When Guidewire announced the three winners of its 2018 Innovation Awards, I took a close look at the projects to find any similarities among them. They are indicative of the shift the entire P&C insurance industry has made in the past 5 to 10 years – prioritizing the customer experience.
According to the “J.D. Power 2018 U.S. Insurance Shopping Study,” record-low volumes of new insurance shoppers, consistent price competition among insurers, and emerging InsurTech disruptors have forced insurers into aggressive customer courtship mode. No matter what’s behind the shift, it’s clear: The customer, whether it’s the policyholder or the agent/broker, is at the center of large P&C initiatives.
During a Connections 2018 breakout session in Las Vegas, representatives from the three winning companies — Economical Insurance, Motorists Insurance Group, and Zurich Mexico — sat down with Laura Drabik, Group Vice President for Business Innovation at Guidewire, to discuss their award-winning innovations.
“I’ve been at Guidewire for 12 years, and I’ve seen a lot of innovation,” Drabik told the audience. “This may be the most innovative year yet. These three compelling innovation stories aren’t just about the ideas; they’re about making the ideas happen.”
Economical Insurance (with Deloitte)
Economical has redefined the broker experience in Canada with the launch of its broker engagement system, Vyne, providing faster service, streamlined workflows, and customer-centric products and pricing. Leveraging existing Guidewire PolicyCenter™ and Guidewire BillingCenter™ systems, the integration between broker quoting, broker management systems, and Economical’s core insurance platform provides brokers with increased quoting accuracy, policy documents that are easy for customers to understand, and improvements to Economical’s personal lines and individually rated commercial auto coverage.
Motorists Insurance Group (with PwC)
Motorists’ transformational program, 2021 Vision, leveraged an innovative “greenfield” start-up approach to deliver business and IT benefits. Using Guidewire InsuranceSuite™ and Guidewire Digital™ applications, the program has enabled Motorists to essentially create a new company, with a new business operating model, commercial lines products, and organizational structure. As part of this initiative, Motorists reinvented its customer experience for both agents and policyholders. Agents now experience an omnichannel digital experience and a reduction in the time required to quote, change, and bind a policy. Also, with Guidewire CustomerEngage™, Motorists can deliver state-of-the-art digital service to policyholders for all lines to enable access to policy information, billing history, claims, first-notice-of-loss (FNOL), and documents.
Zurich Mexico
In a market that requires by law that field adjusters meet customers at the scene of automobile accidents, leading to manual inefficiencies, Zurich Mexico has dramatically improved the process and reduced customer waiting time. Leveraging Guidewire ClaimCenter™, Guidewire CustomerEngage™ Account Management, Guidewire Claim Portal™ for Policyholders, and Guidewire VendorEngage™, Zurich Mexico has been able to reduce time required for FNOL due to geo-located adjusters and tasks that can be assigned based on adjuster workload. In addition, Zurich Mexico can communicate with customers faster than before due to digital modules. Internal benefits include improvement in technical metrics and reduction in cycle times.