Embedded insurance is playing a critical role in the digital and customer-centric evolution of the insurance industry. It helps to make insurance present and relevant in the lives of consumers when and where they need it the most. Customer journeys across various industries, such as travel, e-commerce (bicycle, brown and white goods), and banking use this way of delivering insurance as part of their ecosystem or brand experience. This article aims to take you on a journey to learn how companies like ELEMENT deliver insurance products.
The Delivery of Insurance Solutions
When we think of delivery, one of the first things that come to mind is food delivery. From the moment a food order is placed via any app, to the restaurant that prepares the food, and finally, to the customer's doorstep, there are numerous resources and processes involved in ensuring that things keep running smoothly. Tripping up on any step through this chain of events can impact the overall process and result, ultimately defeating the goal of delivering food with a positive customer experience. Behind the scenes, the delivery process involves crucial elements such as data exchange, delivery person, cook, payment provider, consumer-facing interface and more. It’s a bit like the metaphorical Swan on a lake that is moving gracefully and seemingly effortlessly through the water – but below the surface, the legs are paddling frantically.
The concept of seamless delivery is not limited to one single industry or vertical; it extends to the delivery of insurance solutions as well. Just as food delivery involves numerous steps towards a positive customer experience, the delivery of insurance products refers to the same process by which insurance policies are distributed and made available to customers. Traditionally, insurance products made their way to the buyer through agents or brokers who helped customers understand their insurance needs, choose the right products, and who facilitated the purchase of the policy. Customers later could also purchase insurance policies directly from insurance companies, fittingly called direct sales, either online via digital aggregators or through other channels.
With the rise of technology and changing customer expectations, new delivery models have now emerged that aim to make insurance products more accessible and convenient for customers by combining the advantages of an intermediated model where someone is helping the client along the way on the one hand, and the speed and convenience and lower cost of the direct sales model. One such new model is embedded insurance, which involves integrating insurance products into other products or services at the ultimate point of need of the client. We can illustrate this model best with some examples, such as a travel website offering travel insurance with your flight purchase, or a retailer offering product insurance at the point of sale.
The delivery of insurance products has always been one of the most important aspects of the insurance industry, and as new delivery models continue to emerge and evolve, it will be important for insurers to adapt and stay competitive in order to meet the changing needs and expectations of their existing and new customers. Embedded insurance is one of these delivery models of the future.
The Embedded Insurance Model
Let’s revisit the definition of embedded insurance: a way of delivery of more affordable, relevant and personalized insurance to customers, when and where they need it most. The product is integrated into an existing user journey for another business. The final customer always deals with this business directly, never with the third party, or the insurance company selling the insurance. But even though the product is seamlessly integrated into the business, the latter does not need to obtain a license or carry out any of the other regulatory activities. A licensed partner like ELEMENT takes over this part in the background. Together with the examples we saw before, this in the practice will happen seamlessly for the customer, for instance with an extended warranty that you are able to purchase at any given e-commerce, directly when you buy a smartphone, without having to leave the customer purchase flow.
Looking at the bigger picture, embedded insurance is a delivery model that forms an integral part of people's commercial lives, seamlessly integrated into their purchasing routines and preferences. Distributors of embedded insurance products are often non-insurers like e-commerce platforms, banks or healthcare organizations, such as veterinary clinics. These types of partners may require more support from insurers for certain elements of the value chain, such as claims handling or product pricing. But the experience for the customer will be effortless, convenient and much more personalized.
The (Embedded) Insurance Value Chain
The rise of technology has been pivotal to ease the delivery of insurance products along the entire value chain, as it makes it more flexible how insurance solutions are delivered – offered, bought and administrated. Via different partnerships with different intermediaries, it’s possible to take advantage of each partner’s strengths to the full extent and thereby maximize the ease of how the customer receives their policy.
Some partners within the insurance ecosystem, for example, may be best equipped to handle certain aspects of the value chain, such as in-house claims handling. The ability to independently manage certain components of the value chain provides flexibility in delivering insurance products based on each partner's unique needs. ELEMENT’s ability to create flexible partnerships with intermediaries, TPAs, and others is one of our unique selling propositions, a capability that leverages these complementary strengths across the value chain as needed. This flexibility allows us to work with partners on embedded insurance and other standard or customized solutions, meeting various client needs. This is why ELEMENT has the ability to launch a new product within a week.
But not only flexibility is a key element for the delivery of insurance solutions. At ELEMENT we are striving to make the delivery of insurance as seamless as possible for our partners through:
- our deep product and underwriting expertise and lean internal and external insurance processes
- and our proprietary technology and platform, which enables the utmost automation as well as making our products easily embeddable at record speed and thus highly and fast accessible to all our partners.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the delivery of insurance products is a complex process influenced by a wide range of factors. Yet, companies like ELEMENT make it work seamlessly and convenient for its partners and ultimately the end customers. From the marketing and sales channels, to the types of products on offer and the level of customer support provided, we insurers navigate a complex ecosystem to deliver high-quality policies for customers. One way in which this process is optimized is through partnerships that leverage complementary strengths to seamlessly integrate our solutions into embedded and other distribution channels.
ELEMENT is leading this trend, which offers flexible solutions that can be tailored to meet the needs of partners in the embedded insurance ecosystem and beyond. By providing innovative white-label insurance solutions and leveraging our insurance licenses and expertise, ELEMENT is well-positioned to help our partners deliver the highest-quality embedded insurance solutions. Therefore, their customers will enjoy the best insurance experience, seamlessly and conveniently, right where when they need it.