The range of unexpected events that insurers and consumers are met with are likely to become more widespread, from ecological to technological and geopolitical. A hurricane today could be followed by a denial-of-service attack tomorrow.

Assessing these risks, anticipating the domino effect of consequences, and how to adequately provide cover and support becomes a little bit tougher for the insurance sector day by day.

And an insurance marketer’s role is not just to sell the advantages of cover, but to also help customers understand and anticipate the risks in their life. Your content strategy needs to flex to demands, and right now that means meeting an array of challenges.

New models of insurance

We are likely to see very different models of insurance over the coming years, catering for a changing society. This includes ownership models and pay-as-you-go models as more people move to sharing items and services.

This idea of partnership also extends to insurance companies themselves, with increasing collaborations to support embedded insurance models. Deloitte predicts the embedded insurance market will grow to $722 billion by 2030, such as being able to instantly insure individual purchases at the point of buying from the retailer. Direct to consumer (D2C) models will likely see some decline.

Consumers and businesses also expect a greater degree of self-service tools for renewal

Increasing connectivity of wearables, logistics, transport, home appliances and health-tech through APIs, IoT and sensors will grow the need for ‘real-time’ risk cover, from hourly personal insurance to real-time cargo insurance.

Personalised services will address individual consumer concerns with products and tools that may go beyond current offerings. This can include gig worker income protection, and insuring specialist collections beyond standard contents insurance.

Consumers and businesses also expect a greater degree of self-service tools for renewal, making changes to products, chat facilities and content that speaks to the ways they can reduce their specific risk profile.

Cost of living stresses 

Insurance’s primary aim is to help build financial resilience, covering unexpected life events, repairs, weather effects and more. It’s part of a longer-term strategic approach to money management, which is the back-bone of financial marketing messaging.

A recession is predicted for the UK and USA, catching up to Germany, which entered a recession in May 2023. Tighter budgets for households and businesses alike means increased assessment of insurance deals.

For some customers, the temptation to forego insurance to reduce outgoings is likely to rise

FCA rules introduced in 2022 have made efforts to reduce the ‘loyalty penalty’, which rewarded newer customers more than existing customers. However, this has also removed the option of shopping around for exclusive new discounts and reduced the number of low-price deals on the market.

For some customers, the temptation to forego insurance to reduce outgoings is likely to rise. Where people feel they can no longer afford the monthly payment, or even the item they have insured (such as selling a car), insurers will feel the pressure of lost revenue. There are also fears of fraudulent claims rising.

Transunion research also shows consumers want digital convenience from providers, with 91% willing to use online channels. This provides a challenge for insurers to think wider than their current platforms and adapt to an ever-evolving communication landscape – at the same level of service that customers have come to expect.

Our proposed solutions

Show your value in everything you do:

• • It’s more expensive to build a relationship with a new customer, so work on supporting the ones you have.
  • Consider content-led value-adds, such as financial planning tools, quizzes to help customers understand what products could work better for their situation, content on why insurance can build financial resilience, case studies on how clients avoided further financial disruption through insurance, and timely economic insights.
  • Content should also emphasise how insurance can look out for you, safeguard your home, business, transport and loved ones. It’s important to never forget that insurance issues are human, and very emotive, issues.

Make it easy:

• • If customers feel that sacrificing their complex insurance arrangements and extra costs makes more sense than paying a monthly fee, create clear guides on how to make a claim, change a product, or keep costs down.
  • If people have life and health insurance, they can be supported with advice on how to optimise their health. People already monitor their daily health through phones, wearables and wireless health-tech, and we’re not far away from insurance companies being in that data loop. Dynamic pricing is likely to come into play, with insurance costs lowering as fitness and health improves.

Adapt to the landscape:

• • The omnichannel experience requires an omnichannel strategy, going to new markets and appropriately investing time and resources in both ‘help’ resources and lead generation.
  • Quality leads come from quality messaging, so building an appropriate lead scoring model is key. This includes assessment of your channel mix to determine the likelihood of high-quality leads (for consideration and conversion content), and lower-quality leads (awareness content that can help build sentiment).   
  • Your lead-scoring system will also help build relationships between marketing and sales, by funnelling the best quality warm leads for follow-up calls, with ratings for likelihood of conversion. This helps smooths the workflow and improves the success rate of sales.

Cut down on fraud

• If customers think it’s easy to make a fraudulent claim, or there is a sudden, unexpected uptick in claims, then it’s time to invest in guides on how to make a claim and clarify how each claim is stringently assessed and awarded. This makes it easier for those in need, as well as dissuading false claims by impressing the difficulty of fictitious claim.

Climate change will make big waves 

Climate-driven catastrophes have risen by 250% over the past three decades. Parametric insurance, an alternative risk solution, pays out in case of a specific event and will continue to rise in popularity. Businesses and individuals can use it for regions that are placed in the pathway of climate-related extreme weather, such as cyclones or water levels dropping to a certain point.

People are also investing in ESG advice, and it’s predicted that claims related to negligent advice are likely to increase in the years to come. Temperature-related claims are also likely to rise – such as business interruption insurance during extreme heats – and there is pressure on employers’ liability insurance in case of worker accidents.

Insurance companies are also urged to integrate ESG values and attributes into their own products, stress-testing them against ESG standards.

Our proposed solutions

• Don’t green-wash: All of your marketing and content needs to be grounded in reality. It’s a great idea to build a matrix of messaging tied to your ESG qualities to ensure communications are aligned to substantiated truths.
• Help people pick the right products: Interactive tools and flow-charts are helpful for customers to help select the right level of cover for their individual circumstances, and zone in on the issues that are more likely to impact them. A logistics company may be more interested in non-damage business interruption insurance, while an individual may want cover for luggage loss/damage only rather than flight delay.
• Make people aware: Not everybody will realise that insurance products are evolving in step with climate change and ESG. Building content around these lesser-known issues is the first step in building new leads – businesses have to be prepared for potential torts and suits, such as climate-related group actions and need to know the insurance options related to these.