The story of insurance right now seems to be a gloomy one. It’s getting more expensive and complicated, with the upshot tat younger people may be increasingly locked out of a market that’s vital for protecting what they need and love. But I learned in Paris last week that there’s cause for hope.
I was invited to host the launch of the 10th Global Consumer Study by SCOR, and discovered more about a price-driven but also health conscious generation who are demanding changes to how we buy and renew policies.
The study found that the number one driver of younger consumers’ insurance purchases was – surprisingly – online reviews, and that millennials are open to so-called “embedded insurance” (i.e. insurance that can be bought easily alongside other products and services, such as when you hire an e-scooter or bike).
Young people are also willing to share their data in exchange for lower premiums, even if that means giving insurers access to their medical health records, financial information and mental health history. There were also clear cultural differences, even within the younger generations – consumers in Asia, for instance, are far more comfortable with telematics insurance – policies that are priced based on real-time data measuring your driving or health, for instance – than us in the West. Stackable insurance is very much a thing out there too – this is when you can pay so-called ‘micro premiums’ that gradually build insurance coverage to make it more affordable in the long run.
Another big theme that came through is that the younger generations believe that they’re confident about their insurance knowledge, with more than half say they have a good understanding of insurance products, but that this confidence isn’t matched by their ACTUAL knowledge. That’s why we need far more targeted education about insurance – social media cannot be the only forum for this, given the report’s findings about the anxiety caused by spending too much time online, but through a variety of channels. And that education has to be carefully done, given that insurance is an important and tricky purchase we need to get right if we need to successfully claim on it later.
If you want to hear more, you can watch a replay of the live LinkedIn session here: https://bit.ly/45pYQ5E
