Year 2020 - CAPITALIZING ON PROFESSIONALS AND INSURTECH TO REACH GREATER HEIGHTS 善用專才與科技 保險中介創高峰

34 2019 年刊與 2020 展望 YEARBOOK 2019 & PROSPECT 2020 Approximately 250 years after the (First) Industrial Revolution began, we now vividly find ourselves in a digital revolution, which is starting to transform or disrupt the whole world at a pace which could not have been imagined. With the emergence of a couple of InsureTech startups in the Hong Kong insurance market, InsureTech has the potential to turn the local insurance sector upside down over the next decade or so. Let us ask ourselves who would still demand a paper insurance contract twenty or thirty years from now. While it is understandable that the advent of InsureTech is causing a fear among some insurance practitioners of loss of market to a form of new players, InsureTech should be seen as both a threat and an opportunity to the insurance industry - it could challenge or help market incumbents. Theoretically, InsureTech can bring quite a number of benefits to the insurance industry, with the unlocking of new markets and higher sales volumes being some of the highly probable outcomes. Any one insurance services provider – in the broadest sense of the term – is bound to be made either a winner or loser by the introduction of InsureTech products to the market, depending on whether and how it will make a response to the change. At this juncture, I must make it clear that I am not saying that you must embrace InsureTech or you will be doomed to be a loser. Adoption of InsureTech will not guarantee a profit or increased profitability, which is affected by such factors as customer awareness of particular InsureTech products and customer concerns over the use of these products. As a matter of fact, most FinTech startups in advanced economies have failed! Needless to say, what you should do is a SWOT analysis as one of your initial steps in formulating an InsureTech strategy for yourself. New business strategies – as responses to the InsureTech developments in the market – vary a lot. But please allow me to simply narrow their range to just two obvious strategies: non-engagement and going InsureTech. By not engaging in InsureTech, an insurance services provider will practically be left with the defensive strategy of reinforcing its identified strengths, which could include any attributes that its clients find worth paying for, e.g. customer/provider rapport, services with personal touch and the benefits of face-to-face communications. The strategy of going InsureTech should only be taken up where it is concluded that it is a more efficient and effective alternative strategy for achieving the established business goals. No matter which of these two strategies is adopted by an insurance services provider, its existing business model needs to be replaced or revamped. At least, a new training strategy or just a re-focus is necessary. With a non-engagement strategy, an insurance services provider should provide reinforced training for its staff on customer service, business ethics, insurance knowledge and product knowledge. By going InsureTech, an insurance services provider will see a substantial reduction of process-based work and an emergence of technology-based roles in its organisation, so that its staff will have to be retrained for new, more productive work. Last but not least, a workforce capable of thinking innovatively will certainly give the organisation a cutting edge in the increasingly competitive business environment. After all, human capital is truly behind the wheel of any one business concern, with any form of technology in the back seat! Mr Hedley Chow Training Consultant of the VTC; LLB (Hons) (London), MBA, FCII, Chartered Insurance Practitioner 專題探討 FEATURE