Physical And Financial Wellness Offers Robust Growth Opportunity For Insurers: Global Study

Customers consider insurers among the top preferred providers for physical and financial wellness solutions, according to Capgemini and Quorus' inaugural "World Life and Health Insurance Report," published on Monday. Thanks to the increasing macroeconomic and political uncertainties coupled with the ongoing pandemic, policyholders are now more aware of the importance of physical and financial wellness.

"The last two years prove that wellness needs to be a priority, and insurers need to understand how to effectively deliver wellness services. This report demonstrates the need for insurers to transform and focus on hyper-personalized services that meet individual needs of customers," said Samantha Chow, global life annuity and health insurance sector leader, Capgemini. "This means moving to a data-driven 'Wellness-as-a-Service' model with the technological innovation prioritises the customer. This will, in turn, enable deeper engagement and help insurers reach out to customers as and when they need it most."

For life and health insurers looking to align their business with shifting user needs, wellness-as-a-service offers a flexible model. Insurers will need to prioritize the development of modular, data-driven, and platform-focused technology architecture to harness the full potential of proprietary and third-party data to enable wellness-centric value propositions. This debut report provides insights into customer preferences and a roadmap for insurers to deliver Wellness-as-a-Service in individual and group lines.

Wellness-Driven Customer Behaviors

Wellness has become a priority in customers' minds, grappling with issues such as an increase in life expectancy, demographic trends, the retirement-savings gap, medical inflation, and healthcare-worker shortfall. According to the report, 69 per cent and 67 per cent of customers are interested in physical and financial wellness, respectively, and 37 per cent and 24 per cent of policyholders, rate insurers as their top potential partner for physical and financial wellness, respectively.

Innovation Needed For Hyper-Personalised Services

Consumers are ready for the transformation. According to the report, 83 per cent are looking for on-demand customer services, 78 per cent for ongoing physical and financial guidance, and 74 per cent for hyper-personalized value-added services and rewards. However, only eight per cent of insurers have established effective wellness-centric value propositions and built the necessary capabilities. The report findings suggest that InsurTechs

are ahead of insurers in the key capabilities for hyper-personalization, namely leveraging Artificial Intelligence /Machine Learning (28 per cent InsurTech versus 14 per cent insurers) and Cloud (44 per cent InsurTech versus 19 per cent incumbents), while the two are in line on product innovation. Still, only 43 per cent of insurers are effectively co-creating or innovating with strategic or ecosystem partners.

Three Core Priorities For Financial, Wellness Initiatives

To meet new expectations, according to the report, the insurers must focus on three core priorities to help customers connect with physical and financial wellness initiatives.

• First, insurers can help policyholders rebuild their physical wellness by accessing emergency and regular medical care and financial wellness by meeting current financial needs.
• Second, insurers can support policyholders to prevent future physical wellness issues by ensuring adherence to medical prescriptions, physical therapy protocols, or routine wellness visits. They can also prevent financial challenges by helping customers prepare for unexpected expenses or educating them on income protection products.
• Finally, insurers can help policyholders improve physical wellness through ongoing health life advice and financial wellness by providing better financial planning options, opportunities, and education.

In the report, John Berry, Qorus CEO, says: "Over the past few years, we have seen our insurer partners innovate and evolve to a prevention mindset for the benefit of all parties. Indeed, customers engage better with insurers who genuinely care about their well-being. Insurers and governmental organizations see the benefits from shorter recovery times and health issues that have been prevented, facilitated by the technological advances that allow better follow-up and support for all."

According to the report, insurers will benefit from adopting a wellness-as-a-service framework built on a deeper understanding of customer expectations to transform customer engagement from a transaction-based approach to a relationship-focused one. This will enable hyper-personalized wellness initiatives by leveraging technology, building a business model centered on wellness, and developing an ecosystem across InsureTechs, HealthTechs, BigTech, and wellness providers.