What are insurers up against?
Many insurance companies are facing existential challenges to the foundation of their value proposition. Among them are rising customer expectations for personalized products and services in an increasingly connected world, macro-shifts in the economy and culture that threaten to dismantle their traditional business models, as well as new categories of exposures that offer both growth opportunities and inherent bottom-line risks.
We believe the industry’s hesitance to take bolder, faster steps toward transformation may be the result of reliance on a series of what we call “orthodoxies”—core presumptions about the strength and uniqueness of an insurer’s traditional value proposition and business models. Many insurers have treated these orthodoxies as entry barriers effectively insulating them from being disrupted in a significant way by internal or external upstarts.