Why insurers will never build a ‘killer app’

Competition nowadays for a space on a consumer’s smartphone screen is fierce. We all hear stories of the so-called “killer apps” — they seem to be on everyone’s device, set record download numbers, and propel their creators to fame and, quite often, fortune. So, the killer question: is it realistic for an insurance organization to aspire to create such an app?

Nope.

Insurance organizations should instead aim to develop app(s) that strategically integrate a platform of services related to the sphere of the insured’s policies. For example, if your customers chiefly insure vehicles and property, a smart app idea may involve trackers for fuel/energy consumption, combined carbon footprint, asset depreciation and include insurance options such as online claims.

Atul Vohra, Regional Managing Director, Solera Canada, India and Australia

Want to provide a useful app to your policyholders? Consider the two key concepts of user context and use frequency. Insurance solutions on their own rarely, if ever, clear competitive thresholds on these two measures; hence the requirement to leverage interrelated services and technologies.

An app must solve a problem for users, but it must also clear a contextual hurdle.

Context is about time, place, convenience, user activity and preferences. An Uber user needs transportation right here, right now, just as a Starbucks customer wants immediate access to their favourite latte.

If apps are merely about solving a problem, then a public transit app could solve a user’s transportation problem just as an app for Joe’s Coffee Hut could meet their refreshment needs. But neither public transport nor Joe’s Coffee Hut clear the contextual hurdle of time, place, convenience or preference as capably as app-enabled Uber and Starbucks seem to do.

Read the full article in the Digital Edition of the February 2018 Canadian Underwriter.

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Atul Vohra, Regional Managing Director, Solera Canada, India and Australia