It’s a misconception that, in the context of insurance, “digital” is still viewed as a disruptive force. Most insurers realize that digital technology presents them with a golden opportunity to help their customers, not just when things go wrong, but to lead genuinely happier and healthier lives.
This was the premise for Gen Re’s “Digital Journey” event which took place in Beirut on Friday ١٢ April. Over ٢٥٠ guests from across the region gathered at Gen Re’s new downtown offices, before being led one floor up to a ٦٠٠sqm space where a pioneering, bespoke digital “ecosystem” awaited them.
The ecosystem comprised a series of preventative health, lifestyle management applications, centered around cardio, musculoskeletal, mental health and behavioral lifestyle KPI’s. These applications were integrated and run in parallel with Gen Re’s state- of-the-art medical electronic underwriting system COMPASS.
A special “Protect and Prevent” app created especially for the event, recorded scores from participants as they tried out each of the lifestyle applications in the ecosystem circuit. The results were then combined and actuarially weighed to produce a unique Gen Re Digital Score (GDS).
Decision analytics were made instantly available via the collection and modeling of the participants’ (anonymized) lifestyle behavior results and shared with the audience, complete with cross-sectional trending, evaluations and recommendations.
By comparing the digital underwriting results with traditional electronic life and health underwriting, the Gen Re team was able to demonstrate that the accuracy of digital underwriting is improving incrementally and that equipping traditional underwriters with digital tools (at both policy inception and claims stages) will become competitively advantageous for insurance companies.
Speaking during the event, Dr. Mazen Abouchakra, Gen Re’s Managing Director MENA & Cyprus said:
“The digital experience can continuously mitigate risks in real time through behavioral monitoring and nudging. That we can now intelligently protect people and offer prevention programs centered around the needs of specific individual situations rather than aggregate solutions, is hugely exciting.
I’d like to extend particular thanks to the seven inspiring insurtechs who joined us for the event, introduced their solutions to our guests and provided round-the- clock interactive experience scoring and monitoring for heart age status, psychological risk factors, lifestyle management, preventive care, physiotherapy and diabetes prognosis, respectively.”
After experiencing the Gen Re digital journey during the day, Mrs Nadine El Habbal, Acting Head of the Insurance Control Commission, outlined the importance of the digitalization of the insurance processes – from data capture to analytics and pricing – and its potential to widen the market by reaching out to different segments of society, particularly younger generations.
In addition to the live digital journey experience, the event also featured a presentation on artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transformation in life and health insurance, delivered in person by Dr. Winfried Heinen, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors at General Reinsurance AG.
This was followed by a though-provoking talk by Dr. Campbell Murdoch, Chief Medical Officer at Diabetes Digital Media, who examined lifestyle transformation with regard to metabolic health.
Wrapping up the event, Dr. Mazen Abouchakra shared his prognosis for the future of insurance in the midst of digital transformation and reiterated.
