How can insurers successfully navigate through the COVID-19 crisis?

The COVID – 19 outbreak has had a significant impact across sectors globally and in India. Our Now, Next, Beyond framework aims to provide a blueprint to organizations on successfully navigating this crisis to emerge as stronger, more resilient enterprises. How you respond now will define your brand and company and how you restart your business and pivot to the next will effectively help you reframe the future and steer your organization in a post-COVID world.

The insurance sector is particularly vulnerable to disruption during this time and while companies have implemented business continuity measures, the long-term sustainability of the current working models is still untested. Employee health and safety is of paramount importance as insurers grapple with immediate challenges of top-line stress, swelling costs, volatile markets and sustaining morale and productivity.

With lockdowns in full effect and distancing likely to become the norm, virtual is the new normal. Thus, revamping business models to be more digital, lean and agile as well as ensuring cyber and enterprise resilience become imperatives.

Insurers need to consider implications across three distinct horizons of the Now, the Next and the Beyond and focus on:

1. Adopting a people-first mindset to future-proof the workforce through virtual platforms, remote working enablement and engaging digital up-skilling and re-skilling programs.
2. Rethinking product propositions and enabling contactless sales and servicing to suit shifts in customer needs and behaviors. Hyper-personalized, simplistic and need-based products, transparent processes, enhanced customer experience and holistic self-service tools are the way forward.
3. Propelling digital operations for higher simplicity, integration, supply chain efficiency and convenience. Zero-touch, cloud enabled IT environments, variabilization of costs and accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence, machine learning and intelligent automation are key themes.
4. Addressing growing cyber and enterprise risk concerns including data security and privacy, claims frauds and regulatory non-compliance.
5. Surviving the financial turbulence and possible adverse impacts on profitability, investment returns, AUM, capital efficiency, solvency and liquidity.

These key levers of change are discussed in more detail below: