I had the pleasure of attending last week’s in-person (!) Digital Insurance event in San Diego. It was wonderful to close out the year by seeing, meeting, and learning from some of the best of the best in the industry.
I particularly enjoyed the opening keynote session featuring John Rossman, digital and innovation advisor, former Amazon executive and author of The Amazon Way. Rossman kicked off the three-day event with some compelling thoughts and advice for all of us in insurance; here are some of the takeaways I plan on bringing back to my work.
John Rossman speaking at the opening session of DigIn in San Diego, CA, Wednesday, December 8, 2021.
Take bets. If you don’t take chances, you will never try new things. And by not trying new things, you’re only putting limitations on yourself as to how far you can go and how much you can achieve.
Customer experience should guide innovation. Rossman shared Jeff Bezos’ view on what guides innovation:
- Selection – there is absolutely no world where a customer doesn’t want options
- Pricing – there is absolutely no world where a customer wants to pay more than they have to
- Convenience – there is absolutely no world where a customer wants friction or have to do more than they should to get what they want
It’s on us as an industry to meet the ever changing needs of the modern insurance consumer. In order to provide better selection, better pricing, and better convenience, we must work together to create an ecosystem of partnerships that meet rapidly changing customer needs through innovative technologies.
Encourage participation. Innovation can come from anywhere and anyone at your company. Be open to hearing about ideas for change not only from decision makers, but also from those across all sectors of your organization. Choose to recognize innovation authentically and consistently across all levels of the organization in order to incentivize your employees to get creative and establish innovation as a part of your company culture.
Experimenting is not an option – it’s a necessity. If you take anything from this blog post, I hope it’s this! Rossman noted in his keynote that while it’s easier to be a student of the current state, it is more important to be a student of the future state. Innovation requires changing the status-quo, which often frightens people or makes them uncomfortable. Those not ready for change will be the first naysayers to any new ideas. Those that are leading change are the ones who are willing to face and overcome negativity in order to move things forward.
John Rossman's presentation at DigIn in San Diego, CA, Wednesday, December 8, 2021.
If you’re really going to create change, be prepared to be misunderstood and to face criticism. Testing and learning is critical to innovation – which means, yes, “failure” will happen, but that is not to be confused with not executing or not having a high standard of work, it is a component of evolving your business through action.
In fact, we have many partners at Bindable who are in the "test and learn" phase of their insurance roadmap. We work with both new entrants and legacy carriers to rethink their businesses and experiment to see what activities will support long-term growth. Many of our partners test new technology to gather new data and evolve their strategies all while committing to low capital, resource, and time investments. Throughout the process, even if it involves failed experiments, they find what works, what doesn’t, and what’s worth pursuing
If you’re ready to innovate through alternative distribution solutions, we’d love to help you. Contact us today!