How sustainability and workforce transformation encourage innovation

The current 2022 Qorus-Accenture Innovation in Insurance coverage Awards are a robust, sensible illustration of the developments shaping the insurance coverage trade. Sustainability and workforce transformation have gotten central to insurers for retaining relevance in a altering market. Insurers must embed sustainability into their technique and worth proposition, and so they must embrace workforce transformation within the mild of things similar to a good labour market, talent shortages, rising human-machine interactions and hybrid work preparations. Each are additionally changing into key issues for individuals when choosing their insurance coverage provider of alternative and/or a spot the place to forge a profession.

Social, sustainable and accountable

Accenture’s 2021 Insurance Global Consumer Study illustrated that sustainability in all kinds has grow to be more and more necessary for shoppers, with 67 p.c of millennial and youthful generations saying that sustainable services and products are interesting. This curiosity stands to have a double profit to insurers, who can construct sustainable danger administration mannequin, whereas on the similar time demonstrating to youthful shoppers that sustainability is a shared worth.

In a earlier series on sustainability, I mentioned how we now have interaction with a wider definition of sustainability inside insurance coverage. Sustainability not solely pertains to defending the planet, however defending our future by means of optimistic socio-economic practices, caring for underserved and weak communities.

Built-in, proactive sustainability is not going to be attainable with out implementing the proper expertise. As our newest analysis Uniting Technology and Sustainability discusses, expertise is a key enabler for growing holistically sustainable companies and for that sustainability and expertise methods must grow to be tightly aligned. The truth is, in Accenture’s Perception to Reality: Closing Stakeholders Consensus Gaps to Shape Sustainable Organizations we illustrated that 43% of executives point out accessing the proper expertise on the proper price as a key barrier to growing sustainability objectives.

On this yr’s awards, we noticed how insurers are overcoming these challenges by connecting sustainability to their goal and imaginative and prescient and utilizing applied sciences similar to AI to trace their very own ESG necessities or construct progressive merchandise that add worth to prospects, in addition to to society and the broader atmosphere.

Class winner – PZU (Poland)

This was actually the case with this yr’s winner of the Social, Sustainable & Accountable 2022. PZU gained the class for its AI Pores and skin Most cancers Prevention software, which empowers prospects to entry pores and skin most cancers pre-screening shortly and simply by means of an AI-enabled cell app.

Marcin Kurczab – Head of Innovation Lab at PZU explains how the software got here to be: “When implementing the undertaking, we recognized the problem of low consciousness of pores and skin most cancers danger among the many workers of our company purchasers. Because of this, we provided them a easy and fast answer that routinely reminds them to carry out common self-examinations.”

Over 3,000 individuals registered within the app within the first months of the pilot programme, with 5 pores and skin most cancers instances recognized by the app and being confirmed by dermatological evaluation to this point. PZU acquired optimistic suggestions from customers, who shared that the software made pores and skin most cancers prevention simpler and extra accessible.

Kurczab provides, “Two individuals advised us about their medical consultations, throughout which medical doctors have been impressed by the effectiveness of the app, which proves its reliability. That’s our mission as an insurer – now we have the distinctive functionality to guard and assist individuals in residing higher and longer. It takes solely takes a minute for PZU prospects to examine their pores and skin situation at dwelling and, if there’s a concern, to escalate this by seeing a physician. Prognosis at such an early stage will increase the prospect of a profitable restoration.”

PZU noticed a rise in buyer sentiment because of the software, noticing a statistically important distinction within the analysis of PZU’s innovativeness (+13 p.p. compared with the management group) and the notion of the corporate as fashionable (+10 p.p. compared with the management group) of their annual advertising survey.

“It’s generally recognized that healthcare companies are overloaded, and sufferers typically have to attend a very long time for a physician’s appointment and therapy. New applied sciences similar to AI have an enormous potential for revolutionizing healthcare by addressing its important ache factors. AI-based instruments can deal with a variety of challenges by checking signs, optimizing healthcare processes, conducting triage but in addition predicting danger of a given illness (like cancers) or enabling early detection of such sicknesses which can end in decrease mortality charges. Trendy AI instruments can act as a assist of medical doctors throughout examination (there are already purposes with medical certification which are prescribed by medical doctors similar to medicines or different types of rehabilitation) or allow self-examination choices as a part of prevention – similar to our undertaking. AI doesn’t really feel fatigue, it’s higher in avoiding biases, and might see what is just not all the time seen by people. These options could make AI an inseparable aspect of medical prognosis sooner or later.”

