The latest 2022 Qorus-Accenture Innovation in Insurance Awards are a robust, sensible illustration of the tendencies shaping the insurance coverage trade. Sustainability and workforce transformation have gotten central to insurers for retaining relevance in a altering market. Insurers have to embed sustainability into their technique and worth proposition, they usually should embrace workforce transformation within the gentle of things akin to a decent labour market, ability shortages, rising human-machine interactions and hybrid work preparations. Both are additionally changing into key concerns for folks when deciding on their insurance coverage service of selection and/or a spot the place to forge a profession.
Social, sustainable and accountable
Accenture’s 2021 Insurance Global Consumer Study illustrated that sustainability in all kinds has turn into more and more vital for shoppers, with 67 p.c of millennial and youthful generations saying that sustainable services are interesting. This curiosity stands to have a double profit to insurers, who can construct sustainable danger administration mannequin, whereas on the similar time demonstrating to youthful shoppers that sustainability is a shared worth.
In a earlier sequence on sustainability, I mentioned how we now interact with a wider definition of sustainability inside insurance coverage. Sustainability not solely pertains to defending the planet, however defending our future by way of optimistic socio-economic practices, caring for underserved and susceptible communities.
Integrated, proactive sustainability won’t be doable with out implementing the suitable know-how. As our newest analysis Uniting Technology and Sustainability discusses, know-how is a key enabler for creating holistically sustainable companies and for that sustainability and know-how methods have to turn into tightly aligned. In truth, in Accenture’s Perception to Reality: Closing Stakeholders Consensus Gaps to Shape Sustainable Organizations we illustrated that 43% of executives point out accessing the suitable know-how on the proper price as a key barrier to creating sustainability targets.
In this 12 months’s awards, we noticed how insurers are overcoming these challenges by connecting sustainability to their goal and imaginative and prescient and utilizing applied sciences akin to AI to trace their very own ESG necessities or construct progressive merchandise that add worth to prospects, in addition to to society and the broader surroundings.
Category winner – PZU (Poland)
This was actually the case with this 12 months’s winner of the Social, Sustainable & Responsible 2022. PZU gained the class for its AI Skin Cancer Prevention software, which empowers prospects to entry pores and skin most cancers pre-screening rapidly and simply by way of an AI-enabled cell app.
Marcin Kurczab – Head of Innovation Lab at PZU explains how the software got here to be: “When implementing the project, we identified the challenge of low awareness of skin cancer risk among the employees of our corporate clients. For this reason, we offered them a simple and quick solution that automatically reminds them to perform regular self-examinations.”
Over 3,000 folks registered within the app within the first months of the pilot programme, with 5 pores and skin most cancers circumstances recognized by the app and being confirmed by dermatological evaluation thus far. PZU obtained optimistic suggestions from customers, who shared that the software made pores and skin most cancers prevention simpler and extra accessible.
Kurczab provides, “Two people told us about their medical consultations, during which doctors were impressed by the effectiveness of the app, which proves its reliability. That’s our mission as an insurer – we have the unique capability to protect and support people in living better and longer. It takes only takes a minute for PZU customers to check their skin condition at home and, if there is a concern, to escalate this by seeing a doctor. Diagnosis at such an early stage increases the chance of a successful recovery.”
PZU noticed a rise in buyer sentiment on account of the software, noticing a statistically vital distinction within the analysis of PZU’s innovativeness (+13 p.p. as compared with the management group) and the notion of the corporate as fashionable (+10 p.p. as compared with the management group) of their annual advertising and marketing survey.
“It is commonly known that healthcare services are overloaded, and patients often have to wait a long time for a doctor’s appointment and treatment. New technologies such as AI have a huge potential for revolutionizing healthcare by addressing its main pain points. AI-based tools can address a wide range of challenges by checking symptoms, optimizing healthcare processes, conducting triage but also predicting risk of a given disease (like cancers) or enabling early detection of such illnesses which will result in lower mortality rates. Modern AI tools can act as a support of doctors during examination (there are already applications with medical certification that are prescribed by doctors just like medications or other forms of rehabilitation) or enable self-examination options as part of prevention – just like our project. AI does not feel fatigue, it is better in avoiding biases, and can see what is not always noticed by humans. These features may make AI an inseparable element of medical diagnosis in the future.”
Workforce transformation
Talent is the lifeblood of the insurance coverage trade. It is simply with the suitable sources and data that insurance coverage carriers will be capable to remodel and realise their imaginative and prescient.
However, expertise and expertise shortages are a rising concern inside the insurance coverage trade. Skill gaps ensuing from the introduction of recent applied sciences and growing digitization of operations, coupled with an ageing workforce and big retirement looming are notably worrying. For instance, expertise administration (succession, planning, recruiting, retention, and coaching) was highlighted as rising difficulty by underwriters in The Institutes-Accenture’s 2021 underwriting survey.
A key rising problem and alternative for insurers is the rise of the distant workforce. On the one hand, the distant workforce opens up new alternatives for efficiencies. In Accenture’s 2021 Technology Vision for Insurance 88% of insurance coverage executives shared the assumption that the distant workforce opens up the marketplace for difficult-to-find expertise and expands the competitors for expertise amongst organizations. On the opposite hand, optimizing the sources that guarantee a wholesome and productive workforce, no matter bodily location, may be difficult. Working remotely additionally makes a cohesive and collaborative office tradition harder.
Category winner – Zurich Insurance Company
Zurich addressed the actual challenges which have come about by way of the hybrid workforce, with an all-in-one cell utility for Zurich staff that simplifies the day-to-day expertise whether or not they’re at dwelling or within the workplace.
Oscar Escudero Sanchez, Head of Digital Delivery, Zurich Insurance Company discusses how the workforce approached the creation of the app, “Zurich has about 56,000 employees globally and they deserve the best and easiest tools to help navigate their work life. We initially launched the app in several Zurich business units with a focus on workspace booking but have come very far since and are going global this year. With One Zurich, we are turning our old model of functional-based digital experiences on its head. Where we previously had different platforms for, let’s say, HR or IT support, now our employees have it all in one place.”
Liz Oswald, Head of Technology Transformation, Zurich Insurance Company provides, “One Zurich aims to provide our employees with a holistic digital experience. We regularly engage our employees through multiple channels such as focus groups, interviews, polls and in-app feedback forms to understand their wants, needs and preferences, and use these inputs to define and prioritize a backlog of app features and user-experience flows. Once these are in production, we observe their usage and follow up with employees to understand what is working well for them or what they would like to see improved – and then we take these changes and enhancements into our backlog.”
This method aligns to a hybrid method of working. Escudero Sanchez explains, “Zurich has embraced the new post-pandemic way of working, including offering expanded flex and remote working options to employees. This model creates many opportunities for both the company and employees on how to stay connected in a hybrid working world. At a tactical level, the One Zurich app supports employees in managing their on-site days with user-friendly, visual tools that allow to see when their colleagues are planning to come into the office, book nearby workspaces and manage their reservations. More broadly, One Zurich serves as a channel for engaging employees with relevant updates and actions when they matter most and to help them feel connected no matter which workplace model they choose.”
Workforce transformation doesn’t occur in a vacuum, however as a part of a deeper strategic dedication. Oswald concludes, “At Zurich, our ambition is to be one of the most responsible and impactful businesses in the world. We know that a key element of achieving this will be providing our customers, agents, and brokers with modern, streamlined and intuitive tools and user flows that engage and delight them, and that are tailored to their individual needs. But it’s not enough to focus on innovating for our external audiences – it all has to start at the core! Our employees make Zurich. With One Zurich, we are providing an example for our employees by transforming their own experience and sharing our findings to inform our organization’s broader digitalization journey.”
As these two winners present, a holistic dedication to sustainability and workforce transformation from the within can have a widespread, highly effective impression.
See the complete 2022 Qorus Accenture Innovation in Insurance record.
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