Innovation and sustainability: the EAIC looks to lead by example at Macau event

One of the key commitments of this year’s EAIC became clear to delegates as they registered for the conference yesterday (Tuesday October 11) and were given not booklets and brochures, but tablet computers containing the conference information.

“We want this year’s EAIC to be a green EAIC, and use as few pieces of paper as possible,” Chris Ma, chairman of the 28th EAIC Organizing Committee and CEO-Macau for AIA International, told EAIC Today.

“Members of the Organizing Committee are proud of our innovative approach to the distribution of conference materials. Instead of a thick binder with hundreds of pages of conference materials, we have provided each delegate with a tablet containing all conference materials in an application.

“We use a great deal less paper and save a lot of trees. We like to believe that this innovative idea is an industry first and hope that other convention organisers will follow the same approach. The tablets are for delegates to keep.”

In keeping with this forward-thinking approach, the theme of this year’s event is: The Future of Insurance—Customer Centricity. The Organizing Committee started with the ambitious goal of making this year’s event unlike any previous EAIC, said Ma.

“The committee believes that we need not only to provide a platform for industry players to exchange ideas on how best we as an industry can serve our customers better. That is a given. We prosper only when our customers are happily being served and their needs fulfilled. When we talk about customer-centricity, we recognise that delegates to the event are our customers,” he said.

Customers first

Planning for the event is a two-year process. As the Organizing Committee progressed, they explored ways to enhance the delegates’ experience, engaging with convention planners, hotels and other service providers to ensure that they, too, prioritised keeping the event’s customers happy.

“We of course put a lot of effort into organising an inspiring agenda for delegates, as this is the substance of the event,” said Ma. “We have carefully selected a variety of topics and invited a host of top class speakers to provide their insights in each area.”

The two keynote presentations this year will be Brexit: Lessons for Asia, and How digital innovation can improve customer-centricity. Brexit continues to be a hot topic since the UK referendum in June, noted Ma, although most discussions so far have focused on its impact on the UK and the EU.

“As we are a global village, Asia unavoidably will be affected. This will no doubt be a subject followed closely by delegates,” Ma said.

Digital innovation and customer-centricity sit nicely with the theme of the congress, he added: also on the agenda are disruptive technology, big data, and mobile technologies.

Challenges for Asia

In Ma’s view, the biggest challenges currently faced by insurers in Asia are the ageing population, the low interest rate environment, terrorism threats, climate change, natural disasters, competition coming from outside the industry, the supply of next-generation talent, and regulatory changes.

“We may do well to look at our current operating model to see whether it sits well with the present environment,” he said.
“While these are all challenges faced by the industry, I want to highlight two.

“First, are we ready for competition coming from outside the industry, such as the technology sector? This is already happening in China, where the first complete online insurance company was established in 2013 with participation from technology giants Alibaba and Tencent. In time this may completely change how insurance is bought and sold.”

Second, to bring the industry forward, talent is needed, said Ma, but the supply is scarce. Recognising this fact, the Organizing Committee decided to incorporate a Young Insurance Practitioners Programme in this year’s EAIC.

Each member city is requested to nominate two worthy young practitioners below the age of 35, one each from the life and non-life sectors, to join the event in Macau.

“The belief is that this will stimulate the interest of the next-generation talent to be more involved in industry events and will help bring the industry forward,” he said.

Looking to the future, Ma believes that customer expectations are rising—not only when it comes to insurance companies and financial services providers, but from the whole experience of being a consumer, whose diverse experiences shape their service expectations.

“Customers deal with a wide variety of service providers and may set their expectations in line with the best that they have experienced. For example, a customer may have stayed in a hotel that wows him. He may then expect an insurer to wow him equally,” he said.

This creates a high pressure environment for insurers, where the quality of their service is held up for intense scrutiny.

“We can expect the bar to be raised constantly, and we are compared not only with our peers, but service providers in all industries. Re/insurers are close partners, looking after our mutual customers. This partnership should work together on product and service innovations that would better look after customer needs,” Ma said.

Closing the protection gap

Various surveys have indicated that there is a huge protection gap in all Asian markets, offering great opportunities for reinsurers and insurers, added Ma. Given the right products and services, the potential is phenomenal.

However, he warns that the industry has to change and improve to take advantage of this potential—and customer-centricity starts with listening to the voice of the customer.

“We have heard that they don’t like insurance jargon, they don’t like complex products, they don’t like cumbersome processes, and they don’t like long waits for decisions. We have heard what customers have to say. But are we responding positively to this voice of the customer?”

To be successful, insurance companies have to compete not on price, not even on customer service, but on the overall experience they offer to their customers from the time of the very first contact.

“Our customers should be offered what they want, where, when and how they want it. Are we still the insurance company that offers compensation when the customer has encountered a claimable event? Or are we the insurance company that partners with our customers to help them lead a lifestyle that would prevent or delay a claimable event from happening?

“For the customer, the latter would certainly be a better proposition.”