Workforce transformation

Expertise is the lifeblood of the insurance coverage trade. It is just with the proper assets and data that insurance coverage carriers will be capable to remodel and realise their imaginative and prescient.

Nevertheless, expertise and abilities shortages are a rising concern inside the insurance coverage trade. Talent gaps ensuing from the introduction of recent applied sciences and rising digitization of operations, coupled with an ageing workforce and large retirement looming are notably worrying. For instance, expertise administration (succession, planning, recruiting, retention, and coaching) was highlighted as rising concern by underwriters in The Institutes-Accenture’s 2021 underwriting survey.

A key rising problem and alternative for insurers is the rise of the distant workforce. On the one hand, the distant workforce opens up new alternatives for efficiencies. In Accenture’s 2021 Technology Vision for Insurance 88% of insurance coverage executives shared the assumption that the distant workforce opens up the marketplace for difficult-to-find expertise and expands the competitors for expertise amongst organizations. Alternatively, optimizing the assets that guarantee a wholesome and productive workforce, no matter bodily location, will be difficult. Working remotely additionally makes a cohesive and collaborative office tradition tougher.

Class winner – Zurich Insurance coverage Firm

Zurich addressed the actual challenges which have come about by means of the hybrid workforce, with an all-in-one cell software for Zurich workers that simplifies the day-to-day expertise whether or not they’re at dwelling or within the workplace.

Oscar Escudero Sanchez, Head of Digital Supply, Zurich Insurance coverage Firm discusses how the staff approached the creation of the app, “Zurich has about 56,000 workers globally and so they deserve the most effective and best instruments to assist navigate their work life. We initially launched the app in a number of Zurich enterprise items with a concentrate on workspace reserving however have come very far since and are going world this yr. With One Zurich, we’re turning our outdated mannequin of functional-based digital experiences on its head. The place we beforehand had totally different platforms for, let’s say, HR or IT assist, now our workers have it multi function place.”

Liz Oswald, Head of Expertise Transformation, Zurich Insurance coverage Firm provides, “One Zurich goals to supply our workers with a holistic digital expertise. We often have interaction our workers by means of a number of channels similar to focus teams, interviews, polls and in-app suggestions kinds to know their desires, wants and preferences, and use these inputs to outline and prioritize a backlog of app options and user-experience flows. As soon as these are in manufacturing, we observe their utilization and comply with up with workers to know what’s working properly for them or what they wish to see improved – after which we take these adjustments and enhancements into our backlog.”

This method aligns to a hybrid method of working. Escudero Sanchez explains, “Zurich has embraced the brand new post-pandemic method of working, together with providing expanded flex and distant working choices to workers. This mannequin creates many alternatives for each the corporate and workers on find out how to keep related in a hybrid working world. At a tactical degree, the One Zurich app helps workers in managing their on-site days with user-friendly, visible instruments that enable to see when their colleagues are planning to come back into the workplace, ebook close by workspaces and handle their reservations. Extra broadly, One Zurich serves as a channel for participating workers with related updates and actions after they matter most and to assist them really feel related regardless of which office mannequin they select.”

Workforce transformation doesn’t occur in a vacuum, however as a part of a deeper strategic dedication. Oswald concludes, “At Zurich, our ambition is to be one of the accountable and impactful companies on this planet. We all know {that a} key aspect of attaining this can be offering our prospects, brokers, and brokers with fashionable, streamlined and intuitive instruments and consumer flows that have interaction and delight them, and which are tailor-made to their particular person wants. But it surely’s not sufficient to concentrate on innovating for our exterior audiences – all of it has to start out on the core! Our workers make Zurich. With One Zurich, we’re offering an instance for our workers by reworking their very own expertise and sharing our findings to tell our group’s broader digitalization journey.”

As these two winners present, a holistic dedication to sustainability and workforce transformation from the within can have a widespread, highly effective affect.

See the total 2022 Qorus Accenture Innovation in Insurance list.

Get the most recent insurance coverage trade insights, information, and analysis delivered straight to your inbox.