Mantissa Blog: The Digital Enterprise

The Digital Enterprise: Supporting digital priorities in Life and Annuity Industry

• Carriers are modernizing legacy ecosystems, while attempting to simultaneously enable digital capabilities
• Digital capabilities are required to support distribution needs as well as customers
• Cross-functional teams comprised of members from across the organization are driving strategies forward
• Result: Complexity when balancing business needs with aging or legacy technologies
• Capability development can span 12-18 months

The Life & Annuity industry is now highly focused on advancing digital capabilities, whereas many non- insurance industries are well into their own Digital Revolution. Those industries or companies have matured their digital strategies and have implemented advanced digital capabilities. For example, digitalization has already greatly disrupted the retail industry, dramatically changing the buying and service experience. In turn, this has transformed customer service expectations for other industries, including financial services.

Some Facts

According to McKinsey & Company in its report, Harnessing the Power of Digital in Life Insurance:

• 65% of the physical-channel-centric insurers plan to switch to a customer-centric model
• 93% of digital leaders rate digital as very important for their organization in the next three years

Many organizations admit that the speed of change and the ability to imagine the opportunities is a critical challenge to the organization, as it’s both a business priority and a technological challenge. The integration of business and technology is imperative in a digital business. As we will discuss in future segments, the technical challenge that is required to enable a digital enterprise can be significant. Technologies that are decades old must be harmonized to enable modern digital capabilities.

life & annuity company executives’ prioritization of digital capabilities

58% of executives believe that digital transformation an important priority for their organization

Source: Mantissa Group Core Modernization and Digital Survey

Consumer Expectations

Consumer expectations for digital capabilities have evolved from early retail e- commerce to an integrated and now treat digital, not as a special capability, but a digital business experience. Corporations originated the implementation of the digital movement as a matter of operational efficiency, but the force behind digital was rapidly taken over by consumers.

After some initial discomfort and adjustment to the fast-paced digital rate of change, consumers became adept at understanding technology. They began embracing technology and demanding more capabilities; their expectations have become the major driver in digital business. This general trend in the marketplace has naturally spilled over into the Life & Annuity insurance industry.

Life insurance companies have indicated a high degree of criticality of digital priorities for both consumers and agents. In a Mantissa Group survey, when asked if giving the end user an online digital experience is critical to the success of the organization and business strategy – 83% of the respondents indicated this as a priority. When asked the same questions about agents, the number increased to an overwhelming 91%.

Our research has exposed another dynamic as it pertains to digital priorities. Who owns digital as a business priority? Initial instincts had this capability built into technology organizations, as there are clear technical implications to digital strategies.

However, life insurance companies have become concerned that initiatives have become too technology centric and recognized digital as more a business model priority. Hence, life insurance companies have built digital into their business model standard part of the business.

The Sureify Angle

Sureify (https://www.sureify.com) is a life insurance and annuity digital engagement company founded on March 1, 2012, in San Jose, California. The company has developed industry leading SaaS digital capabilities for the life and annuity marketplace. They are a well- established digital enablement company with a record of success.

Sureify’s company focus is centered on bringing legacy systems of record and modern digital experiences together to ensure user satisfaction.

Sureify’s suite includes five (5) key digital capabilities:

• LifetimeACQUIRE: powers omnichannel sales capabilities
• LifetimeSERVICE: enables insurance companies to provide self-service capabilities to customers
• LifetimeENGAGE: uses multiple forms of personalized, ongoing engagement to foster a lifelong digital relationship with policyholders
• LifetimeAGENT: connects a sales force directly to a carrier’s data sources, allowing business to be conducted in a modern digital environment
• CoreCONNECT: harnesses information from all legacy platforms to satisfy any digital experience need

Keep an eye out for the next in our Digital Enterprise series, Chapter 2: Tackling the Agent Experiences