C-Suite executives in the insurance industry have enlisted product innovation as their top priority in the years to come. This is because factors such as evolving consumer expectations, fluctuating interest rates, proliferation of insurtechs, embedded insurance, among others are making it difficult for traditional insurance carriers to stay relevant in the industry. Product innovation will help them come up with diverse customized offerings and become more competitive in a post-pandemic world.
Product Innovation Pathways
There are different ways insurers can strategize product innovation. They can either go for a total portfolio overhaul or make changes in the existing portfolio. On this note, here’s looking at the distinct tracks that an insurer can take for product innovation:
Total Portfolio Overhaul
Portfolio overhaul entails developing a completely new product line. It should be distinct from their erstwhile portfolio and will appeal to a new set of customers.
Revamp Existing Portfolio
Revamping portfolio involves introducing substantial changes in their existing product line. Such changes are done in terms of modifying product features, price, and others.
Minimal Changes in Portfolio
This involves making minimal changes to an existing product such as adding new features, changing the pricing of the product etc.
Pre-requisites for Product Innovation
Here’s a look at the ways insurers can bring innovation in their product portfolio.
Set the Right Framework
Product innovation does not happen in a day. It requires stakeholders from the top to the bottom-level hierarchy to come together and devise a right framework to drive product innovation in the right direction.
To do that, stakeholders must be able to invest their undivided attention to such strategies. They must be free from the headache of supervising the entire gamut of frontend and backend insurance processes.
The right framework for insurance product innovation should consider the following:
- Projecting the amount of growth brought about by innovation.
- The above stated projection based on the value acquisition and risk proposition of the present innovation projects.
- Allocate resources to innovation projects based on their niche skills.
- Product innovation should also be done with an aim to close the quality gaps in the existing insurance product portfolios.
Reallocation of Resources
Insurers must bring together their departments to outline a product strategy. Internal teams have a solid understanding of what is working for their organization and what is not. They can rightly identify the areas where their organization can improvise their portfolio.
On that note, insurers must reallocate their resources from their core functions to other business initiatives. Not only will this help in coming up with innovative and novel products, but it also goes a long way in developing breakthrough business strategies.
Consumer Insights for Product Innovation
Consumers need bespoke and innovative insurance coverages to meet their unique needs at different stages of their lives. These stages include employment, house ownership, marriage, parenthood etc. Insurers must tap into consumer insights to tailor coverages to befit an individual consumer’s unique needs. To get proper insights, insurers should leverage analytics solutions. This will enable them to proactively assess consumers’ varying needs.
For instance, it is highly recommended that insurers capitalize on contact center conversations with consumers. Such conversation can be used to feed propensity data analytics models. These models generate insights into consumers’ changing policy needs. Based on these insights, insurers can modify policy terms or create a new set of coverages and reach out to such consumers proactively.
The BPOs Role
Insurance BPO providers plays an important role in assisting carriers with product innovation. Insurers can partner with insurance BPO providers to gain precise and evolving customer insights. Third-party partners can assist them leverage analytics tools to draw meaningful insights from customer data.
Insurance outsourcing companies conduct various customer-research processes. They can assist carriers carry out customized survey across niche sectors to understand customer needs and expectations. They also use direct observation method to gain actionable customer insights.
We As an Insurance Process Outsourcing Company Aid You Through Your Product Innovation Journey
The insurance industry is staring at a stark staff shortage. This situation will aggravate because of various reasons. One such impending reason is a quarter of the total number employees in the global insurance sector will retire this year.
Such a situation will impede insurers’ product innovation strategy. As discussed earlier, internal staff will play a key role in executing insurance product innovation.
This is the time when insurance BPO providers will gain relevance. We, as an industry leading insurance process outsourcing company will fill the void in your manpower with a team of industry experts.
We will take over the entire backend processes of your operations. This will free your internal resources. You get to utilize your staff for your product innovation ideation and execution.
Our team of experts is extremely adaptable to dynamic insurance workflows. This means that they will require no handholding while executing your tasks. It will further free up time and resources for you to focus on your business growth strategies.
However, our level of support does not end here. We conduct primary and secondary market research. Our modern-day research capabilities will help you get actionable and immediate insights into consumer behavior and expectations, emerging industry trends, and many more. You can bank on our extensive industry database to conduct qualitative and quantitative market research.
Post conducting surveys, our data analytics experts help you to extract and extrapolate data to uncover the underlying meaning. We use big data analytics tools to help you make definitive predictions from the data obtained from surveys and direct observations.
Who Are We and Why Are We Considered as An Industry Authority?
This article is authored by industry veterans at Insurance Backoffice Pro, a prominent insurance process outsourcing company. We provide best-in-class, compliant, and modern-day insurance services to a number of industry verticals such as general liability, property & casualty, health, worker’s compensation, motor, and others.
Contact us if you want your services align with market dynamics and witness top-line growth.
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