COLLABORATION
Pushing the boundaries A plethora of new and emerging opportunities presented by digitisation means there’s never been a more exciting time for the insurance industry, argues Sean Ringsted, Chief Digital Officer at Chubb There was a time when the idea of picking a financial product off the same corporate shelf on which your cornflakes and baked beans were stacked sounded crazy. Now, supermarket banks are old hat: ride hailing firms, airlines, mobile phone operators, social media and technology companies… everyone’s getting in on the act. Finance sector borders, once a clearly defined sector, have been permanently blurred. What does that mean for the banks and insurers whose territorial boundaries are being breached? The smartest are busy snuggling up to strange new bedfellows and using APIs in a value exchange that’s proving deeply disruptive but mutually beneficial. Global insurer Chubb, which has long seen the value in partnering, is one of them. In September 2020, it launched Chubb Studio, the next stage in its mission to make insurance almost invisible but virtually everywhere by enabling retailers, ecommerce providers, banks, fintechs, airlines, telcos and a host of other industries to add digital insurance options to their own product and service offerings. Here, Chubb’s chief digital officer Sean Ringsted tells The Insurtech Magazine’s executive editor Ali Paterson why the emergence of these increasingly complex financial ecosystems means insurance has a bigger role to play than ever. THE INSURTECH MAGAZINE: How have you seen the approach to partnerships change and evolve over the last few years? SEAN RINGSTED: So many sector changes are taking place globally,
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TheInsurtechMagazine | Issue 5
whether that’s through digitisation, ecommerce… just look around at what’s happening today in terms of how business is being transacted in a number of sectors. Then you have underlying demographic changes – such as aging populations, urbanisation, changes in healthcare provision. All of these things combined are driving a whole set of new business models and new ecosystems. Those that are successful, or will be successful, in riding the tailwind of these trends, have all expanded beyond their original core business to meet the opportunities and consumer demands. And they’re expanding their value chains in doing so. That expansion increasingly includes partnerships with insurers such as Chubb. Across nearly every industry, you’re seeing enterprises developing these new ecosystems or platforms – a network of overlapping services, providing consumers with one-stop shopping and a really relevant experience. Obvious examples that come to mind are Alibaba and Tencent in Asia, or Amazon and Apple in the United States. If we just focus on banking, many banks are moving towards what I would call a convenience banking model, and they’re based on a number of non-traditional financial services around milestone moments in someone’s life – getting married, going to university, buying a new home. At each of those moments, there’s a traditional interaction with the bank, whether it’s a loan, a mortgage, wiring funds, a credit card, or just simply opening an account. Banks are starting to engage in the digital ecosystems by offering contextual services as a
complement to this traditional transaction. By doing so, they’re delivering a richer experience to their customers, and, at the same time, building greater loyalty and stickiness. As all of these ecosystems and businesses grow, they create different risks for consumers and the companies serving them. That’s where insurance comes in. And that’s the great thing about insurance. Everybody needs it. It makes the world move, it protects you, your family and your assets. So, if insurance can be transacted digitally, then it really helps these digital ecosystems move along. TIM: How will the recently launched Chubb Studio help this approach to partnerships and will it change the insurance industry as a whole? SR: I don’t know about the industry as a whole but, at Chubb, we’re very excited about it. Even before we launched Chubb Studio, we had about 150 distribution partnerships globally. In just the last few years, we signed five major new partnerships which has given us access to more than 100 million customers in Asia and Latin America. Those partners include major financial institutions, such as DBS, one of the largest and most respected banks in Asia. Based on our experience of these partnerships, we’ve learned that to succeed it’s got to be about more than just impressive tech. It’s also about making the products and services contextual, relevant and very customer-focussed. This is where Chubb Studio comes in, and why our product teams are particularly excited about it. www.fintechf.com