Ninety’s Insurance Innovation Pulse June Edition iii Circle

Ninety’s Insurance Innovation Pulse is our monthly round-up of new ideas in the global insurance industry.  We cover headlining innovations, top innovation themes and innovation analysis for the month. Ninety’s Idea Pulse dashboard provides visual indicators of monthly innovation trends by business lines, regions, and Ninety’s innovation taxonomy – the Ten Types of Insurance Innovation.

The data for this report is compiled from officially announced, ready to market innovations reported from leading insurers, reinsurers, and brokers across the world.

Our monthly round-up concludes with a showcase of five case studies of innovations from a cross-section of business lines and innovation themes. For the most part, the case studies chosen are representative examples of commonly recurring themes of the month rather than examples that focus on novel ideas or one-of-a-kind solutions.

June Highlights

• In June, Ninety recorded a total of 69 new ideas and announcements from insurance businesses around the world, not counting insurtechs.
• Innovation trends in June remained consistent from May. Sustainable insurance, ESG risk management, telehealth and electric vehicle insurance were some of the recurring themes.
• Auto insurance was the major area of focus across all product lines – personal, rental and commercial fleets. Telematics, UBI, and products for diverse vehicle risks from electric vehicles, camper rentals and use car marketplaces featured in June innovations.
• Technology themes centred around Digital Distribution platforms and marketplaces, cloud, SaaS, telematics, AI and connected tech. 

The Top Innovation Themes in June

Insurance Idea Pulse Dashboard: June 2021

 Ninety’s Analysis

• We recorded 69 innovations announced in June, the highest tally in this quarter. We also observed a broader mix of ideas across all lines of business, unlike previous months.

• The theme of sustainable insurance, ESG risks and green initiatives that were reported in May has picked up momentum – especially in the area of investments and partnerships. Parhelion, the world first “sustainable insurance” company was also launched by international broker Howden this month.

• Consumption-based or “pay-as-you-go”, behavioural and subscription insurance models are becoming ubiquitous as the “new normal” shapes buying behaviour and affordability for customers in personal lines and general insurance segments. Chubb’s “pay-as-you-roam” travel insurance was an example of one such innovation launched in June.

• Life and health innovations are picking up accounting for close to 30% of June ideas. The upswing is led by the digitisation of patient-provider consultation – telehealth, digital care management and prevention health accounting for some of the solutions. Customer engagement through prevention health and wellness were driving life and health innovation.

What this means for you: a Ninety Partner point of view

• Non-European carriers need to upweight their focus on ESG / sustainability innovation. Driven by the global need to address climate change, this has become THE megatrend in insurance, as in other sectors, in the past 12 months. But this surge is powered to a significant degree by European carrier groups, with other global insurers lagging yet to latch on.
• Look out for Chubb. We’re impressed at the pace, scale and ambition of some of the innovations coming out of Chubb in the last year. One to watch.
• Get bold on life innovation. The historic laggard of the insurance innovation space, life insurance has started to innovate. There is lots of ground to catch up on here. We saw this about 5-6 years ago, when commercial insurers followed the personal carriers into the world of digitisation and customer-led innovation. For the past few years, commercial has been THE place to be innovating. Will life be the hotbed of innovation in a few years from now? It certainly has plenty of catch-up to do.

Five Innovations That Made Headlines in June  

1. International insurance broker Howden announces ‘world’s first fully sustainable insurer’ – Parhelion.

Howden, the international insurance broker, announced the launch of Parhelion, the world’s first fully sustainable insurer. Seed funded by Howden, the new insurer aims to support clients with ESG transition. Parhelion will provide both traditional risk coverage and create new ESG-specific products for risks of the future, meeting the varying requirements of a wide range of corporates – from those already highly ranked on ESG criteria to those just starting out on their transition journey.

Per Howden, Parhelion will look at risk through a new lens, to support a unique underwriting approach based on data, technology and proprietary ESG criteria. Citing empirical studies that evidence a persistently strong correlation between corporates with advanced ESG credentials and low insurance claims, Parhelion aims to offer premium and cover at advantageous terms, whilst generating strong shareholder returns.

Parhelion is entering an emerging and future growth market – new and diversified ESG products that will meet the risk financing needs of a greener economy. Per Howden, Over $40tn of assets globally were invested in ESG-aligned and sustainable impact strategies at the end of 2020, nearly double the amount invested in 2016, but very little deployed across the (re)insurance industry. The new business aims to match the surge in institutional capital seeking sustainable investment strategies with the growing demand from corporates seeking an insurance provider to support their journey towards ESG transition and a more resilient future.

2. Allianz Partners introduces an integrated Digital Health Assistant.

Digital healthcare has become an integral part of the healthcare continuum in the new normal.  In response, international B2B2C insurer Allianz Partners has created a new Global Health Services unit covering digital health, access to care, prevention and wellbeing services. Their company-wide Digital Access to Care initiative aims to develop a widening suite of digital tools and services that builds on Allianz Partners’ telehealth portfolio for various customer segments (travellers, credit card holders and expats).

Under this initiative, Allianz Partners has launched an integrated virtual health assistant. The service is easily accessible on a mobile device or desktop via a conversational platform such as WhatsApp or Telegram and provides customers with immediate and direct access to three core medical services: An AI-based “self-service” symptom checker, “Doctor Chat” for immediate medical advice from trusted local doctors via chat in their local language and a 24/7 Medical Hotline that provides access to a team of medical professionals available anytime and to give medical advice via phone calls.

This new platform is being rolled out across Western Europe as well as the Asia Pacific region. The digital health assistant has already been made available to more than 800,000 people and is currently available in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish languages.

3. Covéa Insurance and Vitality launch ‘VitalityCar’.

Vitality Insurance is best known for their Shared-Value Insurance Model, which uses incentives that rewards members and promotes positive behaviour change in its health and life insurance and investment businesses. At the start of 2021, Vitality announced plans to enter into the car insurance market, in partnership with Covea insurance, to expand their proposition to the motor insurance segment. This month, Covéa Insurance and Vitality have launched VitalityCar, a new direct-to-consumer car insurance proposition which incentivises and rewards good driving and enables UK motorists to better control their insurance costs. The dynamic new car insurance offering incentivises and rewards safer, greener driving.

At the heart of VitalityCar is access to the Good Driving Programme, designed to help drivers improve the five key behaviours that contribute to half of all road accidents: harsh acceleration, harsh braking, harsh cornering, distracted driving and speeding. As an additional incentive, Vitality will also offset up to 100% of the carbon emissions from each trip, depending on how well someone drives.

Good driving will unlock weekly rewards from consumer brands, while drivers demonstrating the safest driving behaviours, as defined by the Good Driving Programme, will have the opportunity to reduce their excess by £250 and receive a no-increase guarantee at renewal.

4. RAC Launches New Hybrid/EV Warranty Product for used cars.

A new warranty designed especially for used electric and hybrid cars has been launched by the RAC. Per RAC, the product is developed in response to an emerging market trend as electric cars – from plug-ins through to conventional hybrids – are starting to appear on the used market in greater numbers, something that will gather huge momentum in the coming years.

The RAC Electric Vehicle warranty will be supplied exclusively through the 1,300-strong RAC Dealer Network and can be applied to any used electric or hybrid car up to a maximum of eight years old and with 80,000 miles on the clock at the time of purchase. Cover is available for a variety of periods up to 24 months and claims can be made up to a limit of the vehicle purchase price. The product has been created in co-operation with the RAC’s warranty partner, Assurant.

The launch of the new Electric Vehicle warranty complements the market-leading breakdown services the RAC already offers drivers of electric vehicles. This includes being the first UK breakdown company to fit lightweight, mobile electric vehicle charger systems to its patrol vans, capable of giving stranded out-of-charge vehicles enough power to get to a nearby chargepoint.

5. Chubb Develops Pay As You Roam Travel Insurance.

Chubb has brought to market a Pay As You Roam (PAYR) travel insurance product. The PAYR service uses digital technology to simplify the way customers access and purchase travel insurance, using mobile phone roaming data to identify when they are away from their home country, activating coverage automatically at a daily premium.

PAYR will be available as an embedded insurance proposition through Chubb partners in banking, fintech and telecommunications industries. Registration is free through the Chubb partner’s core app. As soon as the customer is detected as roaming, the trip cover is activated, and a text message or the app’s pop-up notification informs them that their cover is in place. Customers have four hours from receipt of this to either decline coverage for the trip or to confirm insureds to be covered. Trip cover ends when the customer is detected as no longer roaming (has returned to their home country) or if they reach the maximum trip duration limit of 31 days.

Customers will receive an email or app notification at the end of each trip detailing the total premium. If the Chubb partner is a mobile phone operator the cost of the insurance is added to their next monthly mobile phone bill, or their next bank statement if the partner is a bank.

In June 2020, Bulgaria’s leading mobile operator Telenor became the first telecommunication company to offer Chubb’s Pay As You Roam travel insurance product, marketed by Telenor Bulgaria as “Smart Tourist”.

These are only 5 examples out of 60+ that we have collected in June. To buy access to the data reach out to us at ideapulse@ninety.com