By Jeff Chesky
Disruption within insurance (at the Uber level) is emerging.
Several credit union CEOs are thinking about insurance in a very different way. Much like how Uber thought about the ubiquitous taxi cab and getting a customer from point A to point B while making sure the customer actually enjoyed the ride, several credit union CEOs are reimaging insurance distribution in America. And with 100,000,000 members who buy insurance from someone every year – watch out!
What does today’s insurance customer want? The ability to shop, compare and buy all of the risk-management products they need to protect themselves, their families and their small businesses in a simple, one stop, omni-channel, comfortable and advisory empowered shopping experience. They want to be able to buy multiple products in a single shopping cart, make a single payment at checkout, and have an online insurance account that stores all of their insurance information so they never have to provide the same information twice, never have to keep paper records, and can buy and cancel all additional products using their online insurance account. Simply put - “a trusted, comfortable insurance experience.”
These credit union CEOs understand that their members don’t like providing private, nonpublic information to anyone - - and are reluctant to engage with people whose job it is to collect it, period. They realize their credit unions are perfectly positioned to provide a transformative insurance shopping experience – a simple, comfortable insurance purchase. These credit unions are creating a new generation of insurance agent working inside the CU that can instantly access all of the public and non-public information about a members character and collateral, deliver it to a wide stable of insurance carriers in exactly the format they need it in, get instant quotes from the carriers that reflect the member’s risk tolerance and assets to be insured, be available to provide all of the advisory insights the member might want – all delivered exactly at the moment the member has an insurance need.
A New Generation of Agents
Like Uber has built a new generation of drivers, credit unions are building a new generation of agents – empowered and excited to deliver insurance solutions to members, operating inside credit unions that have long and deep trusted brand equity with the member and also have access to everything a carrier needs to know about their character and collateral – eliminating the dreaded ‘insurance interview and application’. This new agent never prospects, sells or steers a member – they simply focus on delivering a frictionless shopping, buying and post purchase service experience tailored to each unique member exactly at the instant the member needs it. These credit union CEOs believe the role of an agent, with a completely reimagined operating environment is more important and more valuable than ever before.
Jeffrey Chesky is chairman & CEO of Insuritas, East Windsor, Conn. For info: www.insuritas.com.