{"id":23520,"date":"2017-11-15T16:26:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T21:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/can-a-digital-life-translate-to-digitizing-life-insurance\/"},"modified":"2017-11-15T16:26:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T21:26:28","slug":"can-a-digital-life-translate-to-digitizing-life-insurance","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/can-a-digital-life-translate-to-digitizing-life-insurance\/","title":{"rendered":"Can a digital life translate to digitizing Life (Insurance)?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can a digital life translate to digitizing Life (Insurance)? <\/strong><\/p>\n

The life insurance industry has been one of the slowest to adopt the increasing digitization of our society. As smaller fintech and insuretech companies look to enter the space, investing in digital experiences and supply chain management will be table stakes for the survival of large insurers. John Hancock, a life insurance company in the US (part of ManuLife Financial), has made significant strides in creating wellness programs linked to the purchase of a life insurance product. By tapping into the growing trend of smart, connected products (e.g. apple watch, fit bit, etc.) Hancock is able to turn the life insurance sale around to focus more on the living benefits of the product. However, the real potential is unlocking the massive amounts of data through connected devices to digitize the entire life insurance supply chain: streamline product development, speed up underwriting, and simplify distribution to deliver more bespoke products, more quickly, and at a lower cost (to both the insurer and customer).<\/p>\n

Currently, Hancock has used the digitization of wellness as a means to attract and engage their customers (and build brand awareness). Specifically, they have developed a program where customers can share data from their connected device showing steps walked (or other activity indicators) and healthy spending habits, and in turn \u201cearn rewards towards their insurance premiums and discounts with health-based retailers.\u201d[1]<\/a> Hancock\u2019s near-term plans remain at the \u201cmonitor stage\u201d[2]<\/a> of the capabilities of smart, connected products. Their near-term focus is on creating partnerships with manufacturers of connected devices (e.g. recent partnership with Apple watch to reward customers) and with health retailers. Hancock has correctly identified the opportunity to optimize risk management \u201cSensor technology could be used to help develop a more proactive approach to risk management and customer support by allowing your business to monitor policyholders\u2019 health in real time and alert them to any early signs of illness. Your business would benefit from reduced liabilities and could offer lower premiums in return.\u201d[3]<\/a> Their program offers the opportunity to re-assess underwriting at each policy anniversary, an improvement from the once and done traditional underwriting model, however without a clear link between wellness activity and improved mortality outcomes, the data being shared by customers with Hancock offers limited insights and does not create any efficiencies in the life insurance supply chain. Furthermore, by focusing on \u201cwellness\u201d the company has missed an opportunity to drive meaningful product innovation for customers who need it the most \u2013 those who are at risk for developing serious chronic conditions and who are most penalized during the life insurance underwriting.<\/p>\n

My recommendations for Hancock\u2019s management team are to 1) shift their focus from \u201cwellness\u201d to disease management, and 2) invest in data capture platforms and new underwriting and policy admin systems. For the first, Hancock has the opportunity to partner with medical device companies like Medtronic, to offer life insurance solutions for customers struggling to manage diabetes. While these devices are arguably still in the \u201cmonitor\u201d category, they involve actual sensor technology and provide meaningful biometric data \u2013 a step up from step trackers.<\/p>\n

See attached image: Sensor technology enhances insight and prevention[4]<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the near term, a program like this can capture greater risk management upside by improving mortality outcomes for customers that need more active health management. Longer term, Hancock can use this data to enrich their product pricing, and create sophisticated predictive underwriting models to significantly reduce the time and pain points associated with underwriting. This dovetails into my second recommendation, investing in the analytics capabilities needed to ingest, interpret, and harness data from multiple sources.<\/p>\n

In order to survive and thrive in the next 10-20 years, Hancock must capture biometric, social network, geographic, financial data etc. and evolve towards an information eco-system and supply chain where \u201cthe core decision-making and the analytics engine that supports decisions are likely to converge at a single point.”[5]<\/a> This will result in a much more efficient supply chain with products tailored to specific needs, more direct to consumer distribution networks, significant reduction in time and cost associated with complex underwriting.<\/p>\n

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Key question:<\/p>\n