Danny Da Costa, SVP, Ontario Division, Intact Insurance
Innovation and insurance are not two words that most people associate with each other. It’s time to change that.
Customers want the people they get their insurance from to be, above all, reliable. That makes sense. We exist, as an industry, to provide peace of mind. When everything works as it should, the average person doesn’t really think much about their insurance. We—brokers and insurers—do the thinking for them.
There are milestone events in people’s personal and business lives that thrust insurance needs into the spotlight—the first car, a new home, or a new business venture. But most of the time, life just ticks along and so does one’s insurance policy.
Until something goes wrong. Then the right insurance policy and the right coverage are what let people rebuild and get back on their feet. That’s what people want from the insurance industry—to be there for them when they need it. To be reliable. And in order to be reliable, we have to be innovative.
Today’s customer has needs and expectations that didn’t exist yesterday. To continue to meet and exceed their expectations tomorrow, it’s important for us to monitor market trends and customer expectations and to get ahead of them.
To achieve that, both insurers and brokers need to have an innovation mindset. Yes, this means innovating with technology, digital platforms, A.I., apps, broker management systems and connectivity. It also means weaving innovation and creative thinking into the way we do insurance, at both the product development and product distribution stage.
This is not a stretch for customer-driven insurers or brokers. Insurance is about helping people. It’s about solving problems for people. Solving problems calls for creativity, innovation and outside-the-box thinking as much as it calls for data analysis, tested algorithms and robust processes. Our most successful innovations, and their enthusiastic adoption by customers, happen when creativity leverages data to solve customers’ problems.
At Intact, these innovations include telematics programs like my DriveTM, digital solutions like CrashAssist, Weather Alerts and claims filing tracking in the Intact Insurance App, as well as our tailored approach for unique customers or emerging markets.
At your brokerage, these innovations include every investment in technology, systems, processes and people you’ve made over the years, and notably every change you’ve made over the last two years to better support customers in the unprecedented business and social environment of the pandemic.
This is the virtual cycle of innovation in insurance. Our joint purpose—as insurers and brokers—is to anticipate and solve customers’ needs. Solving customer needs requires innovation. Innovation lets us fulfill our purpose.
The rate of change and level of uncertainty we’re seeing in the world—economically, politically and socially—makes it difficult to make predictions. I can make this one with confidence: the future of insurance is innovative. As long as customer needs drive our joint innovation and guide our decision-making, brokers and insurers will thrive—and customers will win.