How quickly would they go in adopting the right digital/business transformation? How far would they go? What would the enablers be? What would the benefits be in doing so…but why would they embark on this journey in the first place? How would an aggregator manage to attract global brands to enrich their panels and increase their conversion rate? As far as eCommerce, Online Insurance and Aggregators are concerned, let’s structure this outlook in 3 sections spanning Market Reality, Digital Transformation and Business Transformation.

1. Olivier Bauchart Apr 2015
Going digital. Are insurance companies in the
Middle East ready?

2. How quickly would they go in adopting the right digital/business transformation? How far would they go? What would the enablers be?
What would the benefits be in doing so…but why would they embark on this journey in the first place? How would an aggregator
manage to attract global brands to enrich their panels and increase their conversion rate?
As far as eCommerce, Online Insurance and Aggregators are concerned, let’s structure this outlook in 3 sections spanning Market
Reality, Digital Transformation and Business Transformation.
Go digital or die. Insurance companies in the Middle East, are they ready?
A permanent challenge for any business is to constantly identify ways to improve and drive revenue generation. Learning how to leverage the
web experience is a must to drive incremental profitable revenue. Although this present exciting opportunities, the journey to the next
generation web experience doesn’t happen overnight.

3. Going digital, the Middle East customers are early adopters
The Middle East is showing a trend for faster adoption of new technologies for self-service by customers.
• Process automation and migrating customers to self service are global trends.
• 61% use of Social Media vs 41% Global sample, 44% use of SMS vs. 28% Global sample, 25% use of smartphone apps for online help
vs. 15% Global sample.
• Getting customers to self select to serve themselves became the #1 issue.(Source:
Dimension
Data
2013)
Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
Customers cares about experience sharing.
• 1/3 of customers give feedback at least once a month,
• 2/3 of them are more comfortable to comment on the products and services online rather than in person
• Consumer opinions are consulted before and during purchase act (mobile)(Source:
Elia
Consul9ng
Jan2015)
The digital maturity curve in the Insurance industry varies very much among the players.
• The Insurance industry has not kept pace with digital features and functions that can elevate customer acquisition. One-way
communication of product information and company image. Static web pages with little or no interactive or dynamic functionality.
• For every 100 people that consider a brand, 59 will visit the company's website, 33 will solicit a quote but only 2.4 will bind on the
website.
Customers who feel they are treated as individuals are more satisfied with their experience and more inclined to remain loyal
• Personalized content may be advertising, recommended items, screen layout, menus, news articles, or anything else accessed via Web.
• Customers return more frequently to sites where they receive specific benefits, and personalization provides these benefits.

4. Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
Online insurance is now a hybrid model with similar patterns than the eCommerce
industry
The pattern that the Middle East is following is no different to the global one.
• All devices • All ages
• With going
online becoming
the norm
50%
58%
would
prefer
to
have
a
quote
online
willing
to
buy
insurance
online
Genera3on
X:
55+
• With similar
motivations to go
online
• A permanent
combination of
traditional retail-
physical branches and
internet based
transactions.
1 2
3 4
5
(Source:
Elia
Consul9ng
Jan2015)

5. Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
Online insurance and aggregators obviously have exciting opportunities ahead of
them
Online Car insurance is a strong reality evidenced
across 3 Europeans countries…
…out of which the aggregator channel is an indisputable
credible player. Differences in the digital maturity curve are
noticeable across countries
% of aggregators policies vs. new online car policies
Given the steady evolution recorded in more
mature markets like Europe, late digital adopters
in both price comparison websites and traditional
insurance companies in the Middle East equally
have exciting opportunities ahead of them.
Late digital adopters in the price comparison websites
in Spain and France have exciting opportunities.…
(Source:
eDynanics
2013)
Should Aggregators would want to attract more
global insurance brands to widen their panels and
increase their conversion rate, they may want to
ensure them that their respective value add and
DNA would be well picked out.

6. Customers demand
greater
simplicity
and
transparency
• to
help
them
make
beBer
informed
decisions
and
take
greater
control
of
the
purchasing
process.
• Personalized content may be advertising, recommended items, screen layout, menus, news articles, or anything else accessed via Web.
• Financial Services Customers return more frequently to sites where they receive specific benefits, and personalization provides these
benefits.
• Customers
carry
mental
models
from
non-­‐financial
industries
and
increasingly
expect
the
same
from
insurers
such
as
Gamifica3on,
Rewards,
etc…
Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
Even in a negative economy, customer experience is a high priority for Insurance
consumers
# of customers switching brands
has doubled between 2005 and
2011, rising sharply since 2008.
x
2
2
out
of
3
of all customers are at risk of
taking their custom elsewhere
due to poor customer experience.

7. Social is the new sales channel
• Engage with your audience where they spend their time, where they get their
information.
• Think about your website as mobile site
Build up a rapport with them
• The next generation of websites is evolving fast to become contextual and collaborative. To be informative, transactional and
persuasive are no longer enough. Their content and experience are driven by visitors context: social, personal, mobile, interactive.
• A responsive design: first.1. One website (not a separate mobile and desktop site) 2. HTML5 & CSS3 (new technologies to create sites
that respond to screen sizes and orientation) 3. Future proofing (do you know what is next?).
Build great ease-of-use
• 84 % of insurance consumers in North America say that it is important to them that the products and services offered by their insurance
provider are identical (same functionality, support, cost and so forth) across the different channels available. (Source: Accenture Global
Multi-Channel Executive Survey)
Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
Engage with your customers where ever they are
Speak to the customer concern
• By adding video ads, a fortune 300 insurance company reached prospective customers earlier in the consideration cycle, video views
increase 646%.
• People weren’t searching for videos using broad terms such as “life insurance” or “car insurance.” Instead, they were discovering,
watching, and sharing videos about “Identity theft,” particularly on social networking sites.

8. Build your reputation online
• Leverage the Web, Social Media to engage with customers
• Build communities for brand positioning and customer engagement
• Become newsworthy with Twitter
• Leverage LinkedIn - discussions, updates, posts, blogs….etc.
• Build internal communities, link social to your marketing assets such as your website and email
• Utilize social media to connect with partners
• Ensure that blogged and tweeted comments reflect their brand values. (source:
Global
Consumer
Insurance
Survey
2012)
Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
6 stages of the online insurance funnel strategies to invest in

9. Build up a new ecosystem that covers the entire funnel with digital activities. Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on

10. Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
Walk
the
buying
cycle
the
way
they
would:
• What
ques3ons
would
they
have
at
this
stage?
• What
informa3on
would
they
need
to
move
forward?
• What
uncertainty
and
doubt
must
be
overcome?
More and more insurance will be ‘bought’ by customers as opposed to
being ‘sold’ by agents destroying the age old wisdom of ‘Insurance is sold
and not bought’.
More and more insurance will be ‘bought’…but how?
Understand
how,
when
and
with
what
to
engage
prospects
at
each
step
of
buying
process
• Understand
your
customer’s
mindset
through
the
buying
cycle
journey
• Determine
the
target
groups
within
your
audience
• Understand
and
align
the
messages
with
the
segment
and
their
objec3ons
• Implement
the
mul3-­‐channel
plaWorms

11. Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
Irrespective of the tool, what really matters is to provide a high level of trust during all steps, enabling the
dialogue, creating a relationship with the prospect and existing customer.
The online insurance doesn’t differentiate itself from the eCommerce fundamentals: the moment of truth lies
on the payment stage.
Trust factor is greatly influenced by design-layout, permanent offer for assistance during quote-binding
process, power of customer review and social recommendation.
The online insurance fundamentals are no different than the eCommerce ones
The validation of submitted documents, electronic signature are sensitive aspects that have to be
thoroughly integrated into the end-to-end processes in a seamless way.

12. Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
6 key aspects affecting customer management within today’s omnichannel centers
Strategy
• Contact
channels
• Centre
maturity
• Market
trends
• Financial
posi3oning
• Strategic
performance
• Innova3on
Self-­‐service
• self-­‐service
capability
• self-­‐service
priori3es
• customer
behaviors
• contact
sta3s3cs
• process
reviews
• channel
development
Workforce
op3miza3on
• staffing
models
• training
• competency
management
• employee
management
• human
resources
• workforce
management
Opera3ons
• customer
sa3sfac3on
• contact
quality
• management
informa3on
• contact
sta3s3cs
• contact
resolu3on
• performance
management
CRM
• customer
segmenta3on
• single
view
of
customer
• customer
intelligence
• service
determinants
• process
re-­‐
engineering
• internal
SLAs
Technology
• technology
trends
and
readiness
• SaaS,
open
source,
hosted
solu3ons
• Full
integra3on
of
web
and
telephony
• Cloud
infrastructure
and
convergence
• Security
and
fraud
• Managed
services

13. Market
reality
Digital
Transforma3on
Business
Transforma3on
Irrespective of who implements the
software and operating
model….either…
Built
in
with
internal
resources
In-­‐house
Working
with
him
for
the
provision
of
technology
solu3ons
Partner
Complete
outsourcing
of
the
opera3ons,
through
on-­‐shoring,
off-­‐shoring
or
near-­‐shoring
Outsource
Which tool and model would work best for your business ?
… the following most frequent
dissatisfactions have to be
perceived by the prospect and the
customer ….
… thanks to some enablers of a
seamless customer experience….
• a simple application, quick implementation, easy to use and cheap with adds-on modules to add users and
features as the needs evolve.
• Less reliance on adherence to a rigid process, this takes a degree of trust and maturity, the results well worth
the effort.
• First Contact Resolution remaining a major cost and customer satisfaction driver, either clear parameters or
systems guidance should positively impact the Agent knowledge, E2E process, and Empowerment of agents.
• Change Management to ensure devices are part of the company culture: Academy and Training; internal
communication about strategy; interactive tools and content sharing between employees.
… and measured.
• NPS is proven to drive loyalty and profits through customer & employee engagement.

14. Take away
Market reality
• Getting customers to self select to serve themselves became the #1 issue.
• Customers cares about experience sharing.
• Online insurance is now a hybrid model with similar patterns than the eCommerce industry
• Even in a negative economy, customer experience is a high priority for Insurance consumers
• Given the steady evolution recorded in more mature markets like Europe, late digital adopters in both price comparison websites and traditional
insurance companies in the Middle East equally have exciting opportunities ahead of them.
Digital transformation
• Social is the new sales channel, therefore engage with your audience where they spend their time, where they get their information.
• And this include in particular to think your website as mobile site
• Invest in the six funnel strategies: Discovery, Awareness, Consideration, Dialogue, Purchase, Advocacy.
• Build a new ecosystem that covers the entire funnel with digital activities.
Business transformation
• More and more insurance will be ‘bought’ by customers as opposed to being ‘sold’ by agents.
• Understand how, when and with what to engage prospects at each step of buying process
• Thoroughly cover the 6 dimensions affecting customer management within today’s omnichannel centers.
• The online insurance respects the eCommerce fundamentals: a high level of trust is decisive; the moment of truth lies on the payment stage.
• The choice of whoever would devise and implement the strategy and operating model is wide open: in-house, partner or outsourcer.

15.
“The
best
3me
to
plant
a
tree
was
20
years
ago.
The
second
best
3me
is
now”
Chinese
proverb
Conclusion