COVER STORY
The
Battle
For The Dashboard Insurance technology’s long road to an Uber-like experience By Steven A. Morelli
PLUS, turn to page 29 to check out our 2019 TECH GUIDE 20
InsuranceNewsNet Magazine » November 2019
A
sk Doug Massey why it has been so difficult to create seamless and effective insurance technology and he will take you on an Uber ride from hell — metaphorically speaking, of course Massey knows all about the ride because his career has followed the route of insurance tech itself in the early 1990s, when he started a property and casualty quote engine company as a college student. Later, he worked with leading insurance tech companies such as Ebix. Massey is now the executive vice president for sales and relationship management with Insurance Technologies, which, as the name implies, is a key player in insurance tech. And he said the company is finally closing in on a eureka moment when it all comes together into a seamless insurance tech nirvana. But we are in an age when we can get dinner delivered by drone with a click of the thumb, so why is the life insurance and annuity industry’s tech seemingly stuck? Ah, step inside Massey’s exasperating Uber for an explanation. “Let’s assume I’m using my Uber app and I want to do a ride, but it’s the way insurance works,” Massey began. “I’ve got to open up my Google Maps or my Apple Maps. So, I’ve got to find my location. I have to set a pin for my location. Then I say, ‘OK, well I’ve set my pin for my location. Now I want to share that over to this Uber app.’” It is not a simple share. First you open the Uber app and import the location. Then the ride is scheduled and taken. “That’s great and all,” Massey said. “But when the ride is over, instead of just getting out of the car and walking away, now the driver’s like, ‘Well, I dropped you off at a gas station, therefore you can’t use e-signature. The only place I can use an e-signature is if I dropped you off at an airport or a hotel, OK?’” Not OK, actually. Now the driver has to print out a document for the transaction. “’So I got a little printer here,’” Massey’s imaginary driver said. “’I’m going to print it off and I’ll hand you the printed document and then you can sign that and then I’ll take that and put it into my scanner