How Healthcare Data Will Disrupt Life Insurance — For the Better
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Healthcare data lies at the root of innovation in the industry.
In our pilot episode of Digital Insurance Innovator, we are joined by Paolo DeMartin, CEO at SCOR Global Life, and Andrei Pop, Founder and CEO at Human API, to talk about short- and long-term trends in life insurance and health data.
We heard from Paolo and Andrei about:
Trends and changes happening within life insurance
How life insurance is moving from a product to an experience
Embracing a data-first approach for greater consumer engagement
The partnership between SCOR and Human API
Andrei launched Human API to solve the problem of healthcare data that was difficult to access and share. “The whole idea was to make it simple for this health data to move around as it relates to insurance, specifically,” he said.
Paolo concurs, pointing out the right for individuals to access and control their data: “People should own their health, they should be empowered with their own data,” he said.
Let’s dive right into this fantastic conversation!
“Our key focus is helping our customers generate more business, making life insurance desirable, relevant, affordable, and accessible.” — Paolo DeMartin
3 impediments to a frictionless customer experience
Nowadays, consumers are demanding an experience in any industry.
Paolo’s aim is to have a positive impact on the policyholder. “Our key focus is helping our customers generate more business, making life insurance desirable, relevant, affordable, and accessible,” he said.
To revolutionize medical underwriting using data means an underwriting revolution. Getting to the point where life insurance becomes an experience means it goes beyond paying premiums to an ongoing process that helps people live longer, healthier lives.
Andrei pointed out 3 massive points of friction to this industry achievement:
1.Speed
Consumers expect a real time experience. However, the traditional life insurance process can be a lengthy experience — often taking longer than buying a house.
2. Transparency
The life insurance process is often opaque to the consumer, who undergoes numerous tests without ever learning their results.
Actually providing their health data back to the consumer is a massive piece of value that creates a far superior experience.
3. Control
Beyond just knowing what health data the life insurance process produces, knowing what is going on with the process itself is often a point of intense frustration.
“We need to make sure as an industry, there is always a very strong focus on the ethical use of data,” Paolo said. “In terms of the control and the transparency…that somebody knows what they're doing with their data and what they are getting back.”
Data and its use lies at the root of these 3 hindrances.
“When we look at the most innovative carriers…today there's a way for them to create value, but they're also building an asset for that future.” — Andrei Pop
Experience, not product
“We need to find the right points to evolve our story as an industry from where we are. The question is, can we do it without rethinking the products completely?” Paolo said.
Yes and no.
It can be easier to recast the entire experience around the product rather than the product itself. At the same time, the industry calls for disruption.
Empowering people with their health data is where it starts. Someday soon, our health records, both official and collected from wearables, could be readily available on our own personal clouds.
“The entire industry needs to be prepared for those types of scenarios,” Paolo said. “People need to own their health data or their health spend is never going to get under control.”
“The right strategy for any carrier or any reinsurer is thinking about, ‘How do I future proof myself?’” Andrei said. “Change doesn't happen for a long time — and then it happens all at once.”
Some carriers are seeing the future of health data and doing what they can to future-proof themselves against change by laying the best possible infrastructure.
“When we look at the most innovative carriers,” Andrei said, “today there's a way for them to create value, but they're also building an asset for that future.”
“The paradox of COVID-19, when we do consumer surveys is — guess what? — that final human touch is more appreciated than ever.” — Paolo DeMartin
Short-term trends in the industry
What will we see in 2021 and 2022?
Digital distribution. COVID-19 was a devastating human tragedy that nevertheless accelerated the need to go digital in healthcare.
Electronic health records. EHR is top of mind for many, many healthcare clients — and can also facilitate fluidless underwriting.
Ecosystems & partnerships. Carriers can’t cause this change in isolation. There is so much knowledge that partnerships can bring about.
Centralized data. Who of us really knows exactly where each and every bit of our health data is stored? That has to change.
“The paradox of COVID-19, when we do consumer surveys is — guess what? — that final human touch is more appreciated than ever,” Paolo said.
Underlying all of these trends is the question of how we should engage consumers more. Engagement means providing value back to the consumer in the form of actionable, valuable data that belongs to the consumer and builds rapport.
Industry innovation
Paolo: Innovation requires you to truly answer the question of, ‘Why are you doing what you're doing?’ Without answering that question, innovation is either you following technology or what your competitors are doing. The companies that truly innovated, they just innovated because they wanted to do something beyond all of that.
Andrei: Our north star has always been that acceleration of innovation. It's really, really hard to predict where exactly that innovation is going to come from. If you know your Why and your Why is your Northstar, then you can align the culture and the purpose of the organization around that.
Connect with our guests via LinkedIn: Paolo DeMartin and Andrei Pop.
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