Reimagine Everything

The roundtable covered the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on people’s wellbeing, how the events of the past years have highlighted the importance of health awareness like never before, and how they have compelled organizations to ensure their people remain physically and mentally healthy, what this means to insurance, and how it is impacting their business model.

The roundtable was attended by Helen Yates – Conference Chair, Global Reinsurance, Brad Boyson – Co-founder, HR Learn In, Maciej Tomaszewicz Director – Insurance Transformation Lead, Deloitte ME, Mahmoud Shalab – Head of Health Insurance Department, Union Insurance Company, David Amehame – Regional Sales Manager – Fitbit, Middle East and Africa at Google, Mazen Abouchakra – Managing Director, Regional Director Life/Health Dubai, Gen Re and Georges Rehbane – Dubai General Manager, CME.

The following highlights the key takeaways and lessons learned.

The panel highlighted that people, and the things they create, are businesses’ greatest assets. Given the pandemic and the pressures associated with it, the panel believes that businesses should shift from a traditional management approach, to one that is entirely outcome focused. It has to be understood that employment and job seeking is currently a seller’s market and that staff are happy to move to another company to fulfill their goals, be they financial-, or lifestyle-orientated. The key, therefore, is to recognize and reward talent.

The panel believed that wellbeing is increasingly rising to the top of the business agenda. Employees are more concerned about, and aware of, their mental and physical health. It is of utmost importance to acknowledge this and to create systems and approaches that aid them in managing their wellbeing. Leveraging technology and engagement techniques will result in a durable impact on individuals, with savings through retention and productivity.

The panel agreed that healthcare is moving towards preventative health and that in under 20 years’ time, 60% of healthcare spending will be preventative, compared to today’s 80% spend on remedial healthcare. Leveraging technology will be key and the goal is to prevent claims, not manage them. Many risks can be prevented with advanced data capabilities and a newfound value chain:
Employee – Tech Provider – Employer – Insurer – Reinsurer.

Insurers need to adopt mass customization in order to address every client’s needs. There are mechanisms to solve health problems that could be prevented by adopting a healthier lifestyle, these can be tailored to each member. Data must be leveraged and turned into systems which can serve at scale the widest number of people, and technology needs to advance in order to discover exactly what people want and need. By doing so, insurers build their competitive edge, especially with digital distribution making insurance a commodity.

Products need to be built around people and for that you need data. With IoT and wearables, insurers can study the behavior of individuals and create new business models to differentiate themselves from the competition, providing better service and lowering their loss ratio. Innovative uses of data will result in financial savings. Privacy concerns need to be addressed and players must adhere to government regulations and, above all, respect the consumer’s right to control how their data is used. This is the responsibility of every stakeholder in the chain.

Technology embedded in wearables and other IoT devices can measure data to provide insight and identify the required behavior changes to ensure a healthier lifestyle. Each and every interaction with a device has to be seamless. Gamification techniques and the social effect should be deployed to increase interactivity and drive durable engagement. IoT devices merely collect the data, solutions on top will leverage it in order to create a sustainable, long-term value.

People are prepared to embrace change and new technologies due to their experiences of living through Covid. We cannot predict what the future holds and need to build partnerships across our entire value creation chain. In the UAE, labs with InsureTek are essential and must be integrated into the value chain. Every stakeholder, businesses, insurers, and tech providers must work together to raise awareness of wellbeing and health, and we must all be dynamic in order to remain flexible and able to address the challenges of the future.

CME creates end-to-end software and hardware development solutions for insurers and the insurance industry as a whole. Our strategies integrate data from multiple sources, including custom Internet of Things smart devices, and we apply analytics to share valuable insights to better serve people. We’re here to challenge the status quo, flip the script and blur all the lines for the benefits of people wellbeing.