We are now living in a new reality brought on by COVID-19. It’s amazing how quickly industries, for whom change is traditionally a slow process, have been able to quickly shift their focus and innovate to response to business and consumer need.
Having been involved in the insurance industry for more than 20 years, I have been extremely impressed by the industry’s response during the pandemic.
Through collaborative efforts, companies have stepped up to the challenge by completely refocusing their enterprises in order to be responsive to consumer needs and find innovative ways to minimize the impact on Canadians during this unprecedent time.
Insurance is critically important to millions of Canadians – to protect their families, livelihoods and businesses – and in a time such as this, the industry has a responsibility to support changes that will continue deliver the right protection to consumers while enabling businesses to grow.
The industry has demonstrated agility in their decision making and in how they have diversified their offerings to cater to evolving consumer demands. This has included several measures from offering deferral alternatives, to relaxing underwriting and documentation requirements to accelerating the delivery of self-servicing technologies.
Technology is critical to the future of the insurance industry. It creates an ecosystem that empowers the consumer to self-service – with support from experts – in a way that meets their needs for protection.
I believe we are going to emerge from COVID-19 into a different world. The crisis has created opportunities to both grow and to strengthen as an industry.
It’s been proven that we can evolve at speed to meet the needs of the Canadian consumer. Organizations that choose to capitalize on the underlying changes and continue to evolve their business models and solutions will succeed. The one’s that do not will get disrupted. At this point, there is no turning back. The only option is to accelerate forward.
