[{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/03\/09\/the-pace-of-life-is-accelerating-can-the-insurance-industry-keep-up\/#Article","articleBody":"Insurance is a complex business. Backend processes and systems that support it are designed for maximum stability and risk reduction. They rely on trained professionals moving at a steady pace through a well-defined multi-step workflow. Products are sold with the assumption long-term, stable customer relationships with a minimum amount of change or service requests.\nPeople\u2019s lives, on the other hand, are becoming more agile and varied. They change jobs, houses, and cities more often than before. This affects what cars they drive, how long they commute as well as what houses or apartments they are living in. If the pace of life is accelerating, how can the\u00a0insurance industry adjust to keep up?\nWhen a person was living in the same city and commuting to the same job every day, his needs were quite simple. Nowadays, one may work from home on some days, travel on others, use a bike sharing during the summer, and commute by car to the office when it is raining or cold outside.\nWith such a wide variety in daily routines, paying $250 every month for a car insurance does not seem like a solid choice. The flexibility of insurance products should increase to catch up with the agility of modern life.\nThe fact is, technology is here to support that kind of agility. Metering devices can be installed in a car to measure how many miles you drive. That allows consumption-based (per usage) pricing so people who drive less will stop subsidizing those who spent most of their days behind the wheel. \u00a0If the driver agrees to share more information with an insurance company, she can expect a further rate reduction for careful driving.\nConsumers may stop using a car while on vacation or temporarily moving to another city for business. They should be able to adjust their car insurance without calling the insurance agency (during business hours only), or wasting time filling out\u00a0a long form. Pressing one button on a phone should\u00a0really be the standard.\nFor example, Uber has inked a\u00a0deal with Metromile, the pay-per-mile car insurance service, that will enable Uber drivers to only pay insurance for the time they\u2019re on the road and have different rates if they have a passenger vs. driving alone.\nPeople are sharing cars. If my friend is driving my car, I would like his insurance to kick in the moment he takes control of the vehicle. Cars are getting smarter and consumers have smartphones in their pockets\u2014we can make it happen.\nWith smart homes, it should be possible to achieve a similar flexibility in property insurance. A house that is protected by a smart fire alarm system represents a smaller insurance risk, as does a\u00a0house that is not left empty for long period of time. Our insurance bills should soon be looking more like consumption based utility or phone bills, and we should\u00a0get better rates in return.\nConsumers expect insurance products to be available when they are needed and be easily accessible. Travelers who decide on Friday evening to go on a weekend hiking trip out of town would want to increase insurance coverage for next week. And they want to do it without filling in another long form or waiting for a broker to call. Sorry, they are too busy packing.\nSuch business agility represents a significant technological challenge for insurance companies. They are faced with the dilemma of preserving robust backend systems and internal workflows, while adapting to changing customer behavior and the omni-channel nature of doing business with a new generation of sophisticated and technology-savvy consumers.\nAs I have argued before,\u00a0adding fancy HTML on top of existing backend systems is not a viable solution. Insurers should look into introducing new front-office systems to shield consumers from the complexity of internal processes and provide agility, usability and simplicity they expect.\u00a0Failure to do so will open doors for\u00a0technology-savvy startups to insert themselves between insurers and consumers and take the business away.\nDeliver the best experiences \ud83d\ude0e Increase customer loyalty\ud83d\udc95 Boost the bottom line\ud83d\udcb0 Start HERE","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/03\/09\/the-pace-of-life-is-accelerating-can-the-insurance-industry-keep-up\/#Article_Person","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/03\/09\/the-pace-of-life-is-accelerating-can-the-insurance-industry-keep-up\/#Article_Person_ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/23x6xj3o92m9361dbu2ij362-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/MichaelVax_WP-bio-150x150.jpg"},"name":"Michael Vax","sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/MichaelVax","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/michaelvax"],"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/michael-vax\/"},"dateModified":"2021-08-06T20:58:56+00:00","datePublished":"2015-03-09T14:04:53+00:00","description":"Insurance companies need to invest now in the technology that consumers are beginning to demand based on their lifestyle.","headline":"The pace of life is accelerating, can the insurance industry keep up?","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/03\/09\/the-pace-of-life-is-accelerating-can-the-insurance-industry-keep-up\/#Article_ImageObject","height":"630","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/motion-1200x630.jpg","width":"1200"},"mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/03\/09\/the-pace-of-life-is-accelerating-can-the-insurance-industry-keep-up\/","name":"The pace of life is accelerating, can the insurance industry keep up?","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/","additionalType":"https:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/wiki\/Q1193236","description":"Relevant, timely information & analysis on commerce trends, both consumer-facing and B2B.","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/23x6xj3o92m9361dbu2ij362-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/themes\/hybris_foc\/assets\/images\/layout\/logo-new-2x.png?_=1","height":"96","url":"https:\/\/23x6xj3o92m9361dbu2ij362-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/themes\/hybris_foc\/assets\/images\/layout\/logo-new-2x.png?_=1","width":"500"},"name":"The Future of Customer Engagement and Experience","sameAs":["https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/a-call-for-a-better-experience\/id1479742201","https:\/\/twitter.com\/FutureOfCEC","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/groups\/4844282","https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/feed\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/"},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/03\/09\/the-pace-of-life-is-accelerating-can-the-insurance-industry-keep-up\/#Article"},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2015","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"03","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/\/03\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"09","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/\/03\/\/09\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"The pace of life is accelerating, can the insurance industry keep up?","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2015\/03\/09\/the-pace-of-life-is-accelerating-can-the-insurance-industry-keep-up\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]