Discussions around digital strategies are on the uptick. Insurers don’t want to fall behind because they’re orchestrating an all-hands-on-deck core system conversion effort. A digital strategy provides insurers with a current state assessment of their digital capabilities, benchmarked against trends derived by various industry studies. But the vision and roadmap tied to that business strategy are what allow insurers to prioritize low-hanging fruit against long-term digital initiatives. This prioritization ensures they are keeping up with competition; the demands of agents, brokers, and insureds; and evolving technology advancements.
Insurers aren’t the only ones looking at the future of digital trends. Mark Zuckerberg is investing in technology that would shift Facebook out of the realm of social media and into the world of private messaging and commerce platforms à la WeChat. WeChat, the Chinese platform with 1.1 billion active users each month, provides much more functionality than just messaging. Users rely on its mobile payment system to order food, shop, play games, pay their bills—and buy and sell insurance.
These capabilities emerging in an American platform could be an important consideration for companies forming or refreshing their digital strategies. Social media tie-ins can be a key element of insurers’ plans to expand their digital footprint, especially as Millennials and Generation Z become prominent members of the commerce food chain. Similar capabilities to those presented in WeChat exist in the United States through DXP and aPaaS offerings coupled with payment gateways and integrated with modern core systems; many can also integrate with social media platforms.
Currently, insurers use social media platforms for marketing and getting quotes, but they rely on their own platforms to actually conduct policy transactions. In a world where Facebook offers more ubiquitous payment options for business purposes, however, that might change. Even services like insurance might one day be bought and sold on such a platform if Facebook pursues a WeChat-like strategy. Let’s see how this plays out.
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