FOMO-driven innovation: How the “fear of missing out” is driving insurance companies’ actions | Insurance Business American Insurance News FOMO-driven innovation: How the “fear of missing out” is driving insurance companies’ actions Are you encouraging insurance companies to take action?
Forestview Insights Founder and CEO Rob Galbraith talks about the need for market transparency
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Written by Chris Davis
Rob Galbraith, Founder and CEO of Forestview Insights, has worked closely with insurance companies for many years, challenging the status quo and guiding them towards innovation. During this time, he realized the deeply ingrained nature of insurance institutions, which have enjoyed relative stability for decades, unaffected by the same disruptive forces faced by other industries such as media and technology. Ta.
“There are no Netflix-type startups that come in and spend 10 years or more becoming market leaders while others are trying to catch up,” Galbraith said.
This stability makes the insurance industry uniquely resistant to rapid change. As a result, organizations often struggle to adapt to the new realities of a rapidly evolving business environment.
“They are so stable that they have ingrained processes and structures,” he says, highlighting the difficulty of fostering a culture of change.
Galbraith explained that a key issue in driving change within insurance companies is that “it’s very difficult for organizations to act quickly” until there is a clear and immediate threat. Innovation requires not just new ideas, but a shift in mindset across the organization, something that large, established insurance companies struggle to embrace.
However, the past five years have seen notable changes. “Frankly, the insurance market is much more transparent than it used to be,” he said.
Companies are starting to be open about how they innovate and the areas they focus on.
“We’re seeing this in a number of conferences that have grown,” Galbraith said.
FOMO-driven innovation
One of the catalysts for this change, according to Galbraith, is the rise of insurance technology and external pressures. “Both vendors and consultancies, benchmarking agencies, rating agencies and regulators are starting to incorporate innovation into the metrics they measure for insurers. This external pressure is leading to what he calls a bit of a FOMO’ is occurring within the industry.” , which encourages companies to take action, even if they don’t fully understand the direction they should take.
Galbraith’s role increasingly includes educating these companies on innovation as an area of expertise.
“What I came here to preach is the idea that innovation is a science no different than insurance claims, no different than underwriting or actuarial science,” he says.
Unlike underwriting and claims, where there are established best practices and professional designations, the field of innovation is still relatively unknown.
“It’s kind of like the Wild West in a way,” Galbraith says. He explained that the discipline of innovation is still in its infancy at many insurance companies. “There aren’t a lot of best practices out there, and we’re just starting to build on them.”
“It’s that muddy middle that a lot of organizations don’t really understand.”
As businesses grapple with the evolving landscape, Galbraith emphasizes the need to move away from the incremental approach many companies have traditionally taken.
“In the past, I have seen specialized projects where the chief claims officer has several projects and the chief underwriting officer has their own project, but these innovation efforts are a strategic goal. “It may not be connected,” he says.
“We think of innovation as just the ideation stage,” he says, but the real challenge lies in what he calls the “muddy middle,” between coming up with an idea and actually implementing it. This is an often overlooked step.
“What many organizations don’t understand is that muddy middle.” According to Galbraith, the importance of having a clear process for innovation cannot be overstated.
“How do we go from ideation to implementation? What is the process?” These are the questions he encourages companies to ask themselves. In his experience, it’s not the lack of good ideas that holds companies back, but the inability to effectively manage processes.
“How do you decide which ideas to pursue? And how do you quantify and evaluate them as you move through the process?” he says.
Another important challenge is knowing when to quit a project that isn’t working.
“You need to be able to quit a project midway and pursue other, more fruitful projects,” Galbraith said. Without this ability, companies risk getting stuck in initiatives that ultimately do not yield the desired results.
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