Happy new year! A new year always generates a spate of articles in insurance media, with wrap-ups of the closing year, insurance trends, and predictions for the year ahead. We’ve compiled a number of these roundups for you and while we’re primarily focused on what to expect in 2020, we also include year-end and decade-end reviews.
Watching and getting ahead of trends can have a huge impact on agency growth. Is your agency ready for the new decade?
First, don’t miss Andrew Simpson’s great compilation of 12 New Year’s Resolutions for Insurance Agents culled from Insurance Journal articles that ran through last year … covering everything from hiring and recruitment to marketing and sales. If you’re looking at how to improve your results in the New Year, there’s some good reading here.
In The best customer engagement strategy for insurers in 2020, Geraldine Grones at Insurance Business America says that, “by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiators. Moreover, 88% of buyers will pay more for better customer experience.”
What does that mean for your insurance agency? Efficient service and excellent communication are key.
In this next decade, businesses and their leaders will rise or fall based on their ability to anticipate and creatively respond to rapid change. This article by Robert Tucker in Innovation Excellence offers guidelines for anticipating change: 13 Guidelines for Navigating the New Decade Ahead. While not specific to insurance, it offers principles for adapting and innovating in a changing market, and few are changing more than ours.
2020 insurance outlook – Deloitte offers an overview of the state of the global insurance market, noting that, “As insurance firms adapt to maturing markets and economic turbulence, in the long run, their ability to integrate technology, talent, and business-model innovation into legacy environments may be the key to success.” Their report covers topics related to life insurance, flood insurance, insurance company merger and acquisition activity, the talent gap, core system transformations for digital initiatives, the maturing InsurTech market, the regulatory environment in privacy and data management, cybersecurity challenges and more.
Broking 2020: Leading from the front in a new era of risk – This report from PwC covers findings from a survey of risk buyers (typically Heads of Risk or CFOs) from multinational corporations. Emerging risks were the number one priority for risk functions in the companies surveyed. Of the report, PwC says “What emerges from our analysis is that while brokers are generally seen as ‘trusted advisors’, their clients’ expectations are changing faster than ever and others are vying to take on this partnership role. In relation to the increasingly complex and constantly shifting ‘non-standard’ risks, risk managers are looking for ‘consultative partners’, who have the necessary knowledge of their risk challenges and who can develop the solutions they can’t afford to create themselves. Meeting these demands is likely to require rapid and extensive adjustments in brokers’ business and operating models, especially as they will still have to provide cost-effective solutions for ‘standard’ risks.”
Workers Comp:
- Every year, consultant Joe Paduda of Health Strategy Associates offers Predictions for workers’ comp in 2020, part 1 and Part 2 on his popular blog. Curious about his track record? Here’s his “How’d I do on 2019 predictions” post.
- In 20 Predictions for 2020, Chad Coleman of Occupational Health & Safety Magazine asked 20 safety and health leaders from various industries to give us their predictions on the trends they see most affecting occupational health in 2020 and beyond, with several key themes emerging.
Technology
- P&C insurance technology trends to watch in 2020
- 5 InsurTech Trends for 2020
- 10 insurtech market predictions for 2020
Other predictions
- On your radar: 2020 benefit trends
- 2020 Predictions from Cannabis Industry Experts: More Insurance Business
- Facing off against flooding in 2020
- 2020 Workplace Predictions
- Recruiters Reveal Top Talent Acquisition Predictions for 2020
- 5 D&O Mega Trends for 2020
- Looming Risks for 2020 and Beyond
A look back at 2019
- Insurance Journal’s Top 10 National Stories of 2019
- Insurance Journal’s Top 10 East Region Stories of 2019
- Insurance Journal’s Top 10 Southeast Region Stories of 2019
- AgencyEquity Most Popular Articles of 2019
- Property Casualty 360: Year in review: Growing cannabis, cyber and weather claims
- Risk Management: The Year in Risk, 2019
- NCCI Regulatory & Legislative Trend Report 2019
- SwissRe releases 2019 disaster estimates
- Top 10 Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2019: U.S. Chamber
- 35k jobs added in 2019: Insurance industry employment update by sector
- U.S. has changed in key ways in the past decade, from tech use to demographics
- A Decade In Review: Workplace Law In The 2010’s
- 10 tech-related trends that shaped the decade
- 19 striking findings from 2019
Popular posts from our blog last year:
- Renaissance Alliance Expands to Florida
- Agency Profit Sharing Matters…but Growth Matters More
- Private flood insurance gets a boost
- Cyber Risk: The best opportunity for Independent Agents since the invention of the automobile
- How New Overtime Rules Will Affect Your Insurance Agency
- Workers Compensation: The Road to Ruin?
