For years, I've kept a series of business journals. This month, I'll share a series of ideas from my journal, rather than expanding just one idea into a column. This may provide an idea of how journaling works, and hopefully some of these ideas will be useful to you. So take your magazine or tablet, find a comfortable chair, and sip a cool drink while you think about our business.
One way to journal ideas is to make notes on ideas from other sources. This month, I read the 2017 Accenture technology report for insurance, “Amplify You,” which calls this the era of the intelligent insurer. I was fascinated by their predictions about the future of artificial intelligence. Within seven years, Accenture predicts most interfaces between people and product providers will not use a screen.
Pervasive AI will be integrated into daily life, including work. Consider how this could change the way we offer benefits to employees. Our employer customers, especially larger companies, will be enabled with AI assistants like today's Alexa or Siri. These assistants could be enabled to offer benefits enrollment when eligibility opens. It seems crazy to think benefit technology systems could dematerialize into AI skills today; but five to 10 years from now, it may seem inevitable. People love convenience, and talking to a device is easy compared with typing or tapping on a screen.
As Monty Python says: “Now for something completely different.” Many of the entries in my journal have to do with the middle class in America today and the fragile nature of their economics. Our messaging about disability insurance needs to be more customer-centered, getting across the fact that people need a safety net in the form of income protection insurance.
People overestimate the cost and underestimate the value of short- and long-term income protection when they are disabled. Many people think the most common cause of disability is accidents, which unfortunately is not true. Accidents are the cause of only about 20 percent of disabilities. People need a safety net. We need to do a better job of explaining why and how they can take care of that need through income protection insurance.
Here's a note from a presentation by Maria Ferrante-Schepis. Contrast how well-off people consider themselves today versus their vision of themselves 10 years from now. People are consistently optimistic about what their state will be like in the future.
We should ask people: “What do you think needs to change to realize that improvement?” People like to think about short-term gains versus long-term needs. They need to be prodded to think 10 years ahead, yet helping people with imagining and planning a better future is at the heart of our business. We need to more effectively help people make good financial and risk protection choices.
Disruptive forces and innovation are common journal topics. One part of being ready to change is shedding things you do today. Ask yourself, “What do I need to be willing to walk away from that I'm doing today?”
There are lots of historic examples of people who should have walked away from a core business and didn't. Blockbuster kept renting videos instead of morphing into Red Box and then Netflix. Kodak invented the digital camera and then failed to take advantage of marketing it and transforming their business as they could have. Neither of these companies wanted to walk away from their business model. Our industry's Netflix may already be here, but what is it?
The final note I'll take from my journal is, “Don't forget to enjoy the summer with family and friends.” I just wrote that entry today.
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