Modern Insurance Magazine Issue 60

EDITORIAL BOARD
Paving the Way for
Heightened Resilience
Home or hybrid working is no-longer the
exception but the norm, as is the volatile
global economy that has seen prices spiralling
and supply chains struggling. There’s an
inordinate amount of change and uncertainty
in these continued headwinds, and it’s
more important than ever for businesses to
build dynamic and innovative models, with
adaptability and resilience at the core.
As we saw with the COVID-19 pandemic, more resilient businesses
had better outcomes - some even emerging stronger and with
customer loyalty flourishing. It’s therefore not surprising that
resilience has risen to the top of many agendas.
As the market continues to present its vast array of challenges,
FMG have recognised the importance of a resilient business model
to reduce the impact of unforeseen events on our customers. True
resilience encapsulates our capacity to mitigate stress, to recover
critical operations and thrive in these new conditions. Done well, true
resilience creates opportunity and a potential strategic advantage.
We’re following these three tips to build resilience into our business:
1. Take advantage
Consider crises as inevitable disruptions to be prepared for, managed,
and leveraged, rather than occasional ad-hoc events. This approach
drives proactive and productive decision making that positively
shapes the customer experience as the impending landscape
emerges. New problems need new solutions, and that in itself is an
opportunity.
2. Cultural shift
Backward-looking metrics, legacy constraints and the mentality
of ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ can result in a stagnated
model that becomes difficult to pivot. Adopting resilience requires
a cultural shift at all levels of the business to create a competitive
edge. Businesses must reinforce change by championing resilience,
sharing their learnings from recent crises with a focus on meeting,
anticipating and exceeding customer expectations in turbulent times.
3. Connected creativity
Create a work environment that fosters a positive, open and
respectful attitude towards new ideas and innovation. Inviting
colleagues to share thoughts, challenge perspectives and anticipate
future needs brings a higher level of employee connection and
investment, all of which becomes instrumental to your brand’s
customer experience.
The industry will always present new challenges, but customers must
come first under any and all circumstances.
Andrew Chandler,
Sales Director, FMG
Improving Resilience
to Risk
As an insurance software platform, resilience
is non-negotiable. We are a cloud-based
business with extensive backup and
redundancy capabilities, so if the worst should
happen, Paracode customers will still be able
to use our system and access their data.
We are constantly assessing not just the risks to our business, but
also the risks faced by our customers in order to ensure that we are
as well prepared as possible. In relation to catastrophic events in
particular, insurance software can help the market to prepare through
the provision of scalable technology, particularly in relation to First
Notification of Loss (FNOL) and claims handling. Paracode is robust
and inclusive of in-built redundancy should the worst occur.
Given the potential for specific work locations to be knocked out by
catastrophic events, it also makes sense to build insurance software
that is cloud based rather than on-premises, which guarantees
business continuity for our customers when it comes to employees
who are able to work from any location, on any device.
The industry can certainly be more proactive, rather than reactive,
in response to predicting future risk. For example, there’s a huge
opportunity to engage with specialist companies in the satellite
imagery space at the moment, some of whom are able to provide real
time data on catastrophic events around the globe. There are also
specialist insurance technology providers who are building sensors
that can be installed in properties to detect flooding, fire risk and so
on, in order to trigger support even when properties are empty or
uninhabited.
It is also worth noting that fraud and cyber-crime will typically increase
when economies are strained, either through recession, unemployment,
or climate crisis. With climate risk likely to trigger negative expected
and unexpected consequences for economies around the world,
climate events are likely to be a leading indicator of increasing cases
of fraud. Naturally, resilience to the risk of fraudulent activity should
become paramount in light of this.
Will Prest,
Project Manager, Paracode Agile Insurance Software
MODERN INSURANCE | 27