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INTERVIEW WITH
Michael Gregory
Director of Underwriting Strategy
Innovating Insurance: Understanding Emerging Risks in an Uncertain World
Digital transformation will ultimately empower people to undertake more meaningful and productive work. It will result in insurance professionals spending less time on some of the more menial, often time-consuming, tasks, and enable them to spend more time focused on customers.
What does innovation look like in the insurance industry today?
Digital transformation is no longer a question, but an iterative necessity. The word ‘disruption’ is used a lot when referring to digital transformation, even though it has an inherently negative connotation. In reality, innovation is a more appropriate term when looking at the process of digital transformation and the benefits it can bring to insurance companies. As digital transformation continues to innovate and evolve, so too will the efficiency gains.
Digital transformation will ultimately empower people to undertake more meaningful and productive work. It will result in insurance professionals spending less time on some of the more menial, often time-consuming, tasks, and enable them to spend more time focused on customers – by building deeper relationships and ensuring that they are receiving a superior service. Alongside improving the customer experience, digital transformation will also allow insurance professionals to dedicate more time to developing new products that are fit-for-the-future, as well as solving customer and industry problems that currently, they can't get to.
What is the top priority for any insurance company that wants to be successful?
For any business to be successful, regardless of industry, having the right people should be the top priority. To be seen as the best, you’ve got to both attract and retain the best, the brightest, and the most willing people to help solve problems and deliver exceptional customer experiences
Having a diverse and inclusive recruitment policy is incredibly important. When it comes to finding the right people to solve our big problems, employing people from a range of career backgrounds is a great way to avoid uniform thinking and come up with innovative new solutions. Focusing on graduate and intern recruitment is another way to inject fresh thinking into the business, as these candidates will likely not bring preconceived ideas with them, rather focusing on how we can be better.
With modern working practices as they are today, being able to offer colleagues flexibility on where they conduct their work gives us another important advantage when it comes to attracting and retaining the best talent. Of course, flexible working is easier for some roles than others; you couldn’t have a Marine surveyor assessing the particulars of a ship and its hull from home, for example! However, in my experience, flexibility works more often than not and it can help to embed a culture of trust, ownership and accountability when applied in role-based manner.
To be seen as the best, you’ve got to both attract and retain the best, the brightest, and the most willing people to help solve problems and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
The biggest challenge facing UK insurers right now is mitigation and prevention of natural disasters and extreme weather losses. At this stage, we haven't got to that level of prevention or mitigation where, as an industry, we have the ability to stop smaller weather events morphing into larger-scale disaster losses.
Michael Gregory
Head of Underwriting Strategy and Delivery
RSA Insurance
What is the biggest challenge faced by UK insurers as a result of the changing climate landscape?
The biggest challenge facing UK P&C insurers at the present time, in my opinion, is the mitigation and prevention of natural disasters and extreme weather losses. At this stage, we haven't got to that level of prevention or mitigation where, as an industry, we have the ability to stop smaller weather events morphing into larger-scale disaster losses. Take, for example, one of the biggest natural risks in the UK – flooding. There’s a lot that’s already being done to mitigate and prevent flooding losses, whether that's through the use of flood mapping, technological sensors, preventative building practices, more sustainable rebuilds or simply by improving flood barriers – however there is much more to be done.
At RSA, we’re signed up to the Build Back Better scheme, launched by Flood Re, which enables participating insurers such as ourselves to offer customers access to reimbursement costs of up to £10,000, over and above work to repair damage and loss caused by a flood. That money can be used to pay for the installation of flood resilience measures such as raised electrical sockets and flood-resistant doors, for example. The scheme also covers the cost of surveys to understand the flood risk and potential mitigation of individual properties. Of course, we also have our own part to play in the fight against climate change through our investments and underwriting actions, which is why we recently announced the launch of our new low-carbon underwriting policy. That included a commitment to achieving an underwriting portfolio for energy production that is over 75% low carbon by 2030 and further supporting the transition to Net-Zero through the provision of products and services supporting Net-Zero energy generation. However, the climate crisis is a huge challenge and, to truly tackle it, we need the support of all insurance industry market players to create meaningful change.