and the ability to tap into external databases are compelling insurance companies to readdress how they sell their products. A great example is parametric insurance, which is assuming a larger role in the insurance industry.

Could this be an opportunity for e-businesses to increase ancillary revenue from parametric-based insurance products, providing a better customer journey and keeping ahead of competition? Perhaps. However, there are two main problems.

First, even though insurance products are being offered within e-business customer journeys, they are created and controlled by third parties and not by the e-business itself. Second, they lack consumer appeal, but since they are associated with the e-business, they are negatively affecting the customer journey and experience, as well as causing churn.

At Setoo we believe that insurance has to be turned into an online consumer product just like any other product, which e-businesses know how to market and sell. Insurance products have to be created by the people who best understand the consumer and consequently, e-businesses –like OTAs (online travel agents), ticket sellers and e-commerce companies, should be defining these products.

Is this possible?
Many will argue that it’s unrealistic, claiming that while e-businesses know to sell consumer goods, they lack the knowledge and capacity to handle insurance-related processes and regulations. But using today’s range of innovative technologies – from big data, AI and machine learning to IoT, telematics, digital insurance and cloud – insurance processes can be handled in the background automatically, leaving
e-businesses to easily create already-regulated insurance products.

By gaining ownership of insurance products without having to know anything about insurance regulations, e-businesses can independently build and deliver insurance products that meet the needs and demands of their customers. Consumers can enjoy value added services with an extraordinary experience, while e-businesses benefit from:

• Increased revenue from ancillary services, since consumers will want to buy these new types of insurance and protection products.
• Enhanced brand loyalty, as consumers will recognize the e-business’s support when something bad happens in their customer journey.
• Competitive advantage through the delivery of an outstanding customer journey experience.

About the Author
Eyal Gluska’s entire career has been focused on creating innovative services and business models that generate new business opportunities for leading organizations around the world. As co-CEO of Setoo, he wants to disrupt the insurance industry with AI and state-of-the-art machine learning technologies, automating human-intensive operations to transform the way insurance products are created and delivered